Transcript
One question that self-help teachers and spiritual directors like to ask is: what gives you joy? what for you is life-giving? 

Another is: what did you enjoy doing as a child that you don’t do now?

As a small child, I enjoyed painting-books which had outline drawings, grey lines on greyish paper. But when I wiped a wet paintbrush over them, they came to life with colour. Magic! Or so it seemed to me.

That transformation of drabness into colour is beginning to happen around us now (depending how far north you live). Snowdrops are almost in bloom, daffodil shoots are showing above ground, there are pale green buds on the trees.

The gospel story this Sunday is about transformation. At a wedding party in Galilee, the wine was running out and the host family were facing social disaster. St John tells how Mary asked Jesus to help, and he turned six large jars of water into wine – around 120 gallons of it! And not just ‘plonk’ but the best vintage. That must have turned into some party.

But John wants us to see more than the miracle that happened that day in Cana. For him, the six jars of water represent Jewish ceremonial cleansing and law. He wanted the readers of his time to see how these are transformed by the overflowing abundance of God’s grace in Jesus. 

That grace still flows abundantly. One thing we understand from the story today is that whenever Jesus is invited into someone’s life there comes a transformation which is like water turning into wine, like greyness becoming suffused with colour.

Like the approaching Spring, the transformation may be gradual and take time. Or it may be like a sudden burst of sunshine. How has faith already transformed you? What part of your life still needs that transformation?

May you know the transforming power of God’s grace.

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