John 2: 2 Events

When you have a following, and you’re trying to gain a bigger following, the first thing you have to do is convince those close to you and those already following you. A crucial part of a hopeful politician’s path to become presidents is to win his party’s nomination, and even before that, he’s got to win a few caucuses over to his side. Although Jesus has called his disciples (John only tells the calling of a few, but by John 2, we can assume all 12 have been called), He can’t slack off around them. He’s got to prove to them he’s worth following, and he doesn’t waste a minute doing it. John 2 provides 2 stories to show how Jesus proves himself to his disciples, and to us.

The first story in John 2 Bible versions have titled “The Wedding at Cana,” “Jesus Turns Water into Wine” and “Christ’s First Miracle.” From these titles, you can tell wacky interpretations and application came from this passage. From what I’ve heard and read, I’ve seen this passage used to write doctrine on how Jesus treated his mother (and sometimes an application on how we should treat our mothers!), to write doctrine and application for alcohol, and even to write doctrine on the proper way to hold a wedding ceremony. But is John writing the book of John to inform us how Jesus treated his mother or to inform us how we are to treat our mothers? No, John is not writing the book of John for either reason. Is John writing his book to make a statement on alcohol? No, he is not. Is John’s purpose of his Gospel account telling us how to run a wedding? No. If you want to make an applicable doctrine on any of those three subjects, there are much better passages in the Bible to do make such doctrines. Here’s a quick reminder on the purpose why John is writing. John wrote the book of John to persuade Christians to believe [or continue believing] that Jesus is the Christ and God the Son. So when reading this story, any reader needs to see how Jesus is revealing himself to be the Son of God. But of course, if any of it helps, I’ll definitely mention it.

Although this chapter is not meant to design Christian weddings, I think if I told you with some background information on 1st century Jewish weddings, it would help set the scene. If you thought 21st century weddings were crazy with events all day, you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve seen a 1st century Jewish wedding. The events didn’t just last all day, but rather the events lasted all week (sometimes only six days to avoid working on the Sabbath). Just like ours, the wedding would start in the beginning with a ceremony. Then they partying would commence for a week, with activities and gift giving, but especially with lots of eating and drinking. The wedding would end with a giant parade leading the newlywed couple to the bedroom of their new house so they could consummate the marriage. If you think that last part is crazy, there are crazier stories about how they made sure the marriage was consummated. Sometimes the wedding guests would stand around the bedroom until they heard the appropriate sound effects that go along with consummation. At other times, both the bride and the groom’s parents would enter the bedroom the day after to find the evidence to prove the couple consummated the marriage. Crazy. Who was invited to these weddings? Anyone and everyone. Weddings guests consisted of family, close relatives, distant relatives, close friends, distant friends, family friends, neighbors, co-workers and maybe even you dad’s co-workers and business partners (considering most people back then were in the family business). Because back then (and this is probably true today too), weddings could be used to show wealth and social status. The rich would throw big, extravagant weddings to show off their wealth. The bigger the wedding and the more people you could invite, the better. But you had to make sure you had enough food and drink for everyone. Don’t over-estimate, in fact, never ever over-estimate! For if a family did not have enough food or drink for everyone invited, it would bring embarrassment and shame on both of the newlywed’s family. Keep that last bit in mind as we enter into our wedding story in John 2.

John begins by telling the reader a wedding was taking place in Cana in Galilee. Mary and her family was invited, so I would have to say that Mary was related to either the bride or the groom. Naturally everyone knew that a rabbi’s disciples went wherever that rabbi went, and everyone was beginning to accept Jesus a rabbi, so naturally all of Christ’s disciples were there, whether it be 5 or 12 (it is debatable how many disciples Jesus had picked at this point. Some say all 12 have been chosen at this point, while others say only the 5 mentioned in John 1 are the only one following him. Personally, I believe it’s all 12.). So if the reader places himself/herself at the setting, the reader is in a wedding in Cana in Galilee, with Jesus, his disciples and his mother.

Now the conflict arises. The wine is gone. Now that we understand the culture, Mary’s concern doesn’t make Mary sound like a drama queen. Mary’s concern is also our second proof to why she’s related to one of the newlyweds. Running out of wine means that the newlywed’s families are faced with shame, Mary and her family could face shame, and it’s even possible Jesus could face shame. So what does Mary do? She goes to Jesus.

