At our Lent Group in which we are reflecting on John’s Gospel, this week we looked at the Wedding of Cana. Each person was asked to respond to the words that were speaking to them. And the words that struck me were the words of the chief-steward: “You have saved the good wine until now” (John 2. 10). It made me think, how easy it is to catalogue the difficulties, to dwell on the pain, to become defined by that which we have lost, but what if the good wine has indeed been saved until now. What if here in the place where many of us have experienced emptiness or grief, God is using our empty water jars to fill us to overflowing with water which he promises will become in us the best wine of all. What if like the servants at the wedding we become those who participate in the transformation that only Christ can bring?
George Herbert whose day the Church celebrated on Saturday put it in this way:
Teach me, my God and King,
in all things thee to see,
and what I do in anything
to do it as for thee.
…
A servant with this clause
makes drudgery divine:
who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
makes that and the action fine.
This is the famous stone
that turneth all to gold;
for that which God doth touch and own
cannot for less be told.
Revd Richard Carter
