Something has gone unnoticed at a seemingly big wedding: it has only started, and the wine comes up short.
This is a rather unusual scene at a feast in Cana of Galilee: the groom is entirely unaware that the wine has run out at his celebration, the bride is not even mentioned by name, and somehow, two guests will step in to heal this moment; some boys will become the only witnesses of such an event happening behind the curtains.
In the Bible, wine represents joy and love. The shortage of wine at the banquet symbolizes the crisis in the slowly deteriorating relationship between God and humanity. Something new is required to restore this bond.
Six religious purification stone amphorae are sitting empty in the storeroom. The couple is unaware they don’t have the celebratory wine, and the jars are empty. Where do we go? Like Mary, we go to Jesus. The groom doesn’t have the answer; we must run to the Lord in moments like these.
My Jesus is the rabbi who loved banquets, who succors the poor with bread and wine. The God in whom I believe is the God of Jesus, the God of the wedding at Cana; the God that heals the leper so he’s back into his family; I believe in a happy God, who is on the side of the best wine, of the fragrance of precious nard, on the side of joy: Our God will not stop until your water turns into wine.