A Wedding Day Gone Bad
We all have our plans. Plans of what we want to achieve in life. Dreams of who we want to become and what we want to achieve. We plan how we want significant events in our lives to unfold. One major event in people’s lives is their wedding day. I recently experienced this! Hours go into planning outfits, food, colours, décor and selecting vendors, all while you work on a budget. The wedding day is special. It is also a day when we hope for essential things to run smoothly. We plan for the best. We can deal with a few hick-ups on the wedding day (sure, that’s expected). But when an essential factor in our wedding day plan goes wrong, it can be unsettling.
We see this at the wedding in Cana in John 2:1-12. All is well until they run out of wine for the wedding. When I first read this, I thought, ‘sure, no big deal. They can drink water or stock up on another drink’. But then I looked into the importance of wine in ancient Jewish history and discovered the following:
According to Jewish history, weddings in ancient Israel were huge celebrations, just like weddings today. It was expected that the celebration would cost a fortune. The bridegroom was supposed to go broke by the completion of the celebration. There was supposed to be unlimited wine and food for seven days straight. The celebration, opulence, and hospitality were all intended as a blessing. It would be a happy marriage if it was a good party. Unfortunately, they run out of wine on day three out of seven!
I imagine the bride and groom didn’t anticipate the wine running out less than halfway through the wedding. This would leave a bad memory in the guests’ minds. People will talk about how broke the bridegroom is and how unlucky the bride is to be married to him! People would go as far as saying, ‘they don’t have God’s blessing on their lives; this is why the wine ran out!’. But beyond what guests may have to say (wedding guests always have an opinion regardless of what goes well and what doesn’t), the disappointment of this type of major breakdown in the couples’ lives on their wedding day would have been significant.
Like the bride and groom, when major breakdowns occur on life’s journey, we become disappointed because we put so much effort into ensuring that things go well. But be rest assured, when things that are not part of YOUR plan show up, trust that God can and will step in. And He doesn’t step in the way you would think! Let’s go back to the text in John 2. Jesus turns water into wine. This has never happened before. He takes what is common and elevates it. Not only does He elevate it, but He also elevates it beyond what any human could have made of it by creating extremely good wine. He does this in the lives of His people as well. He takes our common things and makes something beautiful out of them. Something we would never have been able to cook up ourselves!
The testimony of the master of the feast in John 2:10 says it all:
Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.
I mean, even the master of the feast did not know what truly happened in the background. This is a testimony and compliment they would not have received if everything had gone according to ‘THEIR plan’.
So what can we take away from this? When that major event that you had so nicely placed in the order of your plans doesn’t go the way you wanted it to go, trust that God will give you better! Furthermore, He works behind the scenes without your knowledge, takes what you would never have imagined, and turns it into something beautiful. Please don’t become so accustomed to hearing this that you don’t take it seriously. God has never failed, and He certainly won’t start with you. God often works in the background, just like we see at the Cana wedding. He could be making way for you and creating opportunities. Trust Him! God’s plan is always better than your plan. Receive His peace when breakdowns occur along life’s journey and trust Him to turn the water into wine, the common into the uncommon, with an added testimony!
