On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
(John 2:1-11) ESV
The first act that God performed in the Genesis account of creation was nucleosynthesis. It would appear that the first recorded public miracle of Jesus was also nucleosynthesis, when Jesus turned water in to wine.
God fused Hydrogen nuclei (H+) to create all of the elements that we call the periodic table. There was another series of elements, of which heaven is made, that we have no knowledge of but it’s the reason why our periodic table is clearly missing a lot of things. This process caused the light according to God’s command: “let light be.”
We all have the same evidence. Our choice of paradigm determines what we think it’s evidence of.
– Matty’s Razor
It would appear that the first recorded public miracle of Jesus was also nucleosynthesis: the creation of Carbon, Nitrogen and a few other elements from water molecules. In this case, however, we don’t have to assume that a recreation of the command, “let light be,” took place in the water pots at the wedding. There was a more simple way in which Jesus produced the atomic species that he needed. If you remove the equivalent of a Hydrogen atom from the Oxygen nuclei you get Nitrogen. If you remove one more Hydrogen atom equivalent from Nitrogen you get Carbon. Ethanol, the compound that makes a drink like wine alcoholic, is composed only of Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. The pigments and flavors that give wine its distinctive color and taste require a few more elements. Wine, however, doesn’t contain all of the elements of the periodic table. In this case, in fact, it seems that the fewer the better.
In our passage today the governor of the feast noted that the wine that Jesus miraculously produced was better than anything else he had drunk that day. This is because Jesus synthesized only those compounds necessary to make the water have the flavor and alcohol of wine. The fermentation process wasn’t necessary. There was no need for yeast, a fungi, to metabolize sugar to produce ethanol. There wasn’t the normal accumulation of metabolic by-products that can make wine bitter. Jesus made pure wine by manipulating atomic nuclei, using both fusion and fission. He was showing off. If you have ever doubted that Jesus of Nazareth was truly God in human form, it is time to put doubt aside.
Faith is believing in something that you can’t see, because of evidence.
– Faith, definition
This wasn’t Jesus first miracle. We have to assume that since Mary prompted Jesus to do something to help the governor of the feast not loose face for having run out of wine, she knew that he was capable of making wine. Mary probably didn’t know that Jesus could change the size and composition of atomic nuclei, or synthesize an array of organic molecules, she may have thought that he could simply make wine appear (as when he fed 5,000 people using five loaves and two fishes). Whatever the case may be, the Bible makes a point of saying that this was the first of Jesus’ public miracles; the moment when he chose to reveal himself.
The fact that the first act of creation in Genesis and Jesus first public miracle are both examples of nucleosynthesis should not surprise us at all. That’s our God for you: consistent. We should be getting to know Him by now, such that we can discern what is true or not true about Him. We have to have a sense of His character and nature such that if anyone were to ask, “What would Jesus do?” we don’t have to think about it, we know. We know because it is what we would do, if we know God the way we ought to.