1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.
On the third day… John continues recording his journey with Jesus using Day 0 as his reference point for time. On that day, John the Baptist pointed out to him, and his fisherman mate Andrew, that Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. What an incredible claim on Day 0 of any journey with Jesus!
The wedding event captured by John was 3 days later. Jesus had gathered a small following by then. Things had moved rapidly for him since Day 0.
Day 1 was the second time John the Baptist pointed out to John and his friend Andrew that Jesus is the Lamb of God. This time they followed Jesus to check him out more and ended up spending time with him at his temporary residence upon his invitation. Home meetings have dramatically changed the lives of many for good or evil. There is an intimacy of relationship in them that by-passes the head and goes to heart and its deepest motivations. It is understandable that John considered that day to be the first day of the rest of his life. He became convinced through intimate interaction with Jesus that he had found the long awaited Messiah prophesied in Jewish scriptures. This was the most astounding day of his life up until then. It was Day 1 of the rest of his life.
Just like John, people who discover the true identity of Jesus and begin a relationship with him consider it to be Day 1 of the rest of their life, Why? It is then that they receive the powerful life of the Creator and a clearer understanding of their own life. It is then that incredibly they begin living with the life of the Creator within them empowering, teaching, directing, protecting and shaping them with his Divine qualities of truth, goodness, and love. No other pursuit for meaning to our life can better that! All other pursuits are inferior.
On Day 2, Jesus left Galilee to call Philip to follow him, and later challenged Nathanael’s scepticism and conclusion that Jesus could not be the Son of God and king of Israel, because no king could possibly come out of Jesus’ insignificant hometown of Nazareth. Jesus displayed his supernatural qualities to Nathanael, who immediately became a passionate believer that Jesus was the Messiah. Nathanael had the proof he needed that dismissed all scepticism.
On Day 3 Jesus returned to Galilee to attend a wedding with his mother and his disciples, By that time they were not a large group, viz., Nathanael, Peter and his brother Andrew, John and his brother James. They had possibly received an invitation to the celebration through Nathanael[1].
This is the first of six cameos John records of Jesus interacting with Jewish society that culminate with the religious power structure wanting to kill him (John 5:18).
It did not take long. Jesus was not palatable to people wanting to increase and protect their status in their social network. The reaction of our egos to Jesus is swift, you will notice that, and we quickly justify our rejection of him, if that is our position. Hence, you will find after reading the six cameos of Jesus stepping into the culture of his day that you also will either reject him quickly, and have what you think are sound reasons, or you will want to find out more about him. Be conscious of your reaction and honest with yourself about it, because, if his claim to be the ultimate Judge of every life is true, the stakes are high. We owe it to ourselves to know our answer to this question: How do I position myself with Jesus? We have plenty of evidence in these 6 cameos to arrive at a conclusion.
Jesus does not hide his identity in these cameos. Instead, he ultimately expands it to making himself equal with God (5:18). The reaction of those whose egos were invested in ruling the nation was predictable:
For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God, (John 5:18)
After reading these cameos, we can never use the excuse that we did not know that Jesus claimed to be the eternal God, who created all existence and consequently has every right to be the Master of our choices now, and the sole judge of where we spend eternity. This creates a dilemma for our pride, which is used to controlling our choices. We naturally resist surrendering our authority over our life. The decisive question we each face is: Will, or will I not, surrender my pride and its control of my decisions to the Jesus recorded in these snapshots by John?
John has recorded these six cameos to enable each of us to make our assessment of this Jesus and decide the degree to which we may want to journey with him or dismiss him:
- Jesus at a wedding (Chapter 2)
- Jesus at the Temple (Chapter 2)
- Jesus teaching a Jewish ruler and scholar (Chapter 3)
- Jesus giving hope to a female foreigner and social outcast (Chapter 4)
- Jesus testing the faith of royal official (Chapter 4)
- Jesus healing an invalid at a pool on the Sabbath (Chapter 5)
Jesus at a wedding (Cameo 1)
In this first cameo, John records an interesting interaction between Jesus and his mother when they are guests at a wedding.
3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, "They have no more wine."
4 "Woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My hour had not yet come."
5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
Mary informs her son that the wine for the wedding celebration has run out – a huge embarrassment for the organiser of the wedding and the parents of the bride. It was a significant dampener on the celebration. I doubt this would have been the first case of the wine running out at a wedding. The question is, ‘Why did Mary tell Jesus?’ Was it more than passing on a simple observation, or was there more in Mary’s mind? We will never know for certain. The pressing question is, ‘Did she have an expectation that Jesus would miraculously solve the situation?’
