Water and wine

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A trifecta of Johnny Cash on Blog Action Day and throw in a reference to Jesus, too.
I was pondering how much of Jesus' ministry involved water. Let's list a few:
  1. Baptized
  2. Performed water into wine miracle
  3. Frequented boats
  4. Walked on water
  5. Claimed to be living water
  6. Spoke of springs of living water coming out of people
  7. Asks for a drink of water from a woman at a well
  8. Taught about blessing of giving a cup of water in his name
  9. Washed disciples feet with water
Wouldn't it be great if Jesus performed a miracle of turning poor water into clean water? Well he is actually doing that these days through his followers. Samaritans Purse is doing just that with their water projects. I will also plug Wine To Water efforts to get clean accessible water to One Billion People. They currently are working on getting water filters to Pakistan where flood have plagued that region recently.
In Israel and most of the Middle East, the main water source is precipitation which can be collected in cisterns. It seems run off would affect the water quality if there was not any filtration plus if it stands for any period of time it could become stagnant. Because of scarce water supplies access to water has become as important as crude oil in the region.

The next war in the Near East will not be about politics, but over water. -Former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali

It's hard to get over political hurdles. I guess that is why Samaritan's Purse does what they do in addition to the numerous NGOs and charities that are hoping to bring better life to those without clean water.

Back to wine, wine seems to have been an essential, a necessity, to the people of the Bible. Wine may have been drank instead of water probably because it wouldn't go bad (even though I have read the Israeli wine in those days wasn't that good.) This reminds me of why ships gave out rations of rum and beer- because on a long journey the water would go stagnant or get contaminated with salt water. So Jesus' turning water into wine could in fact be beneficial to the guests- especially since it seemed to be better wine.

Posted for Blog Action Day 2010

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