Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11 If you think of this carafe being one litre and the six jars at Cana each being a hundred times that size then it was an awful lot of wine Jesus produced, wasn`t it? - a demonstration of divine abundance . . . amazing grace indeed! So when have you experienced God giving more than you expected …when your cup overflowed with happiness? Maybe when you fell in love? When you did something really satisfying in your work or recreation? When your child or grandchild was born? I`m almost certain such experiences will have changed you in some way just as it did for those who experienced Jesus at that time. In fact the gospel passage we just heard is sometimes called the Great Transformation.

So I wonder where you would see the great transformation points in your life? I suspect some of those would also have been associated with times when your cup overflowed with pain and how you handled that. As Richard Rohr puts it, `I always say that the way you can tell if your religion is healthy is by what you do with your pain, what you do with your woundedness: and if you do not transform it, if your religion is not helping you transform it, you will with 100 per cent certitude, transmit it.`

A week ago The West Australian had an article which caught my eye - it was titled `Healing dad ready to help others`. Was it the dad who was healing or was he providing healing? Turned out to be both! The dad was Chris Nicholls whose four week old baby son had been killed by his mentally ill wife in 2008. But despite the devastating loss and later going through a divorce, Mr Nicholls discovered he could rebuild his life thinking `my gut feeling was to make my baby`s life not be meaningless.` But then he added, `The paradox is, as bad as it was, I actually feel like a better person, a kinder person, a nicer person.` Mr Nicholls has since trained and now works as a counsellor as well as volunteering with the Samaritans and SIDS and Kids. For as he put it, `I think I`ve got so much to offer for people in any post-traumatic stress scenario . . . It`s something that you don`t recover from. You learn to live with it.` Here is someone who has transformed his pain in a courageous way - if he had not done so then maybe depression and anger and bitterness would have been overflowing in destructive ways by now.

This contrasted with an article the following day in last week`s Sunday Times titled `Depths of despair: Perth couple fight ship nightmare`. Apparently they were in the last lifeboat off the Costa Concordia which sank a year ago and they were telling of `their daily battle with post-traumatic stress disorder.` Rob the husband said, `I was angry for a long time. I just wanted to hurt myself or somebody else. I was on suicide watch. It`s the top of the list. I think about it every day.` This week the couple started court action against the Costa owners for damages.

Seeking retribution or learning acceptance? . . . two very different paths! But of course none of us know how we will react when tragedy or trauma hits us. However, I do agree with Richard Rohr in seeing that sin arises from suffering, and that God pities rather than hates it. The judge, in recognising that the balance of the mother`s mind was disturbed from the effects of childbirth, was able to come from that divine angle, giving her a two year intensive supervision order with conditions that she continue with psychiatric counselling rather than time in jail - hopefully a healing journey for her too.

Rohr sees that such a grace-filled perspective changes everything away from fear-based punitive religion towards acknowledging `the power of the In-dwelling Spirit to transform us and to use our very sin to bring us to God, which is the meaning of the Cross; God using sin to redeem the world. God teaching us how to use the mistakes for the journey to God.` I much prefer the phrase `the journey with God` for as Rohr points out `that`s the gospel [good news] because that`s the only journey that any of us are ever going to be capable of anyway.`

And let us not forget that God wants to celebrate en route, too! No wonder the writer of John`s gospel places the first revelation of Jesus`s divine power in the midst of a wedding feast! A wedding is still one of the most important and transformational events in the life of a man and woman and of society in general, and it was especially so in Palestine at the time of Jesus. Celebrating a marriage was a very special undertaking full of both human and religious significance, and it would be long remembered. As today, a marriage was not only the realization of a long awaited dream it also held the promise of happiness and contentment as well as offering hope for the future and blessings on the part of God.

But, as I usually point out when I officiate at a wedding, the beloved couple who make the commitment to love and care for each other also reflect an image of how I see God in relationship with us - God seeing us as beloved, delighting in our times of joy, God having caring arms, helping to support when the struggles of life get too much to bear. Which is what Isaiah is saying in his poetry `as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God rejoices with you.` And so I leave you to reflect on that and the times in your life when you too have experienced this indwelling sense of grace and love as a powerful life-force permeating and transforming the whole of creation.