I love to read the stories of Jesus as recorded in the four gospels. Reading them, I am constantly in awe. No one ever spoke so sublimely, loved so tenderly, or performed such miracles. When I was young I read the New Testament to understand only the meaning plainly suggested by the text. As I have grown older, however, I have come to appreciate how all the miracles Jesus performed have a spiritual meaning that can be applied to each of us. For example, when Jesus heals a leper it is a witness of His ability to heal our hearts afflicted with the progressive disease of sin. When Jesus heals the blind, it suggests He can heal our blindness to truth and enable us to see things as they really are. When I read the gospels now, I look for these spiritual applications and love to ponder them.
I think Jesus was inviting us to see beyond the physical and temporal in the story of the man "sick of the palsy" who was brought on a stretcher by friends. The story records that, "Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee." The first healing He offered was a healing of the soul. Surely, that was the more important malady. Only after the indignation of the onlooking scribes did he say to the afflicted man, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." (Matt. 9:2-8)
For many years, one miracle performed by Jesus evaded all my efforts to find a spiritual application--the turning of water into wine at the marriage in Cana. Until recently, it was a beautiful story that manifested Jesus' unmatched power, but that was all. It troubled me that I was not able to find a deeper meaning. Finally, one day, as I pondered the symbolic elements of the story, a spiritual application came to me. I share it here, not as an authoritative interpretation, but as an offering of what it means to me in the hope that it can mean something to the reader as well.
First, I think it's significant that the miracle takes place at a wedding. Throughout the scriptures, Jesus is referred to as the bridegroom and the church as His bride (John 3: 27-30, Ephesians 5:25). The circumstances of the miracle suggest to me that it contains a message for His bride, that is to say, those who would be among those that God, His father, "hath given [him]" (John 17:9).
The miracle is recorded in John chapter 2. It says that Jesus and his disciples were in attendance at a wedding and that, when the wine ran out, his mother came to him and asked if there was anything he could do. After a short interchange, Mary left him to do what He would. The record says that, "there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews" (John 2:6). Jews in those days used pots such as these mentioned for ritual purification. I don't know much about it, but it seems that, if ever someone became "ritually unclean," they could become clean again by ritually washing with the water contained in pots set aside for the purpose.
The record notes that the pots were made of stone. I don't know if purification pots were always stone, but in this case, it says they were and I think it is a significant detail. Stone is a recurrent symbol for Jesus Christ. For example, Jesus refers to himself as the "stone the builders rejected" (Luke 20:17-18). David slew Goliath (representing the enemies of Israel) with a stone (1 Samuel 17:50). Jesus is the stone that slays the spiritual enemies of Israel. When Moses smote a stone, life-giving water gushed out to save the Israelites (Ex 17:6). Jesus is the source of life-giving water (John 4:13-14).
Purification pots made of stone suggest that the desired purification comes from Christ, from cleansing waters provided by Him (since He is the vessel). That would seem to be the symbolic meaning behind ritual purification as practiced by the Jews at that time.
That brings us, at last, to the miracle of the changing of this "purification water" into wine. Wine is a symbol of the blood of Christ (Matt. 26:27-28), and His blood is a symbol of the atonement, by which we are made clean, or free from sin (John 6:54, Hebrews 13:12). Thus, by changing water into wine, Jesus foreshadowed that it would be his blood, his atoning sacrifice, that would cleanse the world from sin. It was a beautiful and powerful witness that He is our Savior and Redeemer.
When I think of the love expressed in what Jesus did for me, I weep tears of gratitude and joy.
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