Introduction
This morning, we
begin a series on seven miracles in the Gospel of John. The Gospel
of John is the fourth book of the New Testament, and John was a
disciple of Jesus, eye-witness of these events, and author of 5 New
Testament books (Gospel of John, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John,
Revelations). John organizes the first half of his gospel (chapters
1-12) around seven miracles performed by Jesus.
Someone said that
John’s gospel is “shallow enough for babies to wade in,
but deep enough for elephants to drown in.” There is a
marvelous clarity and simplicity that makes John easy to grasp. But
there is also a depth and profundity that produces ongoing awe and
delight. This is especially true of the seven “signs.”
On one level,
these miracles were personal, supernatural expressions of Jesus’
love and ability to meet these people’s physical or social
needs.
But they were also
far more than that. They were "signs" (sumeia). As
the word "sign" suggests, they are "attesting
miracles," pointing beyond themselves to Jesus' divinity and his
unique ability to meet our spiritual needs. At the end of his
gospel, John makes this crystal clear (read 20:31).
Such is the case
with Jesus' first miracle, recorded in John 2:1-11. On one
level, he rescues a newly married couple from social disgrace by
supernaturally changing water to wine. But this same miracle teaches
reveals that Jesus is far more than an emergency caterer. Let's take
a look . . .
The Setting
The setting is a
wedding reception in Cana, a very small village only nine miles north
of Jesus' hometown of Nazareth. Read 2:1-3.
This was a serious
problem for the bride and groom. In ancient Near Eastern villages,
wedding receptions were key social occasions—often lasting up
to a week. To run out of food or drink was a major violation of
hospitality which would subject to couple to social disgrace that
could shadow them for the rest of their lives. And there was no easy
way to remedy this situation, since you couldn’t send someone
out with your Visa to the local grocery store to buy more of those
cardboard boxes of wine!
So Mary, who
probably learned of the problem from the couple, informs Jesus before
the rest of the people at the reception find out. She obviously
expects him to do something.
Read 2:4. This
sounds awfully disrespectful to Mary and insensitive to the
couple—like "Hey old lady, what do I care about your
plans? I don't have time for this." Actually, Jesus' answer is
neither disrespectful nor insensitive.
On the one hand,
my translation (NASB) has not done a good job of communicating the
sense of "woman" (gunai). The NIV does a better job
here by translating "dear woman." It was a term of
endearment and respect.
As to the rest of
Jesus’ answer, Jesus is evidently responding to Mary’s
real intent in making her request.
“My hour”
refers to the time when Jesus would publicly manifest himself as the
Messiah. Mary, who knew Jesus was the Messiah, evidently saw this
situation as the opportunity for Jesus to perform a dramatic miracle
that would introduce him as Messiah.
Jesus refuses to
handle the situation this way. “What have I to do with you”
is a Hebrew idiom that means in this case “I have plans that
are different than yours” or “I’ll handle this my
way, not your way.”
Mary responds
properly (read 2:5). She expresses her trust in him by deferring to
his judgment on how to handle the situation. By doing so, she serves
as a model of how we should approach Jesus in our requests to
intervene: feel free to ask, believe that he is willing and able to
help—but then trusting him to handle it in the best way vs.
demanding, manipulating, etc.
And Jesus does intervene—not in a public
way, but in a quiet, behind-the-scenes way so that only a few people
realized that he saved the day . . .
The Miracle
Read 2:6-9.
Imagine the bridegroom’s angst when the headwaiter called him
over! Read 2:10. Instead of being rebuked for his poor planning, he
is praised for his ingenious and lavish generosity! "Most
people serve the Yellow Tail first, and then when the guests have
drunk freely (so that their taste buds are dulled), they introduce
the Gallo to cut costs. But you started with the Yellow Tail, and
you’re ending with the Rothschild's!" How did the groom
react to this compliment? Did he express shocked surprise? Did he
shrug and say, "It's nothing, really?" John doesn’t
tell us in his highly compressed account.
At any rate, the
result was that Jesus in a very quiet way rescued the bride and groom
from disgrace—and supernaturally produced over 120 gallons (60
cases; 750 fifths; 2400 4 oz. glasses) of fine vintage wine. This
was far more than the guests (probably no more than a few dozen)
could drink, so the considerable amount of leftover wine became a
"liquid asset"—Jesus' wedding gift.
