The Best Wine - The Wedding Story That Shaped Our Indiana Winery

There was a Sunday morning I'll never forget.

My wife and I spent nearly two years wrestling with a call from God — one that felt both crystal clear and utterly terrifying. Start a winery. Take our life savings and invest it into creating a business I really new little about. Sure I had made wine, but I had never run a business. I had never been involved with making wine professionally.

The internal debate was relentless. How could God be calling us to make alcohol? What would people think? What if we were hearing Him wrong?

That particular Sunday though was different. We had found a property. Everything about the property seemed right - the location was great, it had land, the land had been farmed organically, it had a building, and it fit our budget. The call was feeling extra terrifying as we contemplated putting in an offer. We had prayed for wisdom and clarity on this for some time now but not it was frantic. And as God had done over and over He answered, but this time we actually heard Him.

In the auditorium at Northview Church in Carmel, where I was a ministry associate, our head Pastor began to speak. The topic of his sermon? John 2 - The Wedding at Cana and Jesus's first public miracle.

But it wasn't just that he preached on this passage. It was what he said as I was struggling with whether God wanted me to make wine. He emphasized three points, delivering them seemingly to me and me alone. Our pastor's emphatic points were:

1. Jesus made wine.

2. Jesus made LOTS of it.

3. And Jesus made really good wine.

   
   

I sat there, mouth gaping. Convicted. Everything about that sermon—the timing, the specificity, the directness—I felt as though God was standing a foot in front of me, gripping my shoulders to comfort me and hold my attention while saying,

"I've got you. This is the calling. Now trust me."

HEARD! We were going to open a winery but not just any winery, but a winery driven by Christian principles, in Indianapolis, as an act of worship and obedience. And through the miracle of faith the terror disappeared and a peace beyond understanding washed over us. The fears and doubts transformed by an overwhelming confidence, not in ourselves, but in the God of the universe. After all, if God is for us, who can be against us?

We made the offer that week. Today, The Rejoicing Vine sits on that very property, and every bottle we produce carries the echo of that Sunday morning when Jesus's first miracle became deeply, personally ours.

A Miracle That Almost Seems... Excessive?

Personal stories aside, can I be honest? The Wedding at Cana seems like a strange choice for Jesus's debut miracle. He doesn't solve any major life issues healing the sick or casting out demons. He doesn't feed the hungry or raise the dead. He saves a party—a wedding that's run out of wine before the celebration is over.

And that's not all, there's also the scale of His solution.

Six stone water jars, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. That's somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons of premium wine—or roughly 600 to 900 bottles by today's standards. 900 bottles of wine! 75 cases! For one wedding. In a small village.

It seems... odd. Well, excessive. Unnecessary. Even indulgent.

And if there's one thing I have learned in my journey as a Christian, it's when things in the Bible are odd, it's an opportunity for deep learning.

So let's dive and try to understand what Jesus was really doing.

Point One: Jesus Made Wine—And It Matters That He Did

The water Jesus transformed wasn't random. These were stone jars used for Jewish purification rituals—ceremonial washings prescribed by Old Testament law. They represented the old way of doing things, the religious systems people had grown accustomed to. The water was used to clean external items like hands, feet, and dishes.

And Jesus turned that water into wine.

Not grape juice. Not a symbolic beverage. Wine—the real, fermented, joy-producing drink that had been woven into the fabric of Jewish celebration for centuries. Wine that the Psalms 104 say "gladdens the heart of man." Wine that prophets used to describe the abundance of God's coming Kingdom.

When Jesus made wine as His first miracle, He was making a statement: I am not here to condemn the good gifts of creation. I'm here to fulfill them, to restore them, to show you what abundance really looks like.

For me, sitting in that auditorium two years into my wrestling match, this was permission. Not permission to be reckless or irresponsible with alcohol, but permission to see winemaking as a legitimate calling—even a sacred one. Jesus Himself had dignified it with His very first public act.

