The first reading is a kind of writing that’s called “reminding the Lord”—reminding God about the promises God made to God’s people. It sounds strange because why would anyone have to remind God about anything? You don’t.

January is the least appealing month of the year for weddings. Fewer than 5 percent of couples choose to marry at the start of the year, compared with more than 10 percent each in June and August. More couples tie the knot in March—during Lent!—than in January (although most of them probably aren’t Catholic). So it may seem a little untimely to talk about weddings six months off peak season.

Three days later there was a wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus and his disciples were guests also. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus’ mother told him, “They’re just about out of wine.”

A Facebook post making the rounds consists of a row of wine bottles in a store with a sign above them that says, “Water.” The comment below the photo reads: “Jesus was here.” Changing water into wine is the first “sign” mentioned in John’s gospel and a favorite miracle of many Christians. But the keyword in that miracle is not “wine” but “change.”

In Jesus God has done something new and ushered in a new age. In that spirit of renewal, we ask for the gift of God’s forgiveness.

You shall be called by a new name, the prophet says, and God’s bringing forth something new, a new age of the Messiah, underlies the gospel story of Jesus’ “sign” in Cana.

The earth also shall yield its fruit ten-thousandfold and on each vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall produce a thousand clusters, and each cluster produce a thousand grapes. —The Apocalypse of Baruch 29:5, Second century