On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine. (John 2:1-3)
What accounts for the popularity of golf? It’s expensive, difficult, and time-consuming. Often infuriating. But something about it must appeal to its many adherents.
One aspect of the game that resonates with me is that it is an endless succession of little problems to be solved – some fairly easy, some quite challenging. Driver off the tee or not? Low trajectory with this approach shot versus high arc? Carry the water or lay up? Is this enough wind to warrant using a longer club? Endless.
Couple this with the fact that most of us in our primary vocations are typically grappling with a succession of problems with far greater consequences.
So it’s nice to have a problem where coming up with the wrong answer means nothing more than rooting around in the bag to find a replacement for a ball that now sleeps with the fish.
At the wedding in Cana the problem was that they had run out of wine. I’m told that this may have been a big cultural faux pas back in that day, in that place. And we all know how Jesus solved it: by pulling a club out of his bag that you and I don’t have.
That Jesus produced wine (quite a lot of good wine) is not particularly remarkable. People have been doing that for millennia. My limited understanding of the process is that it takes sunshine, water, and grapes. And time. Jesus had water and sunshine at his disposal but didn’t have either grapes or a lot of time.
That he pulled off the shot speaks to his divinity, compressing a process that typically requires months into one that took minutes or even seconds, a demonstration of divine mastery of time.
For some while, this notion of divine mastery of time has rattled around in my consciousness when I’m otherwise trying to decide between an eight or a nine iron. (Yes, enhanced focus might help my game.)
Some well-intended Christians argue vehemently that God’s creation of the world took place in six literal days – six 24-hour periods. That, after all, is what the words in Genesis mean.
Others, equally well-intended, argue that paleontologists have dug up a lot of dinosaur bones that seem to be millions of years old and that the first creation account is presented in a more poetic than documentary form.
I don’t expect to sort out this gnarly conundrum in my earthly lifetime. They might both be right. That Jesus was able to produce excellent wine seemingly instantaneously speaks to the fact that God can get a whole lot more done in a specific time period than you and I can.
Twenty-four hours would have been more than adequate time for God to have gone through the whole progression from simpler to more complex biological organisms.
I bet if we’d been present in the Garden of Eden and applied carbon dating to the rocks, they’d have registered as millions of years old. And if we had cut down an Edenic tree and counted the rings, there would have been quite a few rings.
Think about this next time you’re standing over that ten-foot downhill putt. Might help. Might not!
Prayer: Thank you, Lord, that while we are quite constrained by time, you are not.