John’s gospel is unique in so many ways in comparison to Matthew, Mark and Luke. One of the things making John’s gospel unique is the story of the wedding at Cana; it’s one of my favorite stories in the gospel material.
One of the things that I love about the story of the wedding at Cana is that John begins the story with the note that it occurred “on the third day”. What is the significance of this?
John is making an allusion to the future resurrection of Jesus which also occurs on the third day. John is subtly drawing a point of connection between the resurrection and this wedding. It stands to argue then that the victory of God that is wrapped-up in the resurrection of his Son merits celebration; a celebration much like a wedding celebration. We cannot fail to see as well that in John’s apocalyptic vision recorded in the book of Revelation that the victory of God is much like a wedding. This means that a wedding functions as a metaphor representing salvation. There are other biblical metaphors for salvation (like the judicial metaphor, and the familial metaphor), but before exploring that feature of this piece, let’s flesh out the wedding metaphor as it stands in the story of the wedding at Cana a little more.
Another dimension of the metaphor that enters into this story is the wine. Wine is a crucial part of this story. The wedding host has run out of wine and so Jesus (a bit reluctantly) makes provision for more. You’ll notice in reading the story that the amount of water Jesus turns into wine is quite large. The text says that Jesus essentially made 120–130 gallons of wine! This is just a ton of wine. This detail of the story links up with Old Testament prophecy that says that when the Messiah comes and inaugurates God’s kingdom once again on earth (as it once was with Jesus) that this would be an overabundance of wine. This means that John is telling readers, “This is the Messiah that we’ve been waiting for.”
The last important detail of this story that I wish to highlight is the stone water jars. John tells readers that these jars were used for Jewish purification rites. Jews would use water from these jars for outward cleansing prior to eating. This means that the contents of the jars were used to purify that which it made contact with. This is crucial to keep in front of us as we see that, now, it’s contents will be consumed, or internalized. John is trying to tell us something. John is telling us that Jesus, as the messianic king, can internally purify those who drink of it. This message is then reinforced by John by placing the event of Jesus cleansing the temple immediate after the story of the wedding at Cana. Jesus not only cleans the temple, but also redefines the temple as the body of the believer. This secures the idea that John is telling us that Jesus purifies the hearts of believers.
So, taking a step back and considering the wedding as a metaphor for salvation in light of these elements of the story, what can we learn? First, that salvation is something much more than forgiveness. The forgiveness element of salvation comes to front in the judicial metaphor for salvation (as we see in Romans). Christ’s death functions as a substitutionary atonement for the guilt of believers thereby making them innocent from violations against the Creator. We are declared forgiven. Again, the judicial metaphor best communicates the forgiveness attribute of the truth of salvation.
We see with the nuptial metaphor (i.e., marriage metaphor) that it is not forgiveness that is highlighted, but the purifying and reconciling dimensions of salvation that is highlighted. This is crucial for us today.
