BOOKENDS

“Bartending bookends the work of Jesus. He begins his journey by filling glasses to the brim and the long road ends with him serving and sharing a drink with his friends.”

Of all the sermons I’ve ever heard, or given, about the first miracle of Jesus turning water into wine what has been missed is that the first miracle is an act of bartending. Jesus took water and turned it into wine providing an unexpected extra round of libations for the wedding party. Even the most conservative of commentators on the text acknowledge the amount of water turned to wine would be the basis of a good party. Of all the ways to tip his hand, Jesus chose the miracle of spirits to reveal his divine nature. 

I’ve returned to this text in John countless times through the Jesuit practice of imaginative prayer. I invite my imagination and senses to enter the story. What do I smell? What do I feel? What do I hear? What do I taste? What do I see? And finally I ask, “What does Jesus say to me?” 

Each time I return to the wedding banquet there’s another layer of detail. The dancing, the meal, the servants, the children, the couple. And then there is this moment in my imagination when the wine is served and I see the deepest smile come across Jesus’ face as he witnesses the levity and joy of grace. In that first act of bartending, Jesus mingles the natural and supernatural world through spirits and shows us a spirituality beyond anything we have known. Here is God pouring out love and grace to humanity.

And at the other end there is the Last Supper, the most rehearsed toast across the history of the time. We anxiously overlook that it is the one who will save the world who is holding up the cup. In the hours before the worst will happen, here Jesus is, raising a glass. His toast echoes through eternity. He raises a glass to the love of a God who has come, and both willing to raise the glass and, as Henri Nouwen writes, “willing to drink the cup.”

Bartending bookends the work of Jesus. He begins his journey by filling glasses to the brim and the long road ends with him serving and sharing a drink with his friends. Spirits and spirituality are never far from each other in the life and story of Jesus. 

Jared Ray Mackey