This week we will be watching Episode 5 of the Chosen and talking about the story from John 2 where Jesus attends a wedding and the unthinkable happens – the bartender runs out of wine while the party is in full swing. I believe this is what would be described in today’s terms as an "epic fail" (forgive me if the term is outdated, Urban Dictionary doesn’t have a thesaurus function). Jesus steps in and saves the party by turning jars and jars of water into a ridiculous amount of wine – and the party goes on!
I grew up in a denomination that frowned super hard on drinking and as a result I might win an award for hearing some of the funnier explanations of this biblical story – this includes one speaker that said that Jesus could have turned the water into wine but it would not have been intoxicating because it had no time to ferment and become alcoholic. It’s funny the boxes we put God in when we believe people’s external actions are more important than their inner attitudes.
It’s for that reason that I went a long time before I really dug into this story to find out what it truly has to say to us today. This week we are going to try to peel back any of the assumptions that we might have held about this story and genuinely dig in to read it for all it’s worth.
