Happy Endings

I love happy endings. Don’t you? More and more, I find myself staying away from disturbing movies, books, or TV programs, in favor of a lighter, sweeter, and pleasing finale. I guess that’s why I watch the Hallmark Channel and HGTV. Every movie on Hallmark has a happy ending. And, have you ever viewed a “fixer upper” type show where the family didn’t love their home?

Recently, the Lord gave me a happy ending when He taught me the deeper meaning to a passage of scripture I had wondered about for years. This happened during a prayer vigil at church. In preparation for our prayer time, each person would read two chapters of scripture. That day, I read John chapters one and two.

You see, I understood John 2:1-11 on the surface, yet I always felt it had significance beyond the words I read. From time to time, I would ask for clarification, but nothing. So, I’d set it aside and move on. Funny thing though, on the day God opened my eyes, I wasn’t asking for an explanation. Still, in the reading, my heart must have asked, even if my lips didn’t.

The passage recounts the first miracle of Jesus, and those of you who are Bible students will recognize it as the wedding at Cana. With His miracle of turning water into wine, Jesus saved the day. He kept the family from suffering great humiliation when their wine ran out. The couple in love, not only entered into wedded bliss, but they were able to serve the “best” wine almost three-quarters of the way through the wedding feast.

Did you realize this happy ending had a deeper meaning? And, does the deeper meaning even matter? For me, it does, and I bet it matters to you as well.

I get that a wedding is one of those normal, everyday occurrences, and I’m sure it wasn’t the only wedding Jesus attended, but this is God’s Word. God never does anything in Scripture without a good reason. So, let’s walk through it together.

In the very first verse, we see the miracle happened on the THIRD day. The third day or the number three in scripture is always important. Three is God’s number, and it refers to resurrection. Therefore everything that follows must, in some way, point to Jesus. Our job is to learn how.

Skipping to verse eleven, we also see it was the BEGINNING of SIGNS to manifest His glory. Wine, in scripture, often represents the Blood of Jesus, and it does in this passage. The question is why. And how does this symbolism fit with the fact that His friends ran out of wine at their wedding?

What God showed me blew my mind and made me burst into tears. He said it has to do with the BIG PICTURE and the words spoken by the master of the feast. “’…Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!’” ^[1]

Believe it or not, this speaks of the old covenant versus the new. The inferior wine represented the OLD COVENANT – God’s Law with animal sacrifices, the blood of bulls and goats.^[2] The good wine symbolized the NEW COVENANT in the precious blood Jesus spilled when He died for our sin and purchased our redemption.^[3] God gave us His Law, the inferior first, and in the fullness of time, when we had well drunk, being saturated in our sin[4], He presented the Good Wine.

The good wine replaced the inferior. And as God helped me to understand this, everything else in the passage fell into place. My eyes saw the remaining symbolism, and trust me; there’s a ton more. Still, I’m humbled, and I feel very unworthy of such deep revelation.

If you would like to know what besides this is in the short passage of John 2:1-11, I’d like to say ask me, because I would love to share. However, the best person to ask is Almighty God. He’s just waiting to reveal His Word ^[5] and give you your own happy ending.

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[1] John 2:10

[2] Isaiah 1:11; Hebrews 10:4

[3] Luke 22:20; I Peter 1:18-19

[4] Romans 5:8

[5] Jeremiah 33:3