Point Two: He Made LOTS of It—Because God Doesn't Do "Just Enough"

Here's where the miracle gets really interesting.

A wedding celebration in Jesus's day could last up to a week. We don't know exactly when they ran out of wine. We also don't know how many guests were there, though estimates range from fifty to several hundred in a small town where everybody knew everybody.

What we do know is that Jesus didn't provide "just enough." He didn't carefully calculate the bare minimum needed to get them through the rest of the celebration. He gave them 120 to 180 gallons of the finest wine anyone had ever tasted.

This is abundance. This is overflow. This is God's character on full display.

The prophet Amos promised that when the Messiah came there would be a time of abundance, a time where "new wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills." At Cana, Jesus was announcing: That time is now. The age of scarcity is over. I am ushering in the age of God's extravagant generosity.

For those of us used to a religion characterized by "don't" and "can't" and "be careful," this is revolutionary. God isn't interested in giving us just enough to scrape by. He wants us to experience life in all its fullness—life that spills over, life that celebrates, life that throws parties and invites everyone.

When we started our winery, we did not do it make to make "just enough". We did it to cultivate abundance—to create a place where people could experience community, celebration, and the goodness of God's creation together. T

hat's what Jesus modeled at Cana.

Point Three: Supreme Quality—Because Excellence Honors the Giver

The master of the banquet's reaction is priceless: "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now."

This wasn't ordinary wine. This wasn't "good enough" wine. This was the best wine these people had ever tasted—and it came last, when convention said to serve the inferior stuff.

Jesus doesn't do mediocre. When He creates, when He restores, when He transforms—He does it with excellence that reflects the character of His Father.

This truth has shaped everything about how we work at The Rejoicing Vine. We're not here for "good enough". We're pursuing quality that honors the One who called us to this work. We're also not doing things out of convention. We are asking ourselves what is the right way of do things. Every decision—from how we tend the vines to how we welcome guests—is an opportunity to reflect the excellence Jesus demonstrated at Cana.

That pursuit of excellence is not about pride or showing off. It's about stewardship. It's about taking God's good creation and treating it with the respect and care it deserves. It's about offering our best because we serve a God who gave His best for us.

What The Wedding at Cana Teaches Us About Community and Calling at Our Indiana Winery

Here's what I've come to understand about Jesus's first miracle: it wasn't ultimately about the wine. It was about what the wine represented and what it made possible.

Wine in the ancient world wasn't just a beverage—it was communal—a social glue that gladdens the heart and brings communities together. It was served at weddings, celebrations, covenants, and sacred meals. It marked important moments and created space for people to linger, to talk, to connect. And that's the type of space our society is in desperate need of amidst the hustle and bustle of today's lifestyle.

When Jesus ensured the wedding celebration could continue, He was protecting community. He was saying that relationships matter, that joy matters, that gathering together matters. He was demonstrating that He cares about the practical, everyday concerns that bring people together—even something as seemingly trivial as running out of wine at a party.

That truth is the heartbeat of The Rejoicing Vine — creating a space where people can slow down, savor, and reconnect. Whether it’s through a shared glass of sparkling wine or a moment of laughter under the vines, that’s where faith meets community.

This is why we do what we do at The Rejoicing Vine. Yes, we make wine. But the wine isn't the point—it's an opportunity to create space for community. It's what brings people through the door, what gives them permission to slow down and stay awhile, what creates space for conversations that matter. It's what allows us to cultivate life and build community. And that community—that gathering, that celebration, that connection—that's what Jesus cared about at Cana. That's what He cares about now.

I Saw A Sign. And It Opened Up My Eyes.

John's Gospel calls Jesus's miraculous works "signs"—pointers to something greater. And this first sign at Cana was pointing to a massive truth that would open up the eyes of the blind. The blind who until He arrived tried to see through dirty lenses. It took Jesus to show us how to clean them.