Why did Mary go to Jesus? Remember, the Bible claims this is Christ’s first miracle. How would Mary know Jesus could help? There’s a whole spectrum of possible answers, from a liberal answer to a supernatural answer, and everything in between. The liberal answer is Mary just wanted Jesus to run an errand. The liberal answer is Mary telling Jesus (paraphrased), “Jesus, they ran out of wine. Would you mind running down to the nearby liquor store and picking up a couple wineskins with whatever money you have? Or better yet, send one of your disciples to do it.” Too liberal for me. Well, what about the supernatural answer? Well, there are crazy stories that circulated in the 2nd century AD (although believed to be pseudepigrapha, which means “false writings”) that have stories about Jesus performing miracles in his childhood. Indeed, these stories are truly crazy, like Jesus turning clay birds to life, carrying water on a cloth, stretching out a beam of wood, and bringing down curses on kids bullying him. Maybe Mary saw and remembered these childhood miracles, so she went to Jesus and said (my paraphrase), “Remember those childhood magic tricks you use to do? You think you could do another one here and give us wine?” I’m still not satisfied with this answer. I do hold to the Words of the Bible as true, and this is truly the first miracle of Jesus. Is this a middle ground to this spectrum? I think so. In Luke, the Bible says that everything before and during the birth of Jesus, Mary “treasured up in her heart.” I think Mary still treasured up all those memories in heart, even though her boy was all grown up. I believe she constantly looked upon her as not just her son, but the Son of God. At this point, in this story, maybe Mary was thinking, “Whenever I need help with something out of my power, I pray to God and ask for help. But wait! My son is God. Maybe I could ask God by asking him right to his face.” Maybe, in a way, this is Mary testifying that Jesus is God the Son.

The most literal translation of Christ’s response is “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not come.” Some people (mostly women) have tried to claim Jesus is belittling his mother in a sexist way by calling her “woman”. But those people are thinking in a 20th and 21st century context, not in a 1st century context. In the 20th and 21st century, yes, calling a female “woman” is to put her down as someone whose only good is to make the house clean, make sandwiches and make babies. But in the 1st century context, Jesus calling Mary “woman” is no different than calling her “mother.” And the rest of the statement is not Jesus disobeying his mother. Instead, he was announcing that He was listening to his father first and foremost. Yet when Mary tells the servants to listen to him, it seems like it’s too late, and now it’s time for a miracle.

For some reason, sitting nearby are six stone jars, used by the Jews for ceremonial cleaning. Jesus has the servants fill the jars with water, then tells one of them to deliver the wine to the master of ceremonies. Now notice in verse 9, John is already calling it “water turned into wine.” I’ve always wondered at what point it turned into wine. It could be the minute it was poured into the six jars. It possibly could be the minute the water was taken out of the jars. Or just perhaps it was when it touched the master’s lips. No matter when it turned into wine, the matter of the fact is it happened. And note that the wine master calls it the best wine served. Although Jesus have given mediocre wine because no one could taste it being so wasted, he still gave the best, because Jesus always gives the best.

So if this story wasn’t meant to give us doctrine on Christ’s relationship with his earthly mother Mary, nor was it meant to teach us about alcohol, nor as instructions on how to run a wedding, then what is it for? The overall purpose of John is to portray Jesus as the divine Son of God, so how does this story show us that Jesus is God? We could simply say, “It shows manipulation of nature as only God could do.” Yes, it does show Jesus as God because Jesus is manipulating His creation. But I think this story is in here for a deeper meaning, and the Bible would agree with me, for John wrote it right in the story. Look at John 2:11.

John 2:11-
“This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.”

