John 2:1-4 - A wedding

2:1,2

We now come to the first of seven miraculous signs in John, and it is a strange one, turning water into wine at a wedding.

This does add authenticity to the record, for if you were fabricating the gospel you would not have made up an incident like this, especially as the first miraculous sign. Indeed that can be said of much of the Bible.

It is not clear why John puts a reference to the "third day", the third day of what?

Weddings at that time went on for several days with guests coming and going. Also guest lists were far less formal than they are now.

So Jesus, His mother, and His disciples were invited. At this point only a few of Jesus' disciples had been chosen.

2:3,4

The wine had run out. This would be a major social faux pas, but was hardly the sort of thing for the Son of God to be involved in. Yet He was involved. God does get involved in the most trivial aspects of our lives. People sometimes mock praying for a parking space or the like. This attitude is wrong. Now if praying for parking spaces is the limit of our ambitions the there is indeed something far wrong, but God is involved in all aspects of our lives.

Mary mentions the situation to Jesus. The NIV has "Dear woman ...", the Greek has no "dear" and the ESV and other translations simply have "woman". Why does the NIV add dear? It is too soften the harsh sounding "woman". Is it right to do so? No, but it isn't as mistaken as it might be. "Woman" is not actually as harsh as it seems, Jesus used the same words on the cross when he asked John to take care of her (19:26,27), so the NIV change is understandable.

"My time" is actually "my hour". Jesus is referring to the cross. It is only when the kingdom comes that Jesus will bring the true wine (Luke 22:18).