The Good Wine

John 02

JOHN 2:1-25

1On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; 2and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. 3When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus *said to Him, “They have no wine.” 4And Jesus *said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother *said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” 6Now there were six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each. 7Jesus *said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” So they filled them up to the brim. 8And He *said to them, “Draw some out now and take it to the *headwaiter.” So they took it to him. 9When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter *called the bridegroom, 10and *said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.” 11This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.

12After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and they stayed there a few days.

13The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; 16and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business.” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE WILL CONSUME ME.” 18The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” 21But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.

23Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. 24But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, 25and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

JOHN 1:1-2

1On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; 2and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.

Both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding

Weddings were huge social affairs in Galilee at Jesus’ time. People might walk there for days and stay for weeks. The host not only housed the guests but also provided for their every need. At royal weddings, clothes were provided for all the guests as well as expensive entertainment. It was one of the primary ways a king could show the extent of his riches (and thus power) to competitors without having to attack them.

Everyone was invited; not inviting someone was a bad omen for the new couple. The wedding party would spend the day and lead a parade through the town going to every house and searching every street so no widow or orphan would be left out.

The fact that Jesus and His disciples were invited—as a group—tells us they were already beginning to coalesce into a band.

JOHN 1:3-5

3When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus *said to Him, “They have no wine.” 4And Jesus *said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother *said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

“Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.”

There is so much wealth in this short paragraph. Mary must have been a part of the family for her to take such a personal interest in this issue. Otherwise, she would be causing embarrassment to the hosts. What does she expect Jesus to do? What would lead her to think that Jesus had the resources to respond to such an issue? She certainly wasn’t expecting a financial response—even if he had the money to buy wine—there probably wasn’t that much wine available and on hand in the region.

It is worth wondering what she expected. It is also worth wondering why I call upon Jesus. Is it to fulfill my financial needs or am I open to Jesus doing what he chooses to do in my life? Am I specific in my requests or open to whatever choice he makes to respond to what he thinks I need rather than what I think I need?

JOHN 1:6-7

6Now there were six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each. 7Jesus *said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” So they filled them up to the brim.

Twenty or thirty gallons each

We’re talking waterpots of wine, not bottles. Each stone waterpot could hold twenty to thirty gallons, about the size of a large aquarium. That’s between 120 and 180 gallons of wine, which should give us a good idea as to the size of the wedding party.

What is really interesting about this interchange between Jesus and Mary is that she asks her son to take action, he responds with an adamant, “No!” “Woman, what does this have to do with me?”

Mary stops talking to Jesus completely and turns to the servants. “Fill the waterpots with water.” She corners Jesus with her action. Yet, it is only when her prayer turns from asking to acting that Jesus responds.

When our continual prayers have no results. We need to consider whether we’ve moved from asking to acting.

JOHN 02

OVERVIEW JOHN 2

Consider John, Chapter 2, to be a trendsetting chapter for the rest of John and John’s view of Jesus’. He leads the way by telling us of the signs of Jesus (miracles) and the actions of Jesus (cleansing the temple).

From these items, we can get a hint of where John is going to go in future chapters. This is a book about love-in-action. Both the affirming side of love and the challenging side of love. In order for love to be real, it has to have both sides.

JOHN 2:8-12

8And He *said to them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it to him. 9When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom, 10and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.” 11This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.

12After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and they stayed there a few days.

“Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.”

In his book, “From Good to Great,” author Jim Collins [From Good to Great, © Cahners Business Information, Inc., 2001], opens with the quote, “Good is the enemy of great.”

This miracle shows us that Christ lived by that principle, not only did he respond to Mary’s action-oriented prayer, but he responded with the best wine. He delivered the impossible and made it meta-amazing. He gave not just adequate wine but wine that even stunned the headwaiter.

In our work for Gospel Justice, do we pursue not only adequate results but also the absolute best results?

I work with a man who oversees an outreach to street youth that goes beyond good to great. His results are not just adequate, they are amazing. He speaks with the language of results, not theology, ideology or philosophy.

People can argue about ideas, but they can’t argue about results. Do we let our amazing results speak for themselves?