By the way, what
does this miracle tell you about Jesus' attitude toward people
enjoying a good time—including social drinking? How different
from the Jesus I grew up hearing about (KILL-JOY; MORTICIAN)! Of
course, the Bible warns against drunkenness and enslavement to
alcohol—and those who cannot observe these limits shouldn’t
drink at all. But appropriate social drinking was blessed by God in
the Old Testament and by Jesus here.
The "Sign"
But this isn’t the only point of Jesus’
miracle. Read 2:11. The disciples realized that this miracle was a
"sign" that revealed Jesus’ uniqueness so that they
entrusted themselves to him as the Messiah. What else did they see
in this "sign?"
The key is the way
that Jesus performed this miracle 2:6 (read again). In a very
compressed account, John gives us lots of detail on this issue. John
wants us to know that these pots were not for ordinary drinking
water, but rather water used for "the Jewish custom of
purification." Jesus could put the wine in other containers; he
could have created new containers to hold the wine; he could have
created it directly into people’s empty glasses. But he
chose to perform this miracle in a way that affected this custom.
If you want to understand what the disciples understood about this
miracle, you have to understand the “Jewish custom of
purification.”
This custom had
nothing to do with germs and hygiene. It was a religious custom—not
prescribed by God in the Old Testament, but rather invented by
religious leaders who had a profoundly wrong view of spirituality.
They believed that
the main spiritual problem was the threat of contamination by contact
with bad people—“sin kooties,” if you will. If you
touched something that bad people had touched (or even breathed air
that they breathed), you could become ritually unclean. So the
solution, the key to spirituality, the main way to approach God was
through performing a ritual of cleansing or purification. Observant
Jews had to wash their hands in very specific ways several times in
the course of a meal.
No wonder they had so many water-pots on hand for the reception!
Does this sound
familiar to you? This mentality is at the heart of most world
religions, including (tragically) most people’s understanding
of Christianity. You must clean yourself up if you want to relate
to God. Whether by performing certain rituals in the right way
at the right time, or by obeying detailed rules of external behavior,
or by avoiding contact with certain kinds of people, etc.—the
assumption is that you have clean yourself up to come to God.
Jesus’ first
miracle implicitly condemned religious self-cleansing. By filling
these waterpots with water and then changing the water into wine, he
made it impossible for anyone at the reception to ritually purify
himself. From this point on, Jesus explicitly rejected and condemned
this approach to God. He said you can’t put new wine into old
wineskins (Mk. 2:22). He condemned it as superficial and
promoting hypocrisy (Mk. 7:18-23; Matt. 23:25,26).
Jesus didn’t
come to provide an improved method of self-cleansing. He came to
replace this with a radical new way to approach God. By turning the
water into wine, Jesus replaced a symbol of human religious
self-cleansing with a picture of his gift of abundant spiritual life.
Wine was
associated in the Old Testament with God’s presence which
brings joy and life (see Psalm 4:6,7; 104:15). Even today,
Israeli’s toast their wine with “To life!” By
making an abundance of fine vintage wine, Jesus communicated that he
is the Giver of abundant spiritual life that brings joy to all who
receive him (Jn. 10:10).
More importantly,
the Old Testament predicted that when Messiah established God’s
kingdom, he would provide a lavish banquet for his people—including
an abundance of fine aged wine—to celebrate his victory over
death (Isa. 25:6-8). The heart of God’s kingdom is
personal relationships—living in God’s presence and
celebrating this with God’s people. Jesus’ first miracle
was a foretaste of this banquet. Through it he was saying, “I
am the Messiah, and I am offering you a secure and personal
relationship with God right now.”
SUMMARIZE: You
don’t have to clean yourself up to come to God. You can come
to Jesus just the way you are and receive his gift of spiritual life
that will assure you of God’s forgiveness and enable you to
experience God’s life-transforming love. It’s as easy as
drinking a glass of wine—just call out to Jesus and say, “I
believe you are the Messiah who came to forgive me and make me alive
to God. I now take this gift into my heart.” Will you receive
this gift today?
Footnotes
Next Week: John 4:46-54 - Healing a Royal Official’s Son
Copyright 2004 Gary DeLashmutt