In the second chapter of John’s gospel, the old saint recalls the story of Jesus’s first recorded miracle–turning water into wine. As the story goes, the wedding feast was going great until the family ran out of wine. Rather than let a good party get ruined, Jesus’s mother asked Him to do something to rescue it. Since Jesus loved a good party, and since He was a good Jewish boy who obeyed His mother, He obliged, even though it wasn’t quite time for Him to start His ministry.

He spots 6 huge stone water jugs nearby, and then comes one really interesting little aspect of this story comes next.

Jesus could have filled the empty jars directly with wine. But instead, He asked some people to fill them with water. The various methods of Jesus’s miracles has always fascinated me. One time He heals a blind man with just a touch, but another time He makes mud to heal blindness.

So, there must be a reason why He uses different methods for His miracles. What could be the reason He asks some people to fill up the jars with water so He could then turn the water into wine, instead of just filling them up with wine directly? I mean, these jars held 20-30 gallons of water, so it probably took 2 people to carry each jar. Why make these poor, hard-working people do this extra work?

Because He wanted to teach us that sometimes, He wants us to participate with Him in His miracles. He doesn’t need our help, but sometimes He wants it so we can learn from it.

What could we learn from this?

First, that we should trust Him. Blindly, without knowing what the outcome will be, or the method God will use to answer our prayers. Mary knew Jesus could fix the situation, but she didn’t know what that solution would look like. She didn’t tell the servants to fill up the jugs–she only asked them to do whatever Jesus told them to do.

Second, that we should put in the work we feel like God is directing us to do. Yes, we should trust Him, but sometimes the way He answers our prayers is by blessing our efforts. So, if we don’t put in the effort, we may not get the blessing. The servants probably had no idea why Jesus asked them to fill up the jars with water–it must have seemed to them to be a strange request when what the party needed was more wine, not more water. But they did it anyway. And what happened? Jesus blessed their effort by turning the water into wine. They had contributed to saving the party and sparing their family significant public embarrassment.

Bottom line, we need to trust God like it depends on Him (because it does) but work like it depends on us (because with God, there are blessings and lessons mixed into our efforts). This is the way of the Kingdom.