Growing up, the turning of water into wine was one of my favorite miracle stories in the Bible. I think I liked it so much because of the way my Sunday School teachers would stammer as they tried to explain why Jesus would make wine when we weren't supposed to drink. Some went with the old it must have been grape juice story. But that doesn't hold up when you consider the master of the feast mentions drunkenness in his words to the bridegroom. Last I checked, people didn't get lit on Welch's. True, wine in Jesus' day probably had a far lower alcohol content than wine today. And Jesus' generation probably consumed more wine because they didn't have Poland Spring and Deer Park. Potable water could be a problem. But the fact remains- it was wine.
Instead of trying to explain away the wine, we should understand what the wine symbolizes. In the ancient world, wine was a symbol of joy and gladness. The story of the water into wine tells us that Jesus takes the mundane and makes it joyful. It also tells us that Jesus cares about even our most trivial problems. If I had been in charge, I would not have nominated the turning of water into wine as Jesus' first miracle. I would have said raise the dead. Heal a leper. Do something truly significant. Yes, running out of wine at a wedding was embarrassing (especially in a culture that prized hospitality), but it was hardly earth shattering. Yet, Jesus cared. His first miracle met a simple need and provided unspeakable joy. To me, that says a lot about the type of Savior that we have come to know.
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