According to the
Gospel of John, the first public miracle of Jesus’ ministry is to keep the
party alive. Not healing; not raising people from the dead; Jesus reveals
himself in his glory by participating in something so trivial. Just a party... compared
to all the serious things that happen in our lives—life and death moments and
all—is a party really worth Jesus’ time?
The wedding at Cana
walks us on the tight rope that runs between the life of joy and the discipline
of being a Christ-follower. To be a Christian is not to party away our lives,
but it’s also not to live a life devoid of joy. To be a Christian is about
commitment and discipline… and it’s also about celebrating what is good. Jesus
shows us the way.
There’s a long
tradition of biblical heroes dancing and partying and celebrating stuff. There
was David dancing through the city; there is Peter leaping from the boat; there
is the church in Acts where people are speaking in tongues; and there’s John’s
vision in Revelation of the end of the world, which looks like a big old party
around God’s throne. The fact that so many people enjoy parties is not
something we need to find shameful. The question, as it always is in these
cases, is what are you celebrating? What makes you joyful? And, conversely, what
are you running away from?
I find that the
problem with many people who are always looking for the next party is that they
have lost the sense of joy that is so essential to celebrations. They’re trying
to recreate something that was joyful—that first experience of something good
and true—but it’s always only a shadow of that thing. You can never re-create
it. The harder you try; the sadder it becomes.
Jesus’
parties are the kind that are meaningful, because they are about more than just
a good time. They are celebrating something important; they are grounded in
something that actually matters. Parties, at their best, are mere reflections
of the cosmic party that God threw for us from the moment we were imagined. The
problem with our parties isn’t that they’re too lavish or too crazy; it’s that
they are so pathetically bland, so dependent on taking pleasure in one
another’s problems. They can’t even begin to touch the party Jesus would throw;
a party that doesn’t really need wine at all and, yet, there it is—above and
beyond.
Jesus could have made
a little wine from water—a jug or two would have sufficed. He also could have
made average wine—it’s what the steward was expecting, after all. Instead,
Jesus makes so much wine of such a high quality that it begs the question: Why?
It’s going to be wasted. It’s not a very responsible move on Jesus’ part. Frankly,
it’s wasteful.
You see, I think this
miracle is first because it answers all our essential questions about God
upfront. If we ask Jesus, “Is God good?” His answer is “Better.” If we ask
Jesus, “How big?” he responds, “Bigger.” If we ask “how much?” he says, “More.”
If we try to imagine something we think is great—a party, a relationship,
money, power, sex—you name it—Jesus says, “More. Bigger. Better.” We can’t even
begin to understand, Jesus says. He makes so much wine of such a high quality
so that we remember: We don’t know a thing.
Joy is an elusive
thing, but Jesus pulls it out of nowhere. He finds joy in death when he raises
people; he brings joy from suffering when he heals; he brings wonder and fear
and, yes, joy, too, when he walks on water, when he feeds the five thousand, and
when he does these things there’s always more left over. Joy is found in
abundance. There is more bread, more fish; there is more health, more life;
more, more, more. For Jesus, there is always more.
We mostly live lives
of scarcity, taking care of the limited resources we have; uncertain of what is
enough, always craving just a little more. Of course, we do… we crave what we
need, even if we struggle to understand exactly what that is. What we are
really craving is enough and the only
thing that is enough is God. Jesus shows that from day one of his ministry.
We may do a good job
of ignoring this still, because our parties are fun after all. Whatever your
vice: The drinking, the drugs, the sex, the money… whatever it is, whatever is
your god; that is the thing that you will swear to your dying day is the thing
that is the most fun. The terrible thing about these gods—about these “fun”
things—is that you will swear with increasing certainty that it is fun, even as it becomes more and more
obvious to everyone else that you are caught. We all do this; we delude
ourselves with things that we think are super important; that we are sure are
incredibly fun or incredibly important. We have our reasons—we can recite them
if asked; even if not asked, come to think of it. These are our gods—our
parties, our drugs—be it the medicinal kind, the entertainment kind, or
something different.
This is so insipid because we are on the right track.
We’re so close to the wedding feast
that Jesus has prepared for us, but instead of embracing the thing that is good we are chasing an illusion of a
thing. There are countless examples of this illusion. It’s the allure of fame,
the assurance of money, the temptation of pornography; it’s alcohol; it’s drugs;
it’s also sports or work or love. It’s things that are good at their heart but
have turned us in on ourselves. It’s fake; it’s like the thing that is good—just…
not.
The good news is that
the wedding at Cana demonstrates that Jesus will take charge at the end of the
day. So that, in case we spend our lives convincing ourselves we are super fun,
in case we keep doing the same thing and do our best to ignore and cover-up the
monster inside of us that whispers that we are not enough. No matter whether we
succeed in convincing ourselves or fall apart and fall on God’s mercy, at the
end of the day Jesus is there to throw us the party that is good.
The question for us isn’t what is Jesus
doing, but what on earth are we doing in the meantime? To constantly be convincing
ourselves how fun we are is exhausting. The saddest people are the ones who
have to tell you about all the good times they have had or who talk about their
own greatness; not just because bragging is unattractive, but also because we
know the louder they say it the less true it is. It’s the surest sign that a
person is struggling to try to throw a party that will make it all right.
Instead of throwing
the party ourselves, we have, ready-made, an astonishing banquet that will
satisfy us completely. Better still, it’s not dependent on our social graces.
It’s a place where introverts and extroverts are equally at home, which is no
party I’ve ever been to. Instead, it’s simply the biggest and best bash around
and absolutely everybody’s invited. That’s the wedding at Cana—a strange
beginning to Jesus’ ministry—but maybe not that
strange, because why heal, why resurrect, why live if there isn’t something
ultimately amazing worth living for—something that exceeds our expectations, is
always bigger and better than we would expect. It’s heaven, sure, but it’s not
that far away, and it’s ours.
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