Mary, Mother of God, tells her Son: They have no wine. The fact, the notice, the words spoken; together, the situation elicits from our Lord the first of his signs.
Jesus’ changing of water into wine is a miracle of deep delight, familiar and approachable in a way that others are not, a divine endorsement of our desires for abundance and festivity. So much wine, such goodness! Easy to overlook is the necessary precondition, the wedding without wine: the disappointment, the shame, someone’s failure. They have no wine.
Where people had been able to provide enough wine, God’s desire to reveal Himself would have found no opportunity. Nobody would have missed it; they would have celebrated and gone home satisfied, unaware of the good wine they lacked.
Where Christ had not been present, once the wine failed there would have been only indignation, accusation, recrimination, and regret. Does that sound familiar? Indignation, accusation, recrimination, and regret have become the weapons of our day, weapons of mass destruction deployed to shred the social fabric and deprive every endeavor of the possibility of convivium, the life-giving coming-together humans crave.
The list of possible reasons for the lack of wine at that Cana wedding is not only terribly long – human error, malice, mischief, poverty, climate, in a thousand combinations – but also completely absent from the Gospel account and far from the minds of all who witness the great work of Jesus, both that day and our own. It is almost as if it is not important; not a worthy matter for inquiry; a commonplace.
They have no wine is the default reality of the human condition. Long before we encountered the great supply chain crisis of our moment, people knew that as a matter of fact, there is usually not enough, and even for special occasions, it is hard to obtain enough – enough of anything and everything that we need.
But worse than that is when what fails is not stuff we want or need, but our personal resources, our very selves. When someone we care about deeply, someone for whom we bear responsibility personal, familial, or professional, is engulfed in danger, pain, and consternation, and looks around for rescue, we realize what we lack. Every father of a gravely sick child, soldier who cannot reach his wounded comrade, loving friend of a hopeless addict, comes to the horrible realization that I have no wine. Left to ourselves, the indignation, accusation, recrimination, and regret come from within us.
These days, circumstances have conspired to bring many of us to this point, the moment past desperate hope when helplessness sets in. One too many efforts has failed; one too many hopes has been dashed; one too many upswings has trended down again. Surrounded by an aggressive culture that works its wicked will by indignation, accusation, recrimination, and regret, we turn on ourselves and one another.
People who can take care of themselves do not need a rescuer; people who can provide for themselves do not need providence; people with everything under control have no idea where or who God is. They have no wine is the place where God Who makes Himself known has the opportunity to get our attention, and give us not only what we need but far, far better than we could earn or achieve or obtain for ourselves or the ones we love.
People who have enough wine will never get the good stuff that can only be given by our Divine Lord. You will know you are ready for it, and for Him, when you are ready to admit: I have no wine.