Mary was used to miracles accompanying her son Jesus. She had an angel forewarn her that she would fall pregnant as a virgin and give birth to a divine ruler. She had then experienced a miraculous pregnancy and birth with no male intercourse. She had raised her son Jesus as an infant, a young boy, teenager and man. She carried in her memory and heart the statements that angels and prophets had made about him, viz., he would be the Son of God (Luke 1:35), the Messiah and Lord (Luke 2:11), a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of Israel (Luke 2:32). No mother could ever erase such pronouncements from her mind. With them impressed in her mind, Mary keenly raised Jesus and observed her son’s growth in wisdom and strength and heard him claim as a lad that the Temple was his Father’s house (Luke 2:49). Young Jesus was not referring to his dad Joseph, a small town carpenter. At that young age, he was conscious of his identity as the Son of his Father God.
Mary had stored all these observations in her thoughts and affections. Jesus was no ordinary son, and she knew that she was no ordinary mother. She knew she had become so by a miraculous, sovereign act of God. Mary had grasped that her son was capable of addressing any physical need as the Lord, Son of God and Messiah. It is likely that Mary told Jesus about the wine running out with the expectation that he could miraculously solve the problem. It is unlikely that she was passing on this observation as a flippant comment about poor planning by the host.
The response of Jesus is interesting. He did not instantly respond to replenish the wine. Rather, he corrected his mother with the clear instruction that any release of God’s power has timing to it.
4 "Woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My hour had not yet come."
The same applies to us when we end up in a fix, from which we want immediate release. We want to set the hour for Jesus to act, and our hour is now! We focus on the physical problem we are facing, and want relief immediately. When nothing happens, we often comment that God is not listening, or that he is not interested in me, or he has left me when once I experienced him being with me. How often have you heard that complaint or made it yourself? All such responses miss the point of how God works to bring spiritual insight and change. When we don’t see any spiritual purpose for the trial, our comments become a perpetuation of Satan’s previous temptations of Jesus to act physically with his divine power for the wrong reasons at the wrong time, e.g., "If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread"(Matthew 4:3); "If you are the Son of God, come down from your Cross" (Matthew 27:4). Jesus ignored Satan’s focus and timing. He was carrying out a divine purpose with its timing.
Jesus is not a magician to be used to demonstrate his power at our will and timing. He is the healer of our spirit. Only God knows what faith lessons he is trying to teach an individual in their trial and the others observing it. His work is multi-faceted and always focuses the person in the trial, plus all observing it, to learn to trust him more and honour him as the rightful and sole Sovereign of all life. His hour had not yet come. But it did come right on time.
Mary did not argue timing with Jesus. Nor did she seek to give him reasons why he should use his power to fix an embarrassing situation facing the hosts of the celebration. She retreated from trying to bring the power of Jesus out into the open for all to see. She put its use and timing back into his hands to control, which is where it belongs, and addressed the servants,
5 "Do whatever he tells you."
Then Jesus swung into action. When we take our agenda off the table and ask God to do his will in and through us whenever he wants, and however he wants, he swings into action. We may not see his initial moves, but in time they will manifest as certain as night follows day. Of that we can be certain.
6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
7 Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water"; so they filled them to the brim.
Jesus did not instruct the servants to knock on doors to find wine among households in Cana, or find a wine merchant. I would have urgently and keenly followed that command. Instead Jesus pointed to six empty jars used for washing hands before and after a meal and commanded for them to be filled with water. At that point, thoughts would have been rushing through my head of the abuse I could face if I served water to the guests at this stage in the celebrations. At worse, I could be fired for offending a guest and lose the income support I need to feed my family. Stop a while and imagine yourself in this situation.
Jesus gave no explanation of what he was about to do. He gave a command, then he followed it with even more challenging command. The first was a command for the recipients to be positioned ready for the miracle. God often does the same for us when we are looking for a personal miracle. Many people bail out of the positioning command given to them. Their view of Jesus is not clear enough to obey what may seem ridiculous. Fill the jars with water? Forget that. Wine not water is needed and desperately! I can hear myself saying that. We can fail to get into position and so miss out on the miracle that could have come. This is when we need to look closer at Jesus again by reading the John’s accounts about him and those by John’s comrades.
