The Water We Bring

Recently we have been watching as a family the TV show “The Chosen.” This show depicts not only the life of Jesus Christ, but also many biblical people associated with Jesus during his earthly ministry. 

The show definitely takes some creative liberties in terms of dialogue and events from the Bible, but I absolutely love it. In fact I’d say it’s kind of the point of the show; to not only teach the stories we know and love, but bring them to life. And what better way to bring them to life than to re-enact these events, filling in the gaps with creative and culturally accurate portrayals of real people and what they might have been like or what they might have said.

Jesus Himself is portrayed not just as a teacher, philosopher, and eventually Savior, but also a person. Someone who smiles and cracks jokes with His disciples and the people who follow Him. He is handy with His carpenter skills. He sometimes lives in a tent and has to fend for Himself. He attends events and participates in conversations, dances, and festivities of the culture of His time. We find ourselves smiling and laughing at not only Him, but His disciples and followers. They all seem like normal people, just like us.

Water Into Wine

Recently we watched the episode where Jesus is attending a wedding and performs the well known miracle of turning water into wine. To be completely honest, I’ve never really thought much about this miracle. It always seemed kind of unimportant and silly to me. Among His many wondrous miracles, this never ranked very high. Of course it’s impressive, but I never really understood the meaning or reasoning behind it.

The show provides some creative and historical context for the need to perform this miracle, and that was helpful, but there was something else about this miracle that struck me. 

In the show, Jesus is summoned to a room where there are giant empty jars spread out on the ground. These jars had just recently been relieved of the last bit of wine for the wedding, and they had a big problem. They needed more wine! Jesus stands there silent for a moment, then he asks those with Him (including Thomas, one of his future disciples who would later be known as “Doubting” Thomas) to fill these jars with water. Thomas just looks at Jesus like He is crazy. But others, trusting that Jesus knows what he is doing, even if they don’t understand, go and get water to fill the jars.

My Question

The question I asked myself was this: Why couldn’t Jesus just make the wine appear?

He probably could have. He produced fish and loaves of bread in a later miracle. He obviously had the power summon wine at His command. But instead, he asked those with Him to fill the jars with water.

Why?

If I were Thomas, what would I do? Sure this is a familiar Biblical story now, but at the time, I may have felt more like Thomas than I care to admit. I’m sure my own brain would be thinking “What are you talking about? I need WINE, not WATER. What’s water going to accomplish? That seems like a lot of work for an unacceptable solution to our problem.”

Yes, often times when I read scripture, I find myself relating more to the doubters and the neigh-sayers than the fast responding faith-filled followers of Jesus.

I imagine it took some time to get those jars filled up with water. They couldn’t just turn on a faucet. But even if they could, that’s a lot of jars to fill. I get impatient just filling up my over-sized water bottle in the mornings for work.

The Water We Bring

Now obviously I don’t know Jesus’ reasoning for why He does what He does. As I understand it, scripture is meant to be read, felt, internalized, and interpreted in a way that is meaningful and impactful for us. Several people can read the same passage of scripture and derive different meanings and applications for their life. Or something that never provided much meaning before, all of a sudden will.

What impacted me while watching this episode was not just the declared faith in what Jesus said to do, but the mobilized faith put into action of doing what Jesus asked them to do. 

He asked them to bring water.

I began to think about the “water” that I bring. What actions of faith am I bringing? Am I bringing anything? Am I recognizing that Jesus has asked me to act, and not just declare my faith in Him? Declaring faith in my Savior is an important step in my personal faith journey, but sometimes it only brings me as far as “doubting” Thomas, who was perhaps slow or resistant to act or believe unless given some explanation or reason to do so.

I know I’m not the only one out there who sometimes stops and asks myself, “Wait, why am I doing this? What’s the meaning behind this? I want to understand this better.” Then I bring everything I have, all of my understanding, all of my strength, all of my doubting faith, and do my best to fill the empty jars before me.

The Power To Change

In this miracle, it was only after they brought water and filled all of the jars that Jesus changed the water into wine.

Jesus, with the almighty power to make wine appear if He so wished, thought instead that it was important to invite His followers to act. To bring their water and fill the jars. To participate in what would be an important miracle. A miracle that displayed the power to change.

It’s not really about how much water we bring. It’s more about the change that occurs once we’ve brought whatever water we could. Maybe it’s a few drops, a few cups, or a few waterfalls. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is the change, the real miracle, that comes from Jesus.

The power of this miracle is not in the amount of water we bring to fill the jars, but the power of change that only our Savior can give us.

Does He always require something of us before he decides to help us? No. His grace is given freely however he chooses. But sometimes, SOMETIMES, He does ask us to bring some water.

Sometimes I don’t understand why, and it may not seem like very much water, but I know He can work with whatever I bring.