This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him

Signs [G4592 Sēmeion, distinguishing mark, miracle, sign, signs]

Manifested [G5219 Phaneroō, to make visible, to make clear, disclose, display]

Glory [G1391 Doxa, good opinion, approval, brightness, majesties]

We tend to trivialize the miraculous when we make it about our own lives or focus solely on our own situation and needs. The translations of the words above give us an idea of the purpose and place of the miraculous. They are signs that clarify God’s purposes, not parlor tricks that meet our desires and wants.

When my brother was dying of cancer, we prayed for the miraculous. However, with every prayer we need to include the phrase, “Yet, not what I will, but what you will [Mark 14:36].”

What was hard to realize at the time, was that it was the way my brother valiantly confronted death that was the greatest miracle of his life. It left lessons for his children, wife, his siblings and the community that loved him, which are still recounted today.

Sadly, he had people within his own church who chided him for his “lack of faith” when healing did not occur. How misguided! The power of the miraculous does not lie in the depth of our faith, but in the wisdom of our God.

Of course, God does not cause cancer so he can use people as signs, cancer comes because of the world’s age-old brokenness. But our mighty God can even use cancer to point to the miraculous, if we allow our lives to be his instruments.

After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and they stayed there a few days.

Capernaum became Jesus’ headquarters for the majority of his ministry. It was far enough from Jerusalem that the Jewish leaders wouldn’t often travel there and not large enough (1500 at the time of Christ) to be a sore spot for Rome (like Nazareth).

More than anything else, Capernaum was the home of James, John, Peter, Andrew and Matthew. It is believed that Jesus resided with Peter’s family while in Capernaum. This is a critical component as it shows that Jesus intimately—not just figuratively—comes to us. He not only comes to earth, but he goes to the neighborhood of his followers.

How often do we, as religious leaders, bemoan the fact that people are no longer coming to church? How many disaffected children flunk education because they do not go to school? Jesus brought faith to his followers and taught where they resided. He was not just a church on the move—he was God on the move and moving right into the home next door.

JOHN 2:13-17

Jesus went up to Jerusalem

The Gospels have different accounts about the number of times Jesus visits Jerusalem. Matthew and Mark mention only one time (for his Triumphal Entry), Luke mentions four times with one being during his childhood and another when he is twelve. John mentions four times, the Passover and cleaning of the temple [John 2:13], the feast of the Jews and healing of the man by the pool [John 5:1], the Feast of Booths/Feast of Dedication [John 7:14-10:39] and the Triumphal Entry [John 12:12].

This shows us a Jesus who follows the traditions of his people—except when those traditions lead to injustice as found in this trip to Jerusalem. We would be safe to assume that Jesus made many other trips to Jerusalem between the ages of 12 and 30, but we must remember his statement to Mary in the beginning of this chapter, “My hour has not yet come [John 2:4].”

Now that his time had come, he was prepared to advocate for the rights of those abused by the powerful religious system that had formed around the leaders to line their pockets and enhance their power while taxing the poor unmercifully.

Jesus was judicious in his confrontations with the religious ruling class. He picks a base in northern Galilee where he could retreat with the disciples to deepen their understanding in between sorties to Jerusalem. This allows him to lead by example and then carry the message home with teaching in a place they had room and time to not be continually harassed by the Sanhedrin and their followers.

All the time Jesus also makes multiple “field trips” to the neighboring areas of the country where the religious leaders would not go. To follow Jesus was to be prepared to go to where many are least comfortable, to be comfort to the poor and confront the hierarchy when it was unjust.

Do those we lead people to the places of discomfort?

He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.

There are important historical and cultural aspects of this story we must examine in order to understand its importance in the Gospels and primarily in John’s Gospel.

All of the Gospel writers speak about this event with most of them putting the occurrence at the end of Christ’s ministry. John puts it right up front. John is focused on priorities, the signs and actions of Christ’s life even more than the chronology. John wants us to know how important this event was to Jesus, not just what transpired during the event.

As part of the event, we are able to witness what angered Jesus to the point of violent action. There are multiple issues here.

· The temple had three sections, non-Jewish visitors could only go as far as the outer courtyard—where all this selling was taking place—all they would know about the Hebrew God would be this cacophony of buying and selling. People traveled to the Temple from the entire known world, but the only glimpse many would have of Judaism was this section of the Temple that had been turned into a Las Vegas-style auction where anything could be bought or sold.

