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The Gospel today is about the first miracle that Jesus performed. It is unique. There are no healings, or obvious teachings. The teaching is actually rather subtle. Jesus makes wine for a wedding at the request or expectation of his mother. There are a few points that I want to draw your attention to because they are useful teachings about spirituality. The first is the amount of wine made, the six stone water jars contained 20 to 30 gallons each. That is approximately 120 to 360 gallons of wine in total. That is a lot of wine!
I want to draw your attention to the conversation between the groom and the wine steward or in some translations the head waiter. Have you ever had the experience of someone telling you something fairly basic that you already knew? . For example, the groom already knew what the wine steward was trying to explain. The point that I want to make is that while there was nothing actually wrong with what the wine steward said he nevertheless failed to recognize God’s intervention. Do we, like the wine steward, miss God's interventions in our life?

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In Luke’s Gospel we have a brief description of Jesus being baptized by his cousin, John the Baptist. The details are scarce. We don’t know why Jesus chose to participate in this ritual or how it impacted his ministry. This story is problematic however, as this ritual was designed for sinners, why would Jesus who had not sinned be participating in this ritual?

This is a good lesson for us in that while we may have the right to do something we ought to also take into account the impact that our actions may have upon others.

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In today’s Gospel the arrival of the Magi is noted. This Gospel is full of symbolism about who Jesus would be. Some biblical traditions list the Magi as kings and some traditions have even named them, Caspar (or Gaspar), Melchior, and Balthazar. Likely, this naming is primarily derived from Western Christian tradition. Its highly unlikely that three kings would have gone into the desert alone without an entourage for protection. Likely if three kings showed up in a small town everyone would soon know and King Herod would not have had to rely on the Magi to find out exactly where Jesus was. The gifts brought by the Wise Men give us a hint and foretell the ministry of Jesus. Gold representing royalty, frankincense symbolizing divinity, and myrrh foreshadowing suffering and death.