I believe the “revealed his glory” part is just what we said above. The revealed glory is Jesus show He is the creator and He can control it. But more specifically, look at who the miracle was done for. It’s not for the newlywed couple, not their families, not even his mother. Rather, it’s for his disciples. Jesus performed the miracle to reveal his glory to his disciples. This story takes place early in Christ’s ministry. He’s just rallied together his 12 disciples. Now he’s got to prove that He is who He claim he is, and He can do what He claims He can do. Now they can see He is the Son of God, and they can believe Jesus is God the Son. Keep that in mind for the next story

Our next story is a familiar story, the cleansing of the temple. Yes, already in John 2, we have the cleansing of the temple. So I need to discuss a bit about the structure of John. It’s not as straightforward as you think. What do you do when John writes about a temple cleansing so early when all the synoptic authors write about the temple cleansing later? One way is to simply say there were two temple cleansings. Proponents of this view would say that Jesus would have to go to the temple multiple times a year if he was a good Jew. Indeed, I would agree. But you would think if Jesus cleansed out the temple so early, security at the temple would be so much higher, so high that Jesus would not be able to perform a second cleansing. Or at least those selling and changing money would learn their lesson. So I don’t think there were 2 temple cleansings, but only 1. How can this be when the Gospel writers placed it at different points? Remember that the synoptic Gospels are writing Gospels that are early to outline, so they will outline Jesus from Galilee to Judea is one smooth line. John is not as concerned with chronology, so John doesn’t mind going back and forth, in and out of Judea. Instead, John is writing a supplemental gospel, so John could have written his Gospel more topically. I do believe it is written topically, for we’ll see the temple cleansing does have something to do with the wedding at Cana.

To summarize the story, Jesus enters the temple and sees that people are unjustly selling the animals for sacrifice. Jesus is filled with rage for such sin happening in a place where sin is supposed to be paid for. His rage causes him to make a whip out of cords and to overturn tables.

Right now go to Google Image Search (images.google.com) and simply put the word “Jesus” in the search box. Now search. When I did it, I went through 10 pages and not a single picture showed this scene. Now they do exist, if you were to type in Jesus cleanses the temple, they would show up. Clearly they are a minority. We rather have pictures of a loving Jesus, one that hold children and lambs. Maybe there is something good out of that. After all, God’s love is stronger than God’s wrath. But we must not forget that Jesus did get angry and did become wrathful.

As a Mennonite, who takes a non-violent pacifist stand, people have questioned my beliefs, using this passage. How do I, as a Mennonite, understand this with my Mennonite beliefs? It goes back to the message of this book, that Jesus is God the Son. This is Jesus showing His divine side. After all, God the Son calls this building “His Father’s house.” Here, we see the wrath of God through the Son of God. Since Jesus, being the Son of God, is sinless, I believe Jesus is showing a righteous anger, so He does not sin by being angry or violent. Yet Christians are not to act in this way because, simply put, we are not God. So we do not have the authority to perform such acts, especially without sinning. This is where it is important to see Jesus as God.

That’s how the disciples saw it. Well, not immediately. But then again, some of it was immediate, some of it was not. The disciples remembered the Psalm “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews did recognize this psalm as a messianic psalm, a psalm that describes the messiah. They knew “your house” meant God’s house, the temple. Thus, the messiah was has extreme emotional attachment to the temple. When Jesus saw the sin in the temple, and the disciples saw his reaction to it, they remembered this psalm, and saw Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. Once Jesus is done cleansing the temple, the Jewish leaders ask Jesus for a sign to accompany his authority. The Jewish leaders have the right to do this, for the Old Testament commands them to do this to divide the true prophets from the false prophets. Jesus says his sign is that he can rebuild his temple in 3 days. Jesus is referring to His body, but the Jewish leaders, as well as Christ’s disciples, don’t get that. They think he is referring to the temple building. For Christ’s disciples, it’s not until after Jesus dies and rises again that they finally get Jesus was talking about the resurrection of His body. What’s the result? John 2:22 tells us.

John 2:22-
“After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”

There’s that word again: believe. It’s 1 of the 92 occurrences. And look who it is intended for again. The disciples. It makes sense. The religious leaders did not benefit from this story. If anything, they probably used it against Jesus at his trial. The men who were selling animals and exchanging money did not benefit from this story. In fact, they are probably upset at Jesus and don’t want anything to do with him. But look at the impact on the disciples. They believe Jesus is the Messiah because they see his actions towards the temple and remember the Psalm. They remember Jesus called his body the temple after He rose from the dead, and so they believe Jesus is the Son of God. Between these 2 stories, John has accomplished his purpose for the 12 disciple. They believe Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. And now, the disciples are fully behind Jesus. Hopefully these two events have proved to you that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, and hopefully you are now fully behind him, too.