Something New (Mark 2;21-22)

It was at a wedding. The celebration had already been going on for three days when it was discovered that they had run out of wine. Mary turned to Jesus and told Him, “They don’t have any wine.” Next, she told the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” “There were six stone water jars there for Jewish purification. Each contained 20 to 30 gallons” (John 2:6-7). Jesus had the servants fill the empty stone jars with water. However, when the water was tasted, it was declared to be new wine. The new wine was declared far superior to what had previously been served.

I look at those empty stone water jars that were to used for purification and I am reminded of the stone tables on which the Ten Commandments were written. The Ten Commandments were at the heart of the old covenant to show God’s people how to have a relationship with a holy God. Just as the stone water jugs were empty of the water used for purification, so too, the commandments written on stone were unable to purify the people who tried in vain to keep them.

God’s people had been unable to keep the covenant that God had made with them, and as a result His holy name had been profaned among the nations. How did He choose to vindicate His holiness? “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you, I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:26,27). God’s people were unable to keep the law written on stone, so God did a new thing: He wrote it on their hearts by putting His Spirit within them.

The question had been asked, “Why don’t your disciples fast like the disciples of the Pharisees?” In response to this question Jesus refers to Himself as a bridegroom and explains that wedding guests don’t fast while the bridegroom is with them. Jesus had come bringing the good news of a new covenant. Just as at the wedding feast in Cana they had run out of wine,  so too those trying to reach God by keeping the law had fallen short.

Jesus had not come to try to patch something that was broken; Jesus didn’t come to show us how to try harder to keep the law; He came as a bridegroom to call His bride. Jesus said that for anyone who believed in Him that rivers of living water would flow out of his heart. This was the new covenant between the Bridegroom and the bride. Not a covenant written on stone, but a covenant written on the heart. I believe that if you taste that living water you will find that it tastes like new wine.