Who is this Jesus? Can I trust him? Will I do what he asks of me in the Bible, even if it seems ridiculous, or consequently reject the position of full trust in him that he is asking me to take? Our answer determines whether or not we will position our faith correctly to experience the miraculous life God has waiting for us, or whether we will continue to clutch onto our position on "struggle street" empowered by the fears in our insecure heart.
Jesus followed his positioning command with a second. This command launched the miracle.
8 "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet." They did so…
The first command positioned them to receive the miracle, the second launched it. The second command requires us to put our faith into action to launch the miracle. It brings the blessing of answered prayer that we desire right on time – never too early and never too late.
9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.
John does not provide any detail of the moment the water turned into wine. Imagine drawing some water from the water jar with the usual sized table container and taking it to the person in authority. Did it become wine at the moment of drawing it out or later pouring it out? What kind of challenge was this to the faith of the servants? Either way, the main point to focus on is that God will stretch the faith of each of us to receive our miracles from him in a way that causes our faith to grow. He is not a magician seeking the applause of an audience that is focussed on, "How did he do that?" No. God’s focus is on our faith because his focus is on building an intimate relationship of love with us based on trust: us growing in our trust of him and him growing in his trust of us.
We all know that there can be no intimate relationship of love with anyone without trust. God’s focus is on our trust so that we can grow in the joys of intimate relationship with him. That is his desire for everyone. Will we trust him enough to obey the second command for action after we have positioned ourself ready to trust? He stretches us to the growth point he is developing in us at that specific time. The stretch is perfectly tailored for each of us, and its timing is perfect, God will not test our faith in him beyond our current capability. So act on what you believe God is telling you. Do not fear and give yourself excuses. Go now, draw out the water of life from your life and serve it to others. It will be a refined wine full of life fermented by your trials and the best wine available to soothe a recipient’s spirit. The Master of the Banquet will call upon you to serve it many times.
It will be God’s best wine for them! Each of us can become this miracle again and again for others.
Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now."
John calls this astounding miracle a sign. It was the first of many, and John makes its purpose clear.
11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
When we drive into a new city, we are very dependent on signs to find our way around and discover its highlights. God uses signs to reveal highlights of his glory, which we would otherwise miss. He does not use signs to entertain us but to show us aspects of himself that we can trust. The person who stubbornly refuses to allow God to be God in his life misses seeing the signs altogether. Make sure that God’s signs are not wasted on you. Many miss seeing the glory of God in Jesus. Have you?
12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.
Jesus had been busy since John the Baptist heralded him as the Lamb of God. His time had been spent choosing his first disciples. Now was time for a break with his family before engaging again in what would always be demanding times.
Jesus at the Temple (Cameo 2)
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Jesus now leaves his embryonic ministry with individuals, including the selection of his few first disciples. He heads straight to the centre of the Jewish religious power structure who monitored national life through an accretion of more than 300 laws added over the years for the functioning of family and society since the original Law was given by YAHWEH to Moses.
John does not make it clear in his previous account whether or not the religious caste, sent by the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem to interrogate John the Baptist, were present when he identified Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (1: 19 – 27). We can assume they were, because he gave that title to Jesus the very next day after his interrogation by them that sought to establish whether or not John was one of the identities prophesied to precede the coming of their Messiah. They certainly heard John the Baptist identify himself as the forerunner preparing the way for the coming of the Lord (John 1:23). He was claiming to be the ‘voice of one calling’ the peoples to prepare a highway for God to come and reveal his glory (Isaiah 40:3-5). John the Baptist then doubled up on this reference by giving them notice of a person standing incognito among the crowd whose sandals he was unworthy to reach down and untie (1:27). Their report back to the Sanhedrin power structure in Jerusalem would have raised a red flag but not given precise identification of the Messiah moving incognito in their midst.
It was now time for Jesus to unveil his identity unmistakably to the religious rulers of Israel. Significantly, the time the Saviour of the world chose was the most important day of national salvation in the Jewish calendar. Passover was their highest holy day of the year. It celebrated the night when God broke their 400 years of brutal slavery in Egypt. On that night, the angel of death killed the first born of all humans and animals in Egypt, but passed over the ‘blood identified’ houses of Israelite families, who were feasting under the protection of blood from a sacrificed lamb, or other animal, smeared on the top and both sides of the doorframe of the front entrance to their home. Animal sacrifice was needed for each family. Blood was always needed for the forgiveness of sins and protection by God.
For this high event each year, merchants did a roaring trade selling animals to be slaughtered for the festival and money changers were on the spot to take their cut. Jesus knew where this revenue bonanza was taking place. He went straight there.
14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.
