Lessons from the miracle at Cana: Jesus' generosity

We can learn a lot about Jesus and how we should relate to him from John 2:1-12.  We’ll start exploring them today, and, God willing, continue that exploration in subsequent posts. 

One thing that we can learn is that Jesus is very generous.  Read and pray over this passage and then consider the points set out after it. This is the New Jerusalem Bible’s translation. Other translations can be accessed here.

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there,²and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited.³And they ran out of wine, since the wine provided for the feast had all been used, and the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.'⁴Jesus said, 'Woman, what do you want from me? My hour has not come yet.'⁵His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.'⁶There were six stone water jars standing there, meant for the ablutions that are customary among the Jews: each could hold twenty or thirty gallons.⁷Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water,' and they filled them to the brim.⁸Then he said to them, 'Draw some out now and take it to the president of the feast.'⁹They did this; the president tasted the water, and it had turned into wine. Having no idea where it came from -- though the servants who had drawn the water knew -- the president of the feast called the bridegroom¹⁰and said, 'Everyone serves good wine first and the worse wine when the guests are well wined; but you have kept the best wine till now.'

¹¹This was the first of Jesus' signs: it was at Cana in Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.¹²After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, but they stayed there only a few days.

Jesus’ generosity is illustrated here in several ways:

 

1.   Jesus’ generosity is reflected in His coming to Cana in the first instance.  John 1:45-46 and John 21:2 suggest that folks in Cana looked down upon folks from Jesus’ hometown. That attitude might (emphasis on might) explain Jesus’ initial indifference to the wedding party’s problem, as reflected in verses 3-4. Jesus nonetheless blessed those folks, and did so richly. That sounds a lot like Romans 5:6-11 and  1 John 4:10 and 19.  It also gives an example of the principles laid out in Exodus 23:4-5, Proverbs 25:21, Matthew 23:39-48, and Romans 12:20. That is the epitome of generosity. 

 

2.   Jesus’ generosity is also shown by the quantity of wine He produced. Verses 6-9 tell us that He provided between 120 and 180 gallons. That equals between 50 and 75  standard cases of wine. That is a LOT of wine. That reminds one of the type of generosity Jesus described in Luke 6:38. It parallels the generosity exemplified by the multiplications of the fishes and loaves; Matthew 14:20, Matthew 15:37-38, Mark 6:42-44, Mark 8:8-9, John 6:12-13; Jesus’ prodigious healings; Matthew 4:23-25, Matthew 9:35, Mark 1:32-34, Mark 3:10, Mark 6:53-56; and His lavish provisions for/encouragements to disciples. Luke 5:4-7, John 21:4-14.

 

3.  Jesus’ generosity is further reflected in the quality of the wine. Verse 10 tells us it was “the best[.]” The Greek word that is translated from, καλός, makes that clear. Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon uses such terms as “beautiful, beauteous, fair; the decencies, proprieties, elegancies of life; noble; well, rightly” to describe it. William J. Slater, Lexicon to Pindar  tells us that the word means “beautiful, handsome, work of beauty; what is fine, good to hear; noble."That is consistent with what scripture tells us about the rich nature of God’s unadulterated provision.  See e.g.  Isaiah 25:6, Isaiah 30:23-24, Isaiah 55:1-2. See also  Sirach 24:15-21 and Ezekiel 47:6-12. 

 

4.  Jesus’ generosity is also reflected in the fact that He was not interested in credit for this very substantial gift. Verses 9 and 10 tell us that the bridegroom, rather than Jesus, got credit. There is nothing indicating that Jesus spoke up to correct the record on this point. That is a powerful example of the principle set out in Sirach 3:18 (“The greater you are, the more humbly you should behave”).

 

Five other posts considering the Miracle at Cana are linked at Lessons from the Miracle at Cana: Collected