Water to Wine
[Open your Bible to John 2:1-11]
Have you been to a wedding lately? If you have, you probably saw a formal ceremony and then ate some cake and drank a glass or two of punch. The whole thing might have lasted about an hour. In New Testament times marriage customs were much different. After the bride and groom received a blessing from the bride’s parents, they would proceed to the groom’s house where they were considered married. At the same time, there was a great feast at the groom’s house that generally lasted about a week. Usually, friends, family, musicians, and singers would come. And obviously, it would take a lot of food and drink for a party that big. And it was very important to the groom’s family that everyone had enough to eat and drink during the feast.
Once when Jesus and His disciples were invited to a wedding feast, they ran out of wine. [In the New Testament, the word “wine” often meant “grape juice.”] Mary, Jesus’ mother, wanted to help. No one had ever seen Jesus perform a miracle, but she believed He could do something to assist the groom’s family. She told the servants to do whatever Jesus said.
In Jewish homes, there were stone pots used to hold water for washing. Jesus directed the servants to fill six of these pots with water. Miraculously, the water changed to wine. The Bible never says that Jesus touched the water or shook the pots. He simply desired it to happen, and it did. Jesus changed the water to wine.
The servants then took a sample of the wine to the man in charge of the feast. The master of the feast did not know where the wine had come from, and was very surprised that what he was drinking was such good quality wine. The best wine was generally served first at wedding feasts, and then the cheaper wine later. But this time was different.
This was Jesus’ first miracle (John 2:11). Not everyone knew exactly what happened, but those who did were even more convinced of the power that Jesus possessed. This was always the purpose of miracles: to prove that the words Jesus spoke were true and that Jesus was who He claimed to be—the Son of the all-powerful God.
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