Instead of this activity occurring in the marketplace where it belonged, the financial greed of the merchants and money changers had overridden any sense of the holiness of their God as their national Saviour. To maximise their earnings, they made it as easy as possible for the worshippers to buy their products closest to place of their ritual sacrifice. To do so, they turned God’s holy dwelling place into their market place[2]. Imagine the mess all those animals left behind in those sacred courts. Was that of any concern of those participating in the sacrilege?
Jesus saw red, not the red of the blood of animals sacrificed for the cleansing of sin, but the red of holy rage.
15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!"
By calling the Temple, that King David wanted to build as a house for his God, ‘my Father’s house’, Jesus unmistakably identified who he was claiming to be. He was the Son of the Father prophesied in their prophetic scriptures[3]. Jesus was vehemently attacking the religious practices conducted under the auspices of the priestly caste, who God had instituted to mediate sacrifices made by the people to him to ensure those sacrifices met his holy requirements. They were complicit in possibly the greatest affront that could be made against the holiness of God. They were guilty of the greatest sin. Having been instituted by God to ensure reverence for his holiness, they were supporting the greatest violation of it. Their response to the righteous anger of Jesus unleashed against these practices was instant. Both their authority in administering sacrifices and their guilt in defiling them were visibly and dramatically challenged for all to see. Authority when challenged always seeks to denigrate its challenger. Consequently, their response was entirely predictable.
18 The Jews then responded to him, " What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"
They set up an authority confrontation, Any ruler, or established authority group, who consider themselves the rightful authority over the actions of every person in their society that come under their sphere of accountability, will immediately react when their authority is challenged. In this case, Jesus specifically confronted the religious practices being carried out in the Temple under the aegis of the priestly caste. Their religious authority was never to be questioned and challenged. Rome had left the Great Sanhedrin, supported by the priestly caste, as puppet rulers of the Jews under Roman occupation. They had authority to exercise control over the daily affairs and harmony of the populace. That included their religion. The priestly caste of Israel had always carried authority over religious and social practices. The Roman conquerors pragmatically left that intact. No wonder their reaction to Jesus publicly challenging their religious practices with such authority was instant.
"Give us a sign to prove your authority to challenge our practices!"
In words, the attitude of their reaction could be expanded as,
"Make no mistake, without a miraculous sign we will never bow to your authority and your rationale given for it. Instead, we will insist that you bow to our authority and its practices, even forcibly, if necessary".
They asked for a sign of authority, Jesus gave it.
Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
To this they gave a mocking reply, which they took all the way to their execution of him as their ultimate act of authority,
20 "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?"
Their unbending pride was blind to the prophetic claim by Jesus, which demonstrated his authority over all life. No human could ever match that claim. Only the Creator of life can enact such a miracle, which Jesus did two years later, and his disciples witnessed. Therefore, John inserts his corrective interpretation of the sign given by Jesus,
21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body, 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.
The aggressive actions of Jesus against the commerce in the Temple immediately set up the authority confrontation that would build and culminate with the religious caste finally putting him to death to remove his challenge to their authority over the Jews. They would not stop their hostility to him bursting forth for all to see as they mocked his apparent powerlessness to resist their plan to have him strung up on a cross. The blind stupidity of their authority is etched into historical record,
"You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!" (Matthew 27:40)
They had no idea that the true power at the Cross was being established to bring salvation to millions by Jesus choosing to stay on it until full payment was made for the sins of all peoples of all time. The proof of the authority of Jesus was his staying on the Cross, not him coming down from it.
John’s unique contribution to the historical account by journeying with Jesus is to record the details of the progressive development of this authority confrontation, Jesus maintained the confrontation, in order to expose the hidden motives behind the religious display of each practicing Jew of his day. John’s contribution is both unique and also current, because it continues to expose the resistance to Jesus’ authority hidden in every person today building their self-righteous image using an adopted religion or sitting as king or queen of their self-constructed belief system, whatever it is.
Cana was Nathanael’s hometown (John 21:2). He most likely knew the wedding couple and was accordingly invited to the wedding. ↩︎
Does the commercialisation of religious products in the church sanctuaries cause the same holy rage in God today? When does money exchanged from tables at the back of a sanctuary turn the Father’s house into a market? When does the preacher’s promotion from the pulpit of his latest book move into the realm of capitalist corruption of a worship service established for the honour of God the Father and the Son? ↩︎
Psalm 2:7, Isaiah 9:6, Daniel 7:13, Zechariah 12:10 ↩︎