John 2:1 “On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.”

Eventually, our heroes let us down. As a boy, I idolized all kinds of sports heroes. As a young man, I developed a number of political heroes. Through my life, I have respected several religious or spiritual heroes. I could give you specific examples, but it probably isn’t good for me to criticize some individual’s life in front of you.

But you know what I mean. You have experienced the same kinds of disappointments in people you respected. One man enjoys the public image of a devoted family man, a model of virtue, a great example of selflessness, faith, and wholesome values. Then the scandal breaks. His illicit affairs are exposed. His addictions hit the news. His exploitive treatment of other people becomes common knowledge.

So we become cynical. We put up our guard. We withhold our trust. Then we discover the Great Exception. He shows himself at a wedding at Cana in John 2. Yet does his behavior there make us pause and wonder?

One thing that endears Jesus to people is the way that he shares their lives. Sometimes we get a lopsided view of what that means. It is clear that, when Jesus lived here, he didn’t take any special privileges. He didn’t enjoy any unusual advantages. Until he started teaching, he earned his living by working with his own hands as a carpenter. His clothing was unremarkable. He didn’t dress in rags, but he didn’t dress like the rich, either. Some people have said that he was homeless, but we shouldn’t picture the chronically homeless who live outdoors today. He had no permanent home to claim for himself. Most often he stayed in the homes of one of the many people who followed him, or some unnamed villager in Samaria, Galilee, or Judea. He experienced hunger, pain, overwork, grief, and exhaustion.

Some get the idea that Jesus’ relatively simple life means that it is wrong for us who follow him to enjoy life or have nice things. Christians should adopt poverty and avoid fun. If we find ourselves thinking this way, it is an idea for which to repent. It mischaracterizes Christianity. It gives the Christian faith a bad name. Jesus tells us to carry our crosses when they come. And he promises they will come. But he doesn’t say we are supposed to go looking for them or make it our goal to live life as one never-ending burden. The point of Christianity is not to feel sad or miserable. Those may be unavoidable experiences from living in the broken and sinful world. Jesus felt them, too.

But look at him in John 2: not just invited, he and his disciples decided to attend the wedding. This was not the church ceremony for the bride and groom. No one would question Jesus attending one of those. This was like our wedding receptions: the feast, the dancing, the party. They even had drinking there. Jesus himself even brought a large portion of the wine. Jesus drinking? Jesus bringing the wine? How could that be? I thought that he was supposed to be a Christian!

Here he gives us a more complete picture of what it means to live like a Christian, a more balanced view of the way he shared our lives. Jesus was neither encouraging nor condoning drunkenness. But he clearly blesses the idea of enjoying ourselves with the things God gives us. He later attended parties at the home of his disciple Matthew, a Pharisee named Simon, and others who invited him over. He even developed a reputation for enjoying life this way. “John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man (that’s Jesus) came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners’” (Luke 7:33-34).

This is the point: Jesus shared our sadness and our joy. He experienced our heartaches and tragedies and our celebrations. He sometimes went without, but he also used and enjoyed the good things of life when they were available. Yes, he was against harmful excess, selfish hoarding, and getting out of control. But he embraced pleasure as a good gift of God, and he encourages us to do the same. There is no virtue in being a sour-faced Christian.

Sometimes people say they want their pastor or Christian leader to be “relatable,” someone who understands them and gets their lives. Jesus was relatable, because he shared the whole spectrum of our lives. We need not question him for enjoying good things when he could. We can enjoy them, too.