As with bread, we are tempted to impose our own personal meaning on wine. Wine means excess and wild parties and losing control; wine means your drunk father who beat you; wine means scandal and appearing like a sinner; whatever. But no.
Wine means what God says it means. Lack of wine is either a form of fasting or a curse from God. God says wine is our labor blessed by His hand—which is to say it is the result of man having dominion over the earth, which is fulfilling his role as the image of God. It is God’s blessing. It is the gift with which Jesus blesses a wedding, the drink served by Wisdom, part of the Ascension offering lifted to God in the morning and evening sacrifices, the drink that Melchizedek the royal priest brings to Abraham and the drink that Christ serves to Abraham’s children by faith at His Table. Wine is rejoicing and fellowship. Good lovemaking is better than wine—but not much else is.
As with any blessing, wine can be abused, and Scripture is filled with warnings about that; it is a wicked mind that turns God’s blessing into an occasion for sin. It’s an equally wicked, pinched, joyless mind that thinks rejecting God’s good gift is a holy thing to do. Both of these sins stem from a lack of gratitude.
My charge to you is to think of wine in this way, and to behave as Moses and Solomon instructed: Go and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has accepted your labor. Do this that you may learn to fear God and keep His commandments, because that is your whole duty.
