February 25: Jesus Performs His First Miracle
♫ Music:
Day 4 - Saturday, February 25
Title: JESUS PERFORMS HIS FIRST MIRACLE
Scripture: John 2:1–11
Two days later there was a wedding in the Galilean village of Cana. Jesus’ mother was there and he and his disciples were invited to the festivities. Then it happened that the supply of wine gave out, and Jesus’ mother told him, “They have no more wine.”
“Is that your concern, or mine?” replied Jesus. “My time has not come yet.”
So his mother said to the servants, “Mind you do whatever he tells you.”
In the room six very large stone water-jars stood on the floor (actually for the Jewish ceremonial cleansing), each holding about twenty gallons. Jesus gave instructions for these jars to be filled with water, and the servants filled them to the brim. Then he said to them, “Now draw some water out and take it to the master of ceremonies,"which they did. When this man tasted the water, which had now become wine, without knowing where it came from (though naturally the servants who had drawn the water knew), he called out to the bridegroom and said to him, “Everybody I know puts his good wine on first and then when men have had plenty to drink, he brings out the poor stuff. But you have kept back your good wine till now!” Jesus gave this, the first of his signs, at Cana in Galilee. He demonstrated his power and his disciples believed in him.
Poetry & Poet:
“Wedding Toast”
by Richard Wilbur
St. John tells how, at Cana's wedding feast,
The water-pots poured wine in such amount
That by his sober count
There were a hundred gallons at the least.
It made no earthly sense, unless to show
How whatsoever love elects to bless
Brims to a sweet excess
That can without depletion overflow.
Which is to say that what love sees is true;
That this world's fullness is not made but found.
Life hungers to abound
And pour its plenty out for such as you.
Now, if your loves will lend an ear to mine,
I toast you both, good son and dear new daughter.
May you not lack for water,
And may that water smack of Cana's wine.
JESUS PERFORMS HIS FIRST MIRACLE
For a long time it struck me as strange that Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine. It’s an odd story––it looks like Jesus doesn’t really want to do the miracle, few even realize that it’s happened. I remember when I was a child, the main controversy about the passage was whether the wine Jesus made was alcoholic!
It’s only been as I’ve grown as a reader of Scripture that I’ve come to see just what John is doing here in setting the stage for Jesus’ ministry. This is the first of a whole string of passages in John that come back again and again to the idea of water, and to Jesus who transforms ordinary water into something better.
In this passage, the first water is the water used for ceremonial cleansing. If you look back at the laws about cleansing in Leviticus, many of them involve water, but they almost always involve blood as well. Ceremonial washing is paired with atonement to make things clean again, and atonement always involves blood, which is sacred because it is the source of life (Lev 17:11). The fact that Jesus turns the water into wine rightly makes us think of blood, especially in the context of John 6, where Jesus invites his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Jesus’ first miracle is calling us to look forward to the atoning sacrifice of his blood, which is better than the cleansings and the blood sacrifices of the Old Testament, just as his wine was better than the water and the first wine at the wedding.
But this miracle of transforming water also calls forward to other passages in John. In John 3, Nicodemus asks how a man can be born again, and Jesus tells him that man must be born both of water and the Spirit. In John 4, a Samaritan woman offers Jesus water from Jacob’s well, and Jesus says that if she knew who he was, she would ask him to give her new, living water that will become a spring welling up to eternal life. Just like in the wedding at Cana, Jesus is offering to transform the old water (of physical birth or lineage or bodily thirst) into something better, something that is living and eternal.
These passages culminate in John 15, where Jesus identifies himself as the true vine. He says here, “[a]lready you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you”––we no longer need the old water of ceremonial cleansing. In place of this old water we are given the chance to abide in Christ as branches abide in the vine. When we receive the living water that Christ provides, we bear fruit (John 15:16), we make the new wine by partaking in the living water Christ provides.
The wedding at Cana is an invitation for us to partake of the new life that Christ offers to us. To partake of this new life, we have to drink the living water that he provides, the atoning sacrifice of his blood, and choose to abide daily with him. It is an invitation to a loving bond with Christ, as Richard Wilbur’s poem suggests: “whatsoever love elects to bless/Brims to a sweet excess/That can without depletion overflow.” For at the coming of his kingdom, Christ will sit down at another wedding banquet, this time as the bridegroom, and if we choose, we will be his bride. As John proclaims in Revelation, “blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb!” (Rev 19:9).
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, we are thirsty. Teach us to drink from the new wine, the living water that you offer to us. Teach us to abide in you, that we might bear much fruit, and bring us at last to the wedding feast of the Lamb, we pray.
Amen.
Dr. Janelle Aijian
Associate Director of Torrey Honors College
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab
About the Artwork:
Water to Wine
Morgan Weistling
2012
Oil on canvas
20 x 18”
Jesus performed more than forty miracles during his earthly ministry. From healings to controlling the forces of nature to raising people from the dead, Jesus demonstrated his divinity through these supernatural miracles. The wedding at Cana records the first time Jesus publicly demonstrated his divine power—affirming his true identity as the Son of God and marking the beginning of his public ministry. Weistling says of his work, “My main focus was to make the viewer feel like an eyewitness to the biblical account of Christ’s first miracle—changing water to wine at the wedding feast of Cana. To convey the sense of awe one would feel, I depicted the astonished face of the servant as he pours the water and watches as it is transformed into wine.”