Nerd Alert: Things Are About to Get Delightfully Dorky

Feel free to skip this section if you want to keep things simple—but if you love digging deeper into Scripture, this one's for you.

The jars Jesus used for the miracle were ceremonial washing jars. They were used for external, ceremonial cleanliness - washing hands, feet, cups, and dishes.

Here's the thing: these jars represented an entire system of religion focused on external purity. Wash your hands the right way. Use the right vessels. Follow the right rituals. Stay ceremonially clean on the outside.

And Jesus took the water from those jars—water meant for external washing—and transformed it into wine, something meant to be consumed. Shifting the focus from something external to something internal.

This wasn't random. This was prophetic.

Throughout His ministry, Jesus consistently confronted the religious leaders about their obsession with external cleanliness while ignoring the condition of their hearts. In Matthew 23:25-26, He told the Pharisees:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence... First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean."

Do you see what Jesus was doing at Cana? He was taking the very symbol of external, ritualistic cleansing—those stone water jars—and transforming their contents into something that would be drank, consumed, & internalized. He was announcing, in His very first miracle, that the age of external religion was giving way to something deeper: internal transformation.

The Old Covenant was about external washing—water on your hands, blood on the doorposts, rituals you performed to stay ceremonially pure. It was important, but it was never meant to be the final answer. The prophets had been saying this for centuries. God told Samuel,

"The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).

Jeremiah promised a new covenant where God's law would be written on hearts, not just stone tablets (Jeremiah 31:33).

And now here's Jesus at a wedding, standing in front of six massive jars that represent the old way of doing things, and He's about to replace their contents with something entirely new.

Water → Wine.

External → Internal.

Ritual → Relationship.

Old Covenant → New Covenant.

Later in John's Gospel, Jesus would speak of "living water" that He gives—water that becomes "a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14). He would stand in the temple and cry out, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them" (John 7:37-38). John clarifies that Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit, who would come to dwell inside believers. From within. Not externally applied, but internally transforming.

That's the sign the wine at Cana was pointing toward. Jesus didn't come to give us better rules for external cleanliness. He came to transform us from the inside out, to give us new hearts, to fill us with His Spirit so that holiness flows from within rather than being imposed from without.

The stone jars are empty now. The old system of external washing has served its purpose. And in its place, Jesus offers us wine—abundant, excellent, joy-producing wine that we drink in, that becomes part of us, that transforms us from the inside out.

And now that we've explored all that, there's just one question remaining...how do we book more weddings like the one in Cana at our Indiana winery? 🤪 Ok, well in all seriousness we do have one more question.

What About You?

Maybe you're wrestling with a calling that doesn't make sense. Maybe God is asking you to do something that feels uncomfortable, unconventional, or even controversial. Maybe you're standing at the edge of a decision that requires everything you have, and you're not sure if you're hearing God's voice correctly.

I can't tell you what God is calling you to. But I can tell you this: the God who made wine at Cana—abundantly, excellently, joyfully—is the same God who calls you. He doesn't call you to scarcity or mediocrity or fearful half-measures. He calls you to abundance, to excellence, to the kind of life that makes people say, "You saved the best for last."

That sermon at Northview Church gave me the conviction I needed. The Holy Spirit took an ancient story and made it breathtakingly personal. God does that. He takes His Word—living and active—and speaks directly into the wrestlings of our hearts.

So if you're wrestling, keep wrestling. Read John 2. Sit with it. Ask God to speak to you through it. And then, like Mary told the servants at the wedding: "Do whatever He tells you."

That's where the miracles happen.

Experience Community At The Rejoicing Vine

At The Rejoicing Vine, we believe wine is more than a beverage—it's a vessel for community, celebration, and connection. We'd love to welcome you to our winery in Indianapolis to experience this for yourself. Looking for a space to connect with other Christians? Or curious about Christianity but not ready to step into a church? Join us anytime or stop by during The Happiest Hour and enjoy a free glass of wine.

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