Jesus, Wine, and Me
By: John Thomas
Tags: Christianity, Spirituality, Faith, Jesus, Religion

Jesus’ first miracle was always hard for me to accept.

Photo by Scott Warman on Unsplash

For as long as I can remember I’ve had a complicated relationship with wine. At the age of thirteen, when it was my turn to serve as acolyte and help distribute communion, my parents gave me a firm warning: make sure you ask for the grape juice. Since I was to be taking communion first, without them by my side, they felt it necessary to remind me that I needed to take initiative and request the non-alcoholic option, something we did as a family religiously.

As a thirteen year old boy I was not the initiative-taking type. When the pastor got to me, feeling like the whole church (my parents included) were watching, I balked and didn’t ask for the grape juice. I accepted the wine and drank it down like the other lushes to my left and right. When we got to the car I could sense my parent’s disappointment all the way from the back seat. I vowed I would never drink alcohol, never let them down, again. Then we got to my uncle’s house later that afternoon and I found out that for lunch we were having brats—beer-battered brats. I almost started crying.

Throughout high school I never touched a drop of alcohol and shunned those who dared to. When I went to college I made sure it was a Christian school that forbade alcohol. I gladly signed the covenant that required my complete abstinence from drugs and strong drink. Of course by this time, in my pharisaical heart, I had identified those who did drink as heretics.

Then I met the girl who eventually became my wife. She didn’t drink—or else the union likely wouldn’t have happened—but her family did. The first time we drove to her house for me to meet her parents, her dad was sitting on the front porch with her brother, shotguns across their laps and beer cans strewn across the lawn. This of course was all done in jest and we have laughed about it many times in the years since, but their drinking was something I had to intentionally and slowly grow accustomed to.

Looking back, the attitude I harbored toward alcohol during my formative years seems at best silly, at worst sinful. Though my feelings about drinking kept me from drunkenness (without a doubt a positive thing) it also hardened my heart. The purity of my lips created in me a false sense of superiority. I looked down on others and their acceptance of alcohol. Unfortunately, I am most likely not alone when it comes to this type of experience. Many in America, especially evangelical Christians, have lived a similarly rocky relationship with wine and alcohol.

My wife’s family has helped me a great deal in renouncing my pharisaical teetotalism. So too has a proper, biblical understanding of wine. “In the scriptural imagination,” writes Andrew Wilson in Spirit and Sacrament, “wine represents abundance, shalom, hope, and new creation.” Wilson is writing about Jesus and his choice to announce his coming and ministry with what could almost be called a party trick. The fact that Jesus initiated his public ministry by turning water into wine at a wedding (John 2:1–11), “is curious, to say the least,” admits Wilson. I for one had wrestled with it. Perhaps, to say I ignored it would be more accurate.

But we know that Jesus didn’t do anything by accident. When he turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana, he knew exactly what he was doing.

The word wine is mentioned 231 times in the Bible. Often its usage is positive. As Wilson observes, it connotes happiness, “…wine to gladden the heart of man,” (Psalm 104:15); promise, “then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine,” (Proverbs 3:10), and blessing, “May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine.” (Genesis 27:28).

In the words of Wilson,

“The transformation of water into wine is far more than a demonstration that Jesus loves weddings…it is a sign that joy and abundance and restoration, and even glory, are now here, breaking into a world for the first time in the person of Jesus.”

Just as Jesus read from the scroll and then sat down emphatically in the synagogue (Luke 4:17–21), and just as he rode a donkey into Jerusalem declaring himself king (Matthew 21:1–11), his turning water into wine is a tangible declaration, an inauguration of grace invading the world. Joy, abundance, restoration, and more find their fulfillment in Jesus and in his wine. If my savior uses wine, and if wine means those things, my heart and attitude about it needs to change. And they have.

This past winter my wife and I, along with our two children, had occasion to attend a traditional Christmas market in Vienna, Austria. It was cold, and wintery and beautiful. Part of the festivities is the German mulled wine, served hot. While we were there I suggested the unthinkable. “Why don’t we try it,” I offered. My wife was surprised, but upon my insistence, we ordered one to share. I cupped the warm mug in my cold hands and at the age of 33, took my first sip of guilt free wine.

I didn’t like it.

But that’s not the point. The point is that wine is a blessing from the Lord. One that signifies promises fulfilled, hearts gladdened, and joy abounding. When consumed rightly, in moderation, with a thankful heart, it is beautiful and one could even say worshipful. A proper relationship to and understanding of wine has supplanted the old judgmental notions that used to live in my heart. I might not like to drink it, but I love what it says about my savior. SDG

John Thomas has written for Mere Orthodoxy, Christianity Today, and Desiring God. He writes regularly at medium.com/soli-deo-gloria.

A version of this article first appeared at Fathom Magazine.