The Indestructible Light

The world-bending words at the beginning of John’s Gospel announce the incarnation of God—Christ on earth walking in neighborhoods and the countryside. The Messiah among us, the Word become flesh—what could this mean? “Come and see,” Jesus says. In the Gospel of John, he wastes no time finding followers. A ministry of action is underway. Soon he will scatter the moneychangers, teach, heal, forgive, and turn fatefully toward Jerusalem. But not yet.

First, he shows up at a wedding—the Anointed One enjoying the moment, seemingly at rest before he moves on to the convulsive dramas that await. This episode of turning water into wine comes first, as if to reassure us that the bewildering idea of the Lord incarnate isn’t incomprehensible after all but at home among everyday human celebrations.

Wherever Jesus walked he was an awakener, stirring the heart’s capacity to recognize Christ and respond to him. And so we incarnate the news ourselves. He moves through the world, gathering witnesses, followers—and also denials. He exposes hardened attitudes, urges self-examination, and confronts our resistance to our own redemption, our own potential.

Believers turn water into wine every day, whenever they regard creation as something more than the play of biological elements or the exercise of ruthless power. Creation is the place where incarnation can unfold and meet each person’s suffering. It’s the field of the Almighty’s acts. When people regard life on earth as living proof of God’s care and existence, then grace overflows.