(First published February 2, 2010)

I have been paid to perform weddings. I’ve been in weddings. I’ve cleaned up after weddings.  I once even stood right next to the bride at a wedding and kissed her.

I say all that to say, I know something about the preparation and stress and drama that surrounds weddings. Weddings are places where reality shifts, where words are uttered and life changes. They are places of promise and potential and resignation.

John says there is a wedding in Cana in Galilee. Mary’s at the wedding. Jesus and his followers are, too.

Scholars suggest that it was family and Mary was helping out in the kitchen, that Jesus was invited because it was family, and the disciples came along.

What we know from the text is that a guy and his friends and his mom are at a wedding and she says “They ran out of wine.”

Wouldn’t it be cool to know if she looked around at the five guys with Jesus when she said it, pointing out that they could have taken it easy instead of acting like a bunch of fishing buddies after a long trip home? Because that’s what they were.

Wouldn’t it be cool to know if she had come to depend on the creativity and thoughtfulness of her first-born? He could figure out how to solve this problem, to find more wine from somewhere.

Wouldn’t it be cool to know how many guests were there, whether this was a huge crowd of notables from out of town, or simply a small-town wedding of earnest, hopeful, ordinary friends and family?

Because what if this was a minor crisis in a little place?

It would mean that Jesus was willing to show up at the most normalist event we can imagine.

I mean, apart from our lives.