The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

© 2022, Dr. Tamilio

As we approached Christmas, we finished our Bible study on the Gospel of John.  John’s account is interesting.  After his highly philosophical introduction — “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” — John the Baptist testifies about who the Messiah is, Jesus calls his first disciples, and then we end up at a wedding.  The second chapter of John begins with the wedding banquet in Cana, a popular story as it is the one in which Jesus turns water into wine.  This is important because it is the first of Jesus’ recorded miracles.  It has also spurned a lot of jokes, my favorite being:

A Lutheran minister is driving down to New York, and he’s stopped in Connecticut for speeding.  The state trooper smells alcohol on his breath and then he sees an empty wine bottle on the floor, and says, “Sir, have you been drinking?”  The minister says, “Just water.”  The trooper asks to see the bottle, smells it, and says, “This smells like wine, Reverend.”  The minister looks down at the bottle and says, “Good Lord!  He’s done it again!”

This is Jesus’ first miracle, and a strange story it is.  Jesus is at a wedding, and they run out of wine.  This would have been a big faux pax for the host.  Jesus’ mother, Mary, is present and brings this to Jesus’ attention.  His response is curious: “Woman, why do you involve me? … My hour has not yet come.”  People have often wondered want he meant by that and then, in spite of this comment, why does he turn the water into wine even though it isn’t his time (whatever that means)?  Although the word “woman” used here (the Greek gynai), as when Jesus says, “Woman, why do you involve me,” sounds harsh, it is actually an affectionate, polite term, according to Merrill C. Tenney.[1]  Tenney also points out that there is a question of authority at play here.  Who is in charge?  Is Mary telling Jesus to take care of the lack of wine or is Jesus saying, albeit politely, “Don’t worry about me, Mom, I know what I’m doing.”  The end-result is the same: Jesus makes the impossible possible.  He turns water into wine.

Many contemporary theologians and philosophers struggle with the miracles as they appear in Scripture.  Some feel as if they were added to the stories within (such as Moses parting the Red Sea) to emphasize authority and validity or to give a tangible expression of the power of God.  Others say, “Well, I believe miracles occurred in biblical times, but they don’t happen anymore.”  Really?  Has the world evolved beyond the miraculous?  Has the divine magic wand been put away for good?

Miracles happen all the time.  The problem is that we just don’t see them — or at least we don’t think we see them.  Even a person of no faith must look at how vast and intricate the universe is; how perfectly it all fits together; how infinitesimal the odds of it all being the result of the Big Bang alone — even this person must stand awe-struck at the miracle of existence.  That’s the macro: the big picture.  When we break it down and think of microbiology, nuclear physics, and quantum mechanics (and that we can even know anything about these things) is a miracle: the miracle of the mind and the body.

The scientist will say, “What you [the believer] claim is a miracle is just something corresponding to a law of nature that you may not know or understand.”  After all, ancient people used to think that hailstorms and eclipses were miracles.

But laws of science do not align with all alleged miracles.  There are some that have absolutely nothing to do with anything that science can possibly explain.

In March 2015, Lynn Jennifer Groesbeck, 25, lost control of her car and landed in the icy Spanish Fork River in Utah.  Fourteen hours later, first responders found her 18-month-old daughter, Lily, in her car seat hanging upside down just above frigid river water.  Prior to finding Lily, both police officers and firefighters report that they heard an adult voice yell “Help me!” from inside the car.  They discovered that the voice could not have come from the young mother, who likely died from the impact.  The rescuers still can’t explain the voice or how the girl survived hanging upside-down for 14 hours in freezing temperatures without being dressed for the cold.[2]

There are other stories like this one, of course.  These are the big ones, the earth-shattering ones, the water into wine and burnish bush ones.  Those are rare.  They have to be, otherwise they wouldn’t be miracles.  If we could expect them, then they would probably align with some law of nature and would cease to be miracles.  But there are other, less awe-inspiring ones that occur all the time.  Every day in fact.  Arianne Brown writes the following:

You’ve heard it before, the saying that “people don’t really change.”  Well, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.  We’ve all seen the examples.  What about [the] abusive, alcoholic [parent] who somehow, someway came to his senses to overcome addiction, save his marriage and family relationships?

Myriad other examples flood the earth every day.  As the famous Russian author, Leo Tolstoy once wrote, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”  When you accept that people can and do change, you see miracles in abundance.[3]

You do not even need to think of these occurrences.  Look in the mirror.  You yourself are a miracle.  The odds of any of us even existing from a biological standpoint is amazing when you look at how reproduction works at the micro-level.  The fact that our planet is just the right distance from the sun and is tilted at just the right angle is a miracle, not to mention that the Earth has all the necessary ecological systems to support life: aquatic, atmospheric, and terrestrial.  Just about everything is a miracle.  Albert Einstein put it best when he said, “There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Jesus turned water into wine.  It was the first of his miracles.  By doing so he showed the world what was possible.  All of the miracles that followed — whether it was Jesus walking on water, feeding multitudes with a few loaves and fish, healing the sick, or, eventually, rising from the dead — his very life was one through which he personified that the kingdom of Heaven is among us.  Large or small, miracles still exist in this post-Christmas season to confirm that Jesus is Immanuel, God with us.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

[1] Merrill C. Tenney, “John” from The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981), 42.

[2] Megan Schmidt, “7 Model Miracles That Science Can’t Explain,” taken from Belief Net (online).

[3] Arianne Brown, “7 Everyday Miracles You May Be Overlooking,” taken from Family Today (online).