I am continually amazed at the richness of Scripture and how we can discern different meanings from it with different readings, as the Holy Spirit guides us into all Truth (John 16:13). Within one story, there can be so many lessons and ways God might speak to us corporately or personally. In John 2, we see the miracle at Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine, his first and perhaps most well-known miracle. As I was reading this account recently, I noticed something I had not focused in on before – the pots he instructed the servants to put the water in, which would then become the wine. The Bible tells us these pots were used in Old Testament times for ceremonial washing and purification, common objects associated with “The Law.”
Jesus used those common vessels, representing the rules and regulations of the law, and he did a new thing with them. Once filled with water, they were now filled with new wine, a wine which could even represent his Blood, foreshadowing the Passover meal and the sacrifice to come. Jesus said he did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Mark 5:17). Perhaps this miracle is the visual representation of this very fulfillment of the Law. The pots, the Law, would be the container for what was to come. His “new wine” represents the new covenant, the shedding of his precious blood and therefore the forgiveness of sins through his infinite grace and mercy. The law would be the foundation on which the miracle of the redemption of man would stand.
The clay pots might also represent you and me– common, earthen vessels made of ordinary substance, but used by Jesus in the miracle. He takes the ordinary, and fills it with himself, so that the ordinary becomes a totally new thing, a new creation (2nd Corinthians 5:17, If anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation). How often he uses the ordinary, the least likely, the weak, to accomplish his purposes, for His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2nd Corinthians 12:8-10). In the story of the miracle at Cana, Jesus instructs the servant to dip out some wine and take it to the master of ceremonies, who was amazed that the hosts had “kept the good wine” until now. If those old pots were filled with new wine, it was to be enjoyed, to be useful, to bless others. If the “new wine” just sat in the pot, it would have still been new wine, but would not have fulfilled the purpose for which it was created.
Perhaps there’s yet another lesson here: If you have experienced the miracle, dip into the vessel, and share with others, because the world sure needs the miracle inside.
Life By The Way 