Well the big day had come and the couple were married. John picks up the event at the reception. As receptions could last for days it is not clear when this happened exactly.

Mary invited, stated first, is that because of her role in the events that followed, maybe. Or was it that she knew the couple getting married better?

Jesus too was invited along with his disciples; all of them or the four mentioned in chapter 1 Andrew, Peter, Philip & Nathanael?

Quite a gathering. Then they run into trouble, the wine runs out.

Hospitality is a big deal in the Middle East and this wasn’t the time when you could buy your own.

Mary simply says to Jesus " They don’t have any more wine".

Again I suspect we need to get the drift; this was not just a news item but a call for action.

In looking at this it raises the whole area of parental involvement as far as their children go, even when that extends into adult life.

Jesus was there with Mary and his brothers. In Mark 6.3 his brothers are listed as James, Joses, Judas & Simon. No Joseph, it would seem that between the time when Jesus was 12 – 30 years old, that Joseph had died. We do not know the age of the rest of Jesus’ family but it may well have been that Jesus waited until the other brothers could care for Mary before leaving home.

Was Mary encouraging? Mary the one highly favoured by God Luke 1.28

Chosen to be the Mother of Jesus. Did she know Jesus needed a prod?

Or was Mary manipulating, taking matters into her own hands, trying to save the day? After all, what with family and the disciples they were not insignificant in number.

Being protective, - later Mary thinks Jesus has lost it and tries to intervene Mark 3.31.

Parenting is no easy task.

Jesus was not simply able to respond to any human request, he had a higher calling. That is what he meant by saying my time has not yet come. He was speaking primarily of when he would reveal his glory by dying upon the cross for the sins of all humanity and then be raised to life on the third day.

Yet other events also had to be what God wanted him to do. In John 5.19 Jesus says he can only do what he sees his Father doing.

In other words in this reception crisis, what was God about to do?

I was reading in Joshua 9 how Israel made an allegiance with the people of Gibeon without checking it out with God v14. This is pointed out clearly, implying how we must not presume but check things out. We can of course take things to extreme. Do I need to pray about the colour of my shirts etc, you may think so!

For Jesus the question was what does God want me to do here. So far, certainly in John’s gospel no other miracles had been performed. What should he do?

Having established the all clear. Jesus really goes for it. Forget the wineskins lets go for water purification jars which hold about 100 litres each, and not just one, but 600 litres. There must have been a lot of guests. They were all filled with water. Now you may have tasted wine that was watery, but if God is in this then Jesus is going for it. This struck me in terms of the generosity of God. We have a God who is more than generous he is gracious going a lot further than he needs to. A God who intervenes by coming to be one with us. That was his choice, he could have destroyed humanity and started again but no his plan is to redeem to save that which has been lost.

Jesus in making so much wine reveals the lengths that God will go to in order to save us. Even when this Culminated in the death of his own son Jesus.

Mary also has words with the servants – "do whatever he tells you". Even when it means filling water jars and taking some to the official winetaster, and head of procedures.

I wonder whether it was white or red. And 600 litres of the stuff!

The time for tasting comes. The wine taster is probably thinking this is not going to be so good, when to his surprise it was delightful, infact the best yet.

The wine would have been useless in the jars. It had to be taken out; the good quality could only be discovered when tasted.

Now you can sometimes go by the bottle, in terms of wine quality. In Portugal you can buy – green wine – horrid but the bottle it comes in is great for making a lamp out of. The label, telling you its name, place of origin and year are instructive also.

But at the end of the day it’s about tasting it.

Jesus did this at a wedding. I am sure when the word had got out He would have been at every wedding going! Yet this was God’s timing, it saved a crisis, but more than that it revealed something of Jesus. That he was the Messiah the Chosen one, in fact God himself, although the full revelation was yet to come.

This was a sign, a pointer on the journey.

His disciples believed in Jesus. He went back to Capernaum with his Mum – who must have been a very proud and happy woman. His brothers and the disciples came too. They were in relationship together.

For us too, we can believe. Believe that Jesus is who he said he was, we can receive, not wine but the spirit. The wine is also a picture of the fullness of life that Jesus offers. A life with its difficulties yes, but where you can share your life in relationship with Jesus.

Just as Jesus transformed water into wine so the amazing transformation of human beings like you and I becoming children of the living God can happen.

Let this event transform and enrich your life, your marriage, as you too invite Jesus to take central place.