A dear friend recently wrote a post on Facebook explaining why she was no longer a Christian, and I answered (on Facebook) with a post of my own.

But one of the questions she asked spurred me to write this blog, as a tangent off of my original answer but also as a theological topic of it's own.

Her question involved Jesus and the Casual Party Trick (btw, I am so gonna write a children's book with that title. No stealing it!) Why would He do miracles (some seemingly pretty silly) then, but nothing now? For my full answer to that question, you can look on Facebook. This blog is about a particular "casual party trick" that Jesus performed - in fact, His first miracle. I am hoping to examine it and explain why it is not a casual party trick at all.

As most of you know, Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding. This looks to be the very definition of a casual party trick, especially when compared to his other miracles. Jesus healed the blind and deaf, restored withered hands, proclaimed prostitutes forgiven and raised men and children from their graves. In light of all this, I would like to make this statement: Outside of His resurrection, turning water into wine was Jesus' greatest miracle.

You've got to understand what He did here. In all His other miracles, He was helping a single person in something very much of this world. Blindness? Temporary and physical. Lameness? Temporary and physical. Epilepsy? Temporary and physical. Death? You get the point. But water into wine was significant of a far greater, eternal, and spiritual change.

Jesus didn't take water and make it taste like wine. He didn't add color and flavoring and a bit of alcohol for good measure. He didn't give it the appearance of wine. He turned it into wine. He changed it's very molecular structure so that it was no longer water, but a completely different thing. He changed what it was.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

He was very intentional with that first miracle. It would mirror His last greatest miracle - His saving death on the cross. The two are parallel, one a physical representation of the other's spiritual power. When Jesus saves us, He doesn't make us look redeemed. He doesn't give us the appearance of Holiness. He changes the very core of who we are. He reconstructs the very fabric of our being so that we are absolutely no longer who we were, but completely new creations.

I remember the day I was saved by God's redeeming grace. I was a couple of weeks shy of my 19th birthday. Those of you who have known me a while may be shocked by this sentiment. I grew up in the church. And while I believe that I was technically "saved" before this encounter, I really only looked pure. I looked holy. I wasn't a hypocrite. I was just...still me. But after this radical encounter with God during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I became a new person. So much so that when I look back on my life I have a hard time remembering that really was me before then. Because, really, it wasn't. I am not a fixed up version of Amber. I am a completely different person. Because that's what Jesus died for. To change me, at the core of my being.

And that's why He turned the water into wine. His very first miracle was to turn water into something bold. Dangerous. Powerful. New. Exotic. Rare. Holy. He turned water into wine that day...then, three and a half years later, the work began that would make us Holy. Make us redeemed. The imagery is breathtaking. And that's why I believe that outside His death and resurrection, this was His greatest miracle.