· Those who lived within 20 miles (32 kilometers) of the Temple—a day’s walk for a healthy person—were required to come to Jerusalem for this feast. It would be at least three days off for people who could scarcely afford it. The temple system was designed around those who had the leisure of taking time off to attend such events. The religious had completely lost touch with what it meant to sacrifice a day—or a minimum of three with travel—to go to the temple for worship. This was opposite of Jesus, to the religious, people would “go to church,” Jesus brought God to the people. Are our ministries based upon people coming to us or us bringing the good news to them?

· The costs of this worship, not including the time away from work, would include paying the temple tax, exchanging money into temple coins (common currency was not accepted), the cost of buying the sacrifice (either an ox, lamb or doves). It could amount to the equivalent of a quarter of a year’s wages for the poor. In essence, the poor could not afford to worship and yet, they were doubly bound, as it was the law to worship.

Given this information, it is obvious to see why Jesus became so angry at the Temple. This leads to an important point about the life of Jesus. There were times he was angered and, in this scenario, so angry he lashed out violently at the objects of his anger. He drove them out with a “scourge of cords” along with their sheep and oxen.

It must have been quite a sight and no doubt, frightened the disciples, who remembered the prophecy from Psalm 69:9 “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The word for House in Hebrew [H1004 Bayith] did not mean a place, it was a people, the fullest meaning I have discovered is, “A community where even the least little one can be raised in the safety and love of God.”

It was not the treatment of the facility that drove Jesus to such extremes of the emotional spectrum. It was the treatment of the people.

There were other times when Jesus was angry, but upon examination, Jesus was never angered by the way he was treated (self-righteous anger) he was angered by the way God’s people (Bayith) were treated (anger about people’s lack of rights). Can we say the same about our lives? Are we moved more by the misuse of things or the abuse of people? Is personal effrontery more aggravating to us than social injustice?

JOHN 2:18-25

18The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” 21But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.

Authority for doing

When the religious leaders talked about “Authority for doing [G4160 Poiō],” they were referring to a birthright; coming from the right family and having the best teachers. Jesus had the birthright; he came from the right family of origin to be among the priestly class. At the age of 12, he made the decision to leave the temple life behind and take up the life of a working-class person. No doubt there would have been those who would have offered Jesus a spot in their “school,” if he had stayed following the incident where he amazed the elders with his questions [Luke 2:41-52].

Jesus’ concept of authority meant authenticity, the authority and the ability to do God’s will. The very next verses speak about Jesus’ authenticity, “many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing…”

It is an important distinction; does my authority come from my degrees and position or from my efficacy in doing God’s will? Do people look at the signs about me and believe in my authenticity?

He was speaking of the temple of His body

The Religious Leaders—despite their decades of training—had no concept of what the Messiah was saying, even when they met him face-to-face. They were too vested in the appearances of religious belief to understand the inner movements of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. While they focused on how the actions of Jesus were affecting their income and status, Jesus focused on his life made incarnate. God had come to earth in the form of his son and moved into the community.

Is it possible for me to be that blind when it comes to Jesus in my community? I’m sad to say I see this in our institutions all the time, when guards focus on punishment rather than restoration, educators focus on curriculum rather than relationship or social workers focus on files rather than people.

One young lady recently told me that—of all the social workers with whom her mom and her worked—none had a menu for their success. They all focused on “what program they could do next,” “where they needed to go for the next check,” “where their file would be transferred.”

This amazing young lady is now a successful—and award-winning—entrepreneur. She cites social services as being more “in the way,” than “showing a way” to a new life.

Growing up, she promised never to be on social welfare, like her mom, yet one day, she found herself standing in line with her own son, to pick up her income assistance check. At that moment, she decided she was not passing this on to another generation—no matter what it took.

What she remembers most about the transfer from government assistance to her own business was “the total loneliness, nobody understood what I was trying to accomplish or believed in me. Not my case worker, my friends at the time and certainly not my family.”

All around her were professionals who were used to seeing people at their weakest and most disabled state and we were better at holding her back than helping her move ahead. A co-dependent pattern emerges whenever we view clients as needy instead of promising—and it is a hard cycle to break. In these and many examples, we rely more on our programs, policies and positions than the potential of God to intervene in the lives of every human being. We too are saying, “It took forty-six years to build this temple (system), and will You raise it up in three days?”