“This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.” John 2:11 (See John 2:1-11)
I was at a Christian men’s breakfast today and they spoke several times about the things God has done for people they know and for themselves. This reminded me of the young preacher that I heard speak on Sunday, 8/20/17. He spoke of Jesus’ first miracle. This got me thinking of the myriad of witnesses I have heard testifying to miracles in their lives, and in the lives of others too.
We do indeed have a God of miracles watching over us, in complete charge of everything. Sceptics would say, “Oh, those aren’t miracles, there just coincidences, or blind luck.” What they fail to see is the specificity of the occurrences. Blind luck cannot account for these occurrences and neither can coincidence. The miracles are just too specific in many cases.
Let’s take a look at this first recorded miracle of Christ. He and His disciples were invited to a wedding. If you know anything about Jewish weddings, you know that they could be as elaborate as any modern wedding. It was also the talk of the town and a subject of scorn, ridicule and disgrace if the party provisions ran out prior to the end of the festivities. In this case, that is exactly what happened. They ran out of wine.
Jesus had the men fill six stone water pots with water and then asked them to serve it to the guests. He had turned the water into wine. Each of these water pots contained two or three firkins apiece, that’s between 18-27 gallons each, or somewhere between 108-162 gallons of wine in total. Even if the crowd was pretty large, that would still be a gaggle of staggering drunks if it were fermented wine. Thank goodness it wasn’t.
This was not the fermented wine of today, but was basically grape juice. The Jews of that day would dilute the wine (grape juice) to one part wine to thee parts water for adults and dilute it even further for their children. So, even if the wine was weeks old and started to spontaneously ferment, it was still watered down by diluting. The “wine” might have had a tiny fraction of the alcohol content of modern wine. Jesus spoke out against strong drink on many occasions and condemned drunkenness. He would not have turned water into fermented wine. He just wouldn’t.
This miracle was just the start of many and it saved this family from imbursement and ridicule. This miracle actually provided the family with compliments. When the governor of the feast tasted the wine, he commented to them saying, “Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.” In other words most serve their best wine first and then after everyone is well hydrated and not consuming much, then the family serves their wine of lesser quality. The governor told the bridegroom, "but thou hast kept the good wine until now.” This is, in fact, the origin of the commonly used phrase, “you saved the best for last”.
Our God is a God of countless miracles and countless miracles to come. If He can change water into wine, create everything out of nothing and save me from the eternal lake of fire, He is definitely a God of miracles. He did all these things for us, and many of these miracles were written down in the Bible, so that we can learn from these miracles. Praise the precious holy name – Jesus!
I serve a God of miracles and if you want to know Him too, I invite you to go to the salvation page on my website and learn what it takes to have a personal relationship with the creator of everything – my Savior. Be God’s next miracle!
"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost."
Romans 15:13