Spirit Into Wine

John 2: 6-10
Six stoneware water pots were there, used by the Jews for ritual washings. Each held twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus ordered the servants, "Fill the pots with water." And they filled them to the brim.
"Now fill your pitchers and take them to the host," Jesus said, and they did.
When the host tasted the water that had become wine (he didn't know what had just happened but the servants, of course, knew), he called out to the bridegroom, "Everybody I know begins with their finest wines and after the guests have had their fill brings in the cheap stuff. But you've saved the best till now!"
Warning! This is kinda deep theological stuff. If you don’t have a high tolerance for that high-fallootin’ talk, feel free to skip this one.
I was reading this passage one day and I asked myself, "Why did Christ perform this as his first miracle?" I mean, really! Did the Son of God lack the Public Relations skills to avoid having a miracle that involved a beverage that can be enjoyed while fasting turned into booze as his first public miracle? It's a ridiculous miracle. Our savior would later raise the dead, cast out demons, feed thousands with a few loaves of bread and heal the blind, but to warm up: turn water into wine.
I have an answer to that question. Let's look at the "end" of his earthly ministry right before his death. It's the last supper: It's a similar scene, Jesus is enjoying a good meal with his disciples. He then conducts what we've now contorted into the ritual of communion:
Mark 14
22While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take it; this is my body."
23Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it.
24"This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many," he said to them. 25"I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God."
So wine was used to represent the blood of Christ, the blood that would be poured out as a sacrifice for our sins. Wine = Blood of Christ. Check.
So what does water represent? The Spirit of God. This one is not so overt. The parallel to this can be found in the ministry of John the Baptist. John says in Luke 3:16, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come .... He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." It's insinuated here that water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Water = Spirit of God. Check.
Alright, two down one to go. Let's not overlook those six stoneware pots. Yeah, the pots are important too. You see in Jewish culture, stone could not be made "unclean" (think unsanitary). If you used a pot of clay and put something unclean in it, it became "unclean" and you had to destroy the vessel. An interesting side-note is that the Bible describes our bodies as "jars of clay". When we became unclean by sin, we had to be destroyed to become clean, which unfortunately means we have to die physically. That's a big problem if your eternal element, your spirit, is also in a permanent state of death. However, the Bible refers to Jesus as "the Capstone" or the "Stone" (Acts 4:11 ). He is a stone vessel that can never become sinful or unclean. He could contain all our unclean, lethal sin and not be defiled by it.
I hope you see where this is going. Jesus was a vessel like the stone jars. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, he was God incarnate and he transformed spirit into blood. He washed and cleansed us by transforming the righteousness of God into a blood that could cover our sins. If you really think about this, it's endless. Over and over again, Christ uses his miracles as symbols of his ministry for all people.
If Jesus used bread as a symbol of his body, what does the feeding of the five thousand mean? Think about it.