Weddings and Wine!

When Paul and I got married 24 years ago, it was in a small wooden chapel in a small town in Alberta. We would never have guessed that in 5 years we'd celebrate our wedding anniversary in Paris! Nor that 24 years later we'd be celebrating in Jerusalem! (Now I'm wondering where we'll have our 40th!)

This journey we've been on has been exciting and amazing in so many ways, and yet simple and straightforward in others! Both of us came from an overseas background - Paul starting in South Africa and me in India - and while that gave us a great inheritance of outlook and experience, in other ways we were incredibly poor and inadequate! (When the immigration officer found out I made $5000 a year in my church job, and wanted to sponsor Paul into the country, he just laughed and stamped the paper, saying if one could live on that, then two could!)

April 30 in our Jerusalem garden!

We've found joy in small things: walks and games, candles and flowers, reading and talking, serving, studying and debating. Not once in a while, but every day. We've shared ordinary moments and felt as if they were extraordinary. Most of the time we felt really lucky, even though we didn't own a car until we'd been married for nine years! We've noticed things like fallen leaves and beautiful skies, laughed over the same jokes and listened to similar music. We've enjoyed a matching pace of life and respected each other's different world views long enough to find a place where we could see the same view, or pretty close. As a good friend said, "We've honoured one another".

New, young life, up in Galilee

We travelled to beautiful Vancouver and spent two years there at grad school. Then it was off to England and Paul's PhD where, by a friend's kindness, we lived in a mansion that later was sold and became home to the head of Cambridge University. Our suite in it became a guest suite for Prince Philip! (It was from there that we hopped a plane with a $40 airfare to Paris for our 5th anniversary!) From England we went to Regina, a wonderful place to nest and have babies, which we did! Finally we moved to Calgary, to the heart of family and friends and familiar landscapes, where the prairies and open skies meet the mountains.

Beside the Cana well

Through it all, the ups and downs and seasons that come and go, there has been a spring of water that has kept us alive: too deep for us to see but near enough for us to taste. It has really been like the Holy Grail - the inexplicable, never-ending cup that is a fountain of eternality.  It refreshes, soothes, awakens, heals, cleanses and strengthens us. It is beyond us but within us.

When we came to Cana, I found out exactly what it was. It was wedding wine, made by Jesus!

The arches of Cana's church

A few days before our anniversary, we visited Cana, in Galilee. This is where Jesus performed His first public miracle. Well, the miracle really was somewhat private, probably at a family wedding, and it seemed to happen only because His mother hinted that He should do it and made sure that all was in place for it to go ahead, but that's how weddings and families go, and there it was!  It happened. A genuine, on-earth miracle! Practical and perfect. (And all those details - of the Son's initial hesitation, the mother's preparation, leading to the final production, make it so believable and real. Read John 2:1-11 for all the fun!) Once the miracle happened, there was no stopping it! No stopping the power of a loving, holy Spirit from bursting out in the world - which was always God's plan, for all of life.

Mary and ancient pottery

The wedding blessing ceremony
- where children blessed parents too!

This Cana miracle was about something so simple yet urgent as wedding wine! The party was only half-over but the wine jars were empty. Not a good scenario! Bride and groom were blissfully unaware. The wedding planner was frantic. Perhaps the mother of the bride knew Mary, the mother of Jesus. In any case, Mary intervened, told Jesus "they need more wine," and He made it happen. He didn't just fill wine jars. He got the water jars filled - these were enormous clay pots that held water not only for drinking but even for washing. Their water, fresh from the well, had been used to wash the guests' feet when they arrived, used to quench their thirst; maybe to wash their hands between courses; and you know how much water is needed for so many dishes! These pots were capacious! They were now empty. Jesus had the servants fill all six of them with water. Without a word, He turned that water into wine.

Try it; don't buy it!

Miniature wine jars for sale

There's a lot that can be said about this. I'll say only a little, because any miracle but especially a marriage miracle is beyond comprehension. But Ghada, our guide, who's from that area, told us that there would have been enough wine in those jars to serve the wedding party for ages to come! They would never run out! The Bible also tells us that this wine was better than the first, the stuff that had already been served. (I drank a sample sip of "Cana wine" that was sold for $25/bottle in the local shops. Believe me, those guests must have been grateful when something different was put on the table!) Because of Jesus, the party went on, and the marriage got off to a great beginning. ...What a good thing He was there!

Here's what I know: the wedding wine that comes from God never runs out. There's enough for all time. It is the fountain of eternal supply. The wedding wine He makes has nothing to do with how competent or wonderful the bride and groom are. It makes up, in fact, for incredible unpreparedness! And it allows the party to continue with unwitting joy! The wine is often mediated through the unseen, unknown intervention and kindness of family and friends; observant caring people without whom the marriage could be a flop, a fizzle or a full-blown fiasco! How grateful we can be in retrospect! Finally, and this part is especially wonderful to me today: the wedding wine that comes later is much better and far more remarkable than the early stuff. 24 years down the road, I know it's true!

There's no accounting for the miracles of Jesus. No accounting for the wonder of love that lasts and marriage that grows. It's all gift, and I'm so grateful.

Happy Anniversary, Paul! I love you! Long may the party go on!!

Wedding vow renewal certificate

Reclining - like in good old Bible times!

Anniversary dinner at "The Tent" restaurant

 

 Somehow Frasier thought he had to come too!

Big enough for a Cana wedding party!