take our cues about the importance of this story from John. The simplicity of this story contains the seeds of its true wonder. Miracle stories followed a standard form that would have been recognizable to most of John’s first readers. John 2:1–11 follows that standard form: setting (vv. 1–2); the situation of need (vv. 3–5); the miracle (vv. 6–8); the response to the miracle (vv. 9–11). None of the other Gospels narrates this miracle, but stories about the miraculous production of wine by gods or