Mystery of Water and Wine

The first thing we hear is not that the wine has failed, but that “they have no wine”, there is a lack of wine. Hustereo is the Greek word which has a sense of something missing, being left behind, not being able to reach a goal, to fall short, to be lacking what is necessary –which is actually how the Jews regarded these Galileans. In fact what is happening here will leave the Jews behind.

We need to discover what is actually meant by water tasting like wine. When we look for references in the bible about wine one that is particularly striking is found in chapter 6 of John’s Gospel. “he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, … He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. John 6:54&56 Then if we consider this in combination with the reports of the Last Supper where Jesus says that the bread is his body and the contents of the cup is his blood some new ideas arise.

A marriage in Galilee would immediately suggest that people from different tribes were marrying. This marked the end of the law that endured through the Old Testament which ensured that the blood of a tribe was kept pure. This inbreeding produced a certain magical quality among the people; they would know each other’s thoughts and could act on each other’s behalf. In other words, there was no individual responsibility for one’s life. The coming of Christ was to change this. These family ties had to be broken so that each individual person was responsible for their own life and development. In fact, a lot of the turmoil in the Middle East today arises when these outmoded values clashing with the sense of individualism in the young people in the region.

As we watch this imaginative video we see Jesus who would no doubt have a certain post-baptism aura about him. We now need to imagine what the situation really entails when this mighty Cosmic being that we call Christ entered into the body of Jesus. Do we think that the totality of it was confined to Jesus’s body? Could one physical body withstand the force and power of this mighty being? Wouldn’t Jesus have been more like an anchor and that this Cosmic entity would penetrate the whole of this earth. This is what Christ Jesus means when we says that the bread is his body; the bread made from the wheat that is grown in the earth. It would follow that the water flowing in our rivers and oceans is Christ’s blood.

So was it wine that the wedding guests drank or did it just taste like wine because it no longer tasted like the water that they had previously drunk? Was this Christ Jesus’ way of alerting people to the event that would change the course of human history? These wedding guests were participating in the first sign of this mammoth change.

Furthermore, as we are able to see into the mystery of Christ’s deed, as we begin to become aware of his presence within us, our blood changes and becomes his blood. Imagine the internal cleansing that takes place in this process. This is why the good wine is kept. It is kept until we can taste the presence of Christ in the water we drink and the food that we eat. Kristina Kaine, Who is Jesus : What is Christ? Vol 1 available on Amazon