The Lavishness of God

I’m reading John chapter 2 today and thinking about the lavishness of God.

The setting of Jesus’ first miracle is a wedding, which in first-century Jewish culture was a week-long affair to which nearly the whole town was invited. Back then, drinking wine was the equivalent of drinking water: in fact, their wine was mostly (anywhere from 30-90%) water. It was less to enhance the wine than to improve the water, which by itself was unsanitary to drink, causing nausea, dysentery, or worse. Lowering the alcohol content through dilution was probably necessary as everyone from babies to adults drank the stuff, all day long.

Paul Lukacs writes an intriguing book called Inventing Wine in which he notes that ancient wine contained additives such as pitch, lead, lye, ash, resin, gypsum, marble dust and myrrh, to make the wine more drinkable. They would then add honey, salt, pepper, and all kinds of spices and oils to improve the flavor. Ancient wine likely tasted nothing like our wines today. I like his quote from Pliny: “It is a proof that wine is beginning to go bad if a sheet of lead when dipped in it turns a different color.”

So when the bridegroom ran out of wine only three days into the wedding, it was a deep and public embarrassment: more like running out of water in a culture where hospitality was highly valued, than like not having a wet bar at the reception. Jesus asks the servants to fill six thirty-gallon jars with water, which he turns into wine—the best wine.

Now the symbolism here is rife—the emptiness of Judaic rituals replaced by the poured-out wine-blood sacrifice to come. Our shame replaced by the restoration and satisfaction wine symbolizes (Amos 9:13-14, Joel 2:19). The baptism by water John the Baptist proffered replaced by the baptism into salvation by Jesus’ blood, and the intoxicating Holy Spirit. Jesus as creator, creating something that brings noticeable joy to the celebration, blessing the institution of marriage and pointing to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:9).

But look just at the numbers of the thing: six jars holding 20-30 gallons each; let’s say 25 gallons, to average it. Each filled to the brim. That’s 150 gallons, or 567,750 mL. If an average glass of wine is 175 mL, then Jesus made just over 3,244 glasses of wine. You could then debate whether that wine was diluted with water, presumably after being tasted by the master of the feast but prior to being served to the guests; if three parts of water were used for one part of wine, then that’s possibly nearly 13,000 glasses of watered wine. Some commentators suggest this was Jesus’ wedding gift to the couple, who could sell it afterwards to supply their financial needs.

Jesus gives lavishly. In the areas of our life where we are empty, when our own efforts to purify ourselves fall short, Jesus fills us up, to the brim, with lavish grace, with life to the full. He meets our thirsts and brings us from shame to celebration. When we follow in faith and obedience, we are witnesses, like the servants drawing the liquid from the jars: privy to the miracle, beholders of the glory.