When the Wine Runs Out

Nothing on earth is a more joyful occasion than a wedding—it is the continuation of human existence. At the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee the enjoyment was high. Everyone was excited and happy, and there seemed to be plenty of wine. In the middle of the festivities, however, the wine ran out, and with it, the enjoyment.

Today our human life is just like that wedding feast. The wine signifies our human life and human enjoyment. Just like the wine at that feast, our enjoyment in human life eventually reaches its end; we come to the last drop of wine, and there is simply no more.

Even before we physically die, we experience the wine running out. Human enjoyment is fleeting; it is real, but it is running out. Sooner or later, in every situation, in every relationship, in every type of human pleasure, the wine runs out. Our family, so dear to us, one day is gone. Divorce or separation may come, and our husband or wife, once the perfect match, is no longer with us. Our friends, with whom we’ve shared so many enjoyable times, slowly drift away. Our exciting college days soon come to an end. Our profession, perhaps challenging and rewarding, also comes to an end. In every human achievement, pleasure, and joy, the “wine” is slowly running out. Eventually even our own life, regardless of how successful or joyful, is over. In this “wedding feast” which we all live in today, the “wine” is running out.

However, there was a special guest invited to the wedding at Cana of Galilee—the Lord Jesus. He performed a miracle that produced, out of water, wine better than that which had run out. This was more than just a miracle, it was a sign showing us why Jesus came into the world.

Jesus asked for six waterpots to be filled to the brim with water. These waterpots signify man who was made as a vessel to contain something (2 Cor. 4:7). The water that filled them signifies death. In the Bible stagnant water is often a symbol of death (Gen. 7:23-24; Exo. 14; Rom. 6:3). These waterpots show that men, though in a situation where there is some enjoyment, are actually vessels being slowly filled up with death.

From the beginning, God’s intention was to fill man as a vessel with His life (Gen. 2:9), but sin entered into man before this could happen (Gen. 3:3,6) and filled man with death (Rom. 5:12).

God never intended that man experience death. Death came as a result of sin. Yet God would not allow death to occupy man forever. That is why Jesus came.

For centuries man has tried to fix his inward situation of death by means of outward religious practices. The waterpots that stood there were meant for the Jewish rite of purification. These religious practices of man, which clean him up in an outward way, can never change the death occupying him on the inside. Only Jesus Himself, by coming into us, can change our inward death into life. Without the Lord Jesus, there is no way for us to obtain life.

As the verses of the Gospel of John show, Jesus commanded that some of the water in the stone pots be drawn out and brought to the ruler of the feast (John 2:8). Not knowing that it had been water, the ruler tasted the wine and exclaimed, “Every man serves the good wine first, and when they have drunk, then that which is poorer; but you have kept the good wine until now” (John 2:10). Jesus changed the death water into a wine far superior to the poor wine that had run out.

Our human life is just the poor wine, inferior in quality and quickly exhausted. We want it to fill us, but it leaves us unsatisfied. The new wine, the best wine, is the wine that comes from God. It signifies the Lord’s own life, the divine and eternal life we receive in Jesus.

He is waiting to fill you with the life of God. Open to Him now by praying in this way: