Untold Stories of the Bible: “What Am I Supposed to Do with 180 Gallons of Fine Wine?!”

“I have got to tell you what happened to me the other day. You see, I’m, uh, just a house servant, but I was an eyewitness to something I had never seen before. And I almost can’t stop from laughing about what I saw. And tasted.” My buddies and I were busy serving at a wedding and we were busy! There were some special guests at the feast, specifically this new rabbi Jesus. And His mother. And a bunch of His followers. I overheard a conversation between Jesus’ mother and Him. I heard her whisper to Him, ‘They have no  more wine.’ That might not be a problem where you come from, but in a Jewish wedding where everything has to be just so, it was a huge problem. A mistake on the part of the bridegroom not to provide enough wine for the guests. What a terrible way to begin a marriage — insulting the families and friends who had come!”

“At any rate, I also overheard the rabbi’s response to His mother. ‘Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.’ It seemed to be a rather odd way to speak to His mother. I guess she wanted her son to publicly and miraculously solve the wine shortage problem or something! But she was not offended or hurt by His response. No. She simply turned to us house servants and said, ‘Do whatever he tells you.'”

“Of course we would. We knew our place. And we took and carried out our orders as quickly and expeditiously as we possibly could. Would Jesus send us to the market to buy more wine? What could He possibly ask us to do? We waited for His instructions.”

“Now you need to know that this was no small wedding celebration. There were a lot of people there. And many of those were dangerously close to having their wine cups empty.”

“I then noticed the rabbi’s eyes looking at the ceremonial water pots which stood in the corner. No way, I thought to myself! I quickly counted them and there were six huge containers which could easily hold twenty to thirty gallons of water each! No way.”

“But as my eyes jumped from the water jars to Jesus and back, He spoke to us as a group and said, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ A simple command, but a bit difficult to do. We had to drag those six, heavy water jugs over to the well and fill them. I remember saying to my friends, ‘Make sure you fill each of them to the brim. I think something amazing is going to happen!”

“And something amazing happened! We drug the half dozen water pots — each one took two of us they were so heavy — right in front of the wedding’s master of ceremonies. He was called ‘the master of the banquet,’ and he was quite a demanding boss. But that’s a story for a different day.”

“The look on his face terrified me! Why in the world would we drag six huge pots of water in front of him? Did we really think the guests would be happy with gallons and gallons of well water? His face started to turn angry, then he lifted up his nose and caught a whiff of something very odd. His frown turned to a smile and he grabbed his wooden cup and dipped it into the first jar.”

“At this point it seemed that all of the wedding guests had stopped talking. Their eyes were on the banquet master. He took one sip and his face lit up. ‘Where did this wine come from?’ he asked the head of the servants. My friend said nothing, but he knew. There is a time to be quiet and this was it.”

“As we began filling the guests’ cups with this new wine, I watched the banquet master call the bridegroom aside. And, yes, I admit that I eavesdropped on their conversation. I just couldn’t help it!”

“‘Where did you get this much wine?!’ he asked the bridegroom. ‘You’ve broken the wedding tradition of providing the cheap wine at the end of the feast. This has got to be the best wine I have ever tasted!’“

“It was funny, but the bridegroom didn’t say anything. He didn’t mind taking the credit for something he didn’t do.”

“That’s my story. I learned later that this rabbi was a miracle-worker and He did some incredible things after the wedding. But this was His first miracle. And now I’ve got six ceremonial jars, some still full, that I need to take care of. By the way, I heard later that rabbi Jesus’ followers believed in Him as a result of the wine miracle. Imagine that. And, just so you know, I have come to the same conclusion myself! Say, got time for a cup of fine wine?”

 

 

 

The Super Bowl and Priorities!

 

Getting Ready for a Wedding!

In preparing to share in Kristi and Greg’s wedding this coming Saturday, I’ve been thinking a lot about

Kristi and my lovely wife Linda!

Ephesians 5.  There we read:

²¹ Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰ for we are members of his body. ³¹ “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³² This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³ However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Just a few observations:

1.  There is to be a mutual submission to each other (v. 21).

2.  In her submission to her husband, the wife is actually submitting to the Lord! (v. 22).

3.  The loving husband is to be the head of the home as Christ is the head of the Church (v. 23).

4.  The majority of these verses challenge the husband to love his wife as Christ loves the church, that is, sacrificially.  He is to love encourage her in her walk with Christ.  He is to love her as he does his own body.  He is to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.

5.  As a summary statement, Paul says, “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”  Loving and respecting — these are attitudes and responses that are best developed in a living relationship with Christ! (to be continued)