1 John 2:6
Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
St. John begins his account of the miracle at the wedding in Cana by noting (John 2:1) that it happened “on the third day.” The phrase “on the third day” is, of course, pregnant with meaning for John and his audience living in light of the Resurrection. So beginning his account of the miracle in this way is John’s way of saying, “Pay attention!” Similarly, after the account of the miracle is over, John provides a second bookend by noting that this was the “first of his signs” (John 2:11). “First” here denotes not so much sequence as significance. The miracle at Cana was the archetypal sign, the sign that is the key to understanding all the other signs. As such, we will never get to the end of the layers of meaning crammed into that miracle. But one thing we can see is that Jesus used the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary. He did not use finely decorated marble jars tricked out with the latest Greek art. He used plain stone jars. He did not even use jars that were designed for holding drinking water. He used jars designed for holding wash water. And from this unlikely and ordinary source he gave us the first sign of the eucharistic bounty that would flow from his shed blood on the cross. Have your tears ever been somebody else’s “wash water”? Has someone else ever taken their pain out on you and made you suffer in their struggle to be cleansed of it themselves? Jesus can turn those tears of pain into the wine of blessedness. If you have shared in his sufferings, even in ways that seem ordinary as a plain stone jar to you, he sees and knows and will one day reward you at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.
