As usual, the question is: ‘What does this sign mean?’ Like all the signs the meaning is profound and many-faceted. St Thomas More said that the Scriptures were such that a mouse could put his tiny foot in them whilst an elephant wade in their deep waters!
The changing of water into wine is many people’s favourite miracle. A wedding in first-century Palestine was a joyous affair with plenty of food and wine and lasted a whole week. Quite some party, that is for sure! Running out of wine was clearly embarrassing for the bride’s father but a sign of how much people were enjoying themselves. The water used in the miracle was not ordinary water but had been blessed for ceremonial washing. This special water was not changed into vin ordinaire, as the French say, but a top-vintage; six jars of it, holding up to 25 gallons. What a miracle! Indeed, it dumbfounded the guests.
Believer or unbeliever, we all understand the message a superabundance of wine gives. It conveys joy, celebration, etc. In Israel and abundance of wine was associated with a prophetic turn of speech for the new Messianic Age. There is also a passage in 2 Baruch which echoes this sentiment: ‘On each vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall bear a thousand clusters, and each grape produce a cor (120 gallons of wine) because these are they who have come to the consummation of time’.
For John, the miracle was a sign of Messianic Age, the passing from the old to the new. The wedding feast illustrated the heavenly banquet to which we are all invited by virtue of our baptism. The bridegroom is Jesus, and the joy of the heavenly banquet would come after the ‘hour’ of Jesus’ suffering: the cross, his death, his glory.