About the Artist:
Morgan Weistling is nationally recognized as one of America’s top contemporary painters. A successful illustrator in the Hollywood movie industry for fourteen years, Weistling made a transition to the world of fine art in 1998. At the age of fifteen he learned to paint by studying how light and tone tell the story of form. Major influences in Morgan’s work include artists John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn, Nicolai Fechin, Joaquin Sorolla, and illustrators of the Golden Age of Illustration. Recruited out of art school by the top advertising agency in Hollywood, Bacon Reneric Design, at the age of nineteen, Weistling created movie posters with every major studio in the entertainment business. Morgan thrived under the challenges presented to him in the highly stressful poster industry, but now is the time when he can stretch himself more artistically.
https://www.morganweistling.com/
About the Music: “Our God” from the album Matt Redman: Sing Like Never Before
Lyrics:
Water, You turned into wine
Opened the eyes of the blind
There's no one like You
None like You
Into the darkness,
You shine
Out of the ashes we rise
There's no one like You
None like You
Our God is greater
Our God is stronger God,
You are higher than any other
Our God is healer
Awesome in power Our God,
our God And if our God is for us
Then who could ever stop us
And if our God is with us
Then what could stand against
About the Composers: Chris Tomlin, Jesse Reeves, Jonas Myrin, and Matt Redman
Chris Tomlin (b. 1972) is an American contemporary Christian music singer, songwriter, and worship leader. Some of his most well-known songs are "How Great Is Our God," "Our God," "Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies)," and his cover of "Good Good Father." Tomlin has been awarded twenty-three GMA Dove Awards, and he won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album in 2012. Planning for a medical career, Tomlin enrolled in Texas A&M University to study medicine. However, Tomlin participated in a Bible study led by Choice Ministries founder Louie Giglio and together they founded the Passion Conferences—conferences that seek to glorify God by uniting students in worship, prayer, and seeking justice for spiritual awakening. In 2000, Tomlin signed onto newly founded sixstepsrecords, a subsidiary of Passion Conferences, and has since then released nine full-length studio albums. Tomlin has toured with many contemporary Christian artists, such as Delirious?, Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael W. Smith, and MercyMe. Tomlin has headlined several tours, and has also joined Passion Conferences for national and global tours and events. In 2008, Tomlin started a new church with Giglio in Atlanta, Georgia: the Passion City Church. In 2019, Tomlin and his wife, Lauren, started Angel Armies, a nonprofit organization that works to bring people and ministry organizations together to attempt to solve issues related to vulnerable at-risk youth in the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Tomlin
https://www.christomlin.com/
Jesse Reeves is a father, musician, songwriter, church planter, and pastor. As a musician, Reeves spent seventeen years leading worship, touring and playing bass guitar in the Chris Tomlin Band. As a songwriter, he has co-written several songs that are sung in churches around the world today, including “How Great is Our God,” “Our God,” “I Will Rise,” “Indescribable,” “Lord, I Need You,” and more. As church planters, Jesse and Janet Reeves have been a part of planting the Austin Stone Community Church in Austin, Texas, and Passion City Church in Atlanta, Georgia.
https://www.becworship.com/jesse-reeves
Jonas Myrin is a Swedish singer, songwriter, and producer based in Los Angeles, California. His solo career began in 2012 with the gold-certified song "Day of the Battle.” Myrin won two Grammy Awards for the song "10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)," which he wrote for Matt Redman. He has won multiple Dove Awards. He has also written songs for artists such as Barbra Streisand, Idina Menzel, Andrea Bocelli, Lauren Daigle, and others, and has often produced the songs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Myrin
About the Performer:
Matthew Redman (b. 1974) is a British worship leader, singer-songwriter, and author. Redman has released sixteen albums, written eight books, and helped start three church plants. He is best-known for his two-time Grammy Award–winning single "10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord).” In 1993, Redman helped his pastor Mike Pilavachi found Soul Survivor, a global Christian movement and yearly music festival aimed at youth. In 2008, Redman and his family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, to help plant Passion City Church with Louie Giglio and Chris Tomlin. In 2005, Redman co-wrote, with his wife Beth, the 2005 Dove Award–winning song "Blessed Be Your Name." Since then, Matt and Beth have co-created some of Redman's most successful songs, including "You Never Let Go," "Face Down," and "Let My Words Be Few.” Matt has won thirteen Gospel Music Association Dove Awards. His songs have been covered by a number of contemporary Christian music artists, including Matt Maher, Michael W. Smith, Jeremy Camp, Rebecca St. James, Chris Tomlin, David Crowder Band, and Hillsong United. He has authored and edited multiple books on Christian worship, including The Unquenchable Worshiper and Facedown, which accompanied the album of the same name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Redman
https://mattredman.com/
About the Poetry and Poet:
Richard Purdy Wilbur (1921–2017) was an American poet and literary translator. He was one of the foremost poets of his generation and Wilbur's work, composed primarily in traditional forms, was marked by its wit, charm, and elegance. He was appointed the second poet laureate consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987 and received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice. Continuing the tradition of Robert Frost and W. H. Auden, Wilbur's poetry finds illumination in everyday experiences. Wilbur also provided lyrics to several songs in Leonard Bernstein's 1956 musical Candide. His honors included the 1983 Drama Desk Special Award and the PEN Translation Prize for his translation of The Misanthrope; the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award for Things of This World (1956); the Edna St. Vincent Millay Award; and the Bollingen Prize. In 1987 Wilbur became the second poet, after Robert Penn Warren, to be named US poet laureate. In 1994 he received the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton. Wilbur taught for twenty years at Wesleyan University and in 1959 helped found the influential Wesleyan University Press poetry series, which first published important poets like James Wright, Richard Howard, and Robert Bly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wilbur
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/richard-wilbur
About Devotion Author:
Dr. Janelle Aijian
Associate Director of Torrey Honors College
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
Janelle Aijian is an associate professor of philosophy teaching in the Torrey Honors College at Biola University. She studies religious epistemology and early Christian ethics, and lives with her husband and their two children in La Mirada, California.