John 2:6-10 - Water into wine

2:6,7

The jars were large, holding about thirty gallons of water. The water was used for ceremonial washing, to enable a Jew to wash himself if he became ceremonially unclean during the course of the day. One thing we need to be quite clear about is that the jars contained water at the outset, and contained wine at the end. There have been various attempts to explain away the miracle, none of them hold water (nor wine for that matter!).

It seems that these jars were empty and then water was added to them. Why was water added? Because that was all they had. When God does a miracle He will often require us to do something that on its own is not going to make an ounce of difference. The difference comes when God does His bit. This is usually how God works. He involves us, we would like Him just to do the whole thing, but that is not His way.

As Mary instructed, we need to do whatever Jesus tells us to do, that is when we will start to see the miracles in our own lives.

2:8-10

Jesus has just told them to fill the pitchers with water and now tells them to take the liquid to the master of the banquet. At no point as he given any hint that the water has turned into wine. The master of the banquet was like a master of ceremonies, in charge of making sure everything ran smoothly. He is amazed at that the best wine has been saved till last.

The common practice was for the best wine to be served first, then the lesser wine later. “too much to drink” is a rather gentle translation, the original implies that people were drunk or inebriated, so they wouldn’t be caring or able to discern the quality of the wine.

John 2:5 - Do whatever He tells you

“Do whatever He tells you”. Now what are we to make of this in the light of the previous verse? Jesus has just told Mary that His hour has not yet come and has essentially rebuked her. Well let’s look first at verse 3. Mary just told Jesus that they had run out of wine, she did not actually ask Him to do anything. Now remember what Matthew and Luke tell us. The angel had told Mary and Joseph that she would have a child by the Holy Spirit (Matt 2:20,21; Luke 1:35) and that suffering would come (Luke 2:34,35). Mary knew that Jesus was special and something amazing was going to happen.

So Mary is submitting to Jesus, recognising that He is infinitely greater than her. She is putting things in His hands and instructing the servants to do the same. Whether He is going to do something about the wine or not He is to be trusted.

Now we know that He did do something about the wine. And of course the wedding at Cana was of little importance on the grand scheme of things. There are things that crop in our lives which certainly do matter to us, but looked at eternally may be trivial. If we put an undue focus on the little things we will just end up nervous wrecks or stressed out. But if we look at the bigger picture, if we focus on God’s plans, then we will find that He takes care of all sorts of minor matters as well. Indeed, this is what Jesus said in Matt 6:33,34.

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).

John 1:50,51 - Greater things than these

The “you” here changes from singular to plural in v51, so Jesus starts off by addressing Nathaniel. Nathaniel will see greater things than what initially attracted him to Jesus. This is true of all of us. Whatever the reason we initially came to Christ He has greater things in store for us. The “truly I tell you” is then addressed to all those listening.

“seeing angels of God ascending and descending” is a reference to the vision that Jacob had (Gen 28:12). There has already been an allusion to Jacob in saying that Nathaniel is a man without guile. Jesus is the fulfilment of the promise to Jacob.

The term Son of Man is often used by Jesus of Himself. It is almost certainly a reference to Daniel 7:13,14. This speaks of His kingdom being everlasting and never being destroyed. Isaiah 9:7 has a similar promise about the Messiah.

John 1:48,49 - How do you know me?

1:48

Nathaniel is amazed that Jesus knows anything about him. God knows and understands us better than we do ourselves. What is motivating Nathaniel’s question? Is it curiosity as to how Jesus could know him, or is there some indignation in the question as well?

Jesus replies that He has seen Nathaniel before Philip called him. So perhaps Nathaniel was wondering if Philip had been telling Jesus about him.

A fig tree was associated with prosperity, and it was a place where rabbi’s sat for contemplation of the Law.

1:49

Nathaniel’s response is amazing. Suddenly he declares that Jesus is the Son of God and the king of Israel. Now this is a more amazing declaration than the one Jesus gave about Nathaniel.

Rabbi is used as a term of respect. Son of God is a messianic title, and any doubt over whether it was intended in that sense is removed by the  following bit where he says that Jesus is the king of Israel.

How did Nathaniel know all this? It must have been revealed by the Holy Spirit, for he has received far too little information to deduce this by human reason alone.

John 1:46,47 - Nathaniel

Nathaniel’s immediate reaction is to completely dismiss Philip’s claims. People dismissing someone’s claim that Jesus is the Messiah is nothing new. Nathaniel does not have much of an impression of Nazareth. There are no prophecies linking the Messiah to Nazareth. Now of course Jesus did not really come from Nazareth, He came direct from heaven. When people hear the gospel they will have all sorts of misconceptions.

Philip’s response is not to debate the issue of whether or not anything good can indeed come from Nazareth. There are times to debate a point, there are times to ignore a point, for it will only be a distraction. Instead Philip invites Nathaniel to come and see Jesus for himself. We need to do the same, and here we see why it is vital that Jesus is alive. Otherwise we would be seeking to convert people to a set of ideas, so we would have no choice but to engage them in argument. But it is the living God we are seeking to introduce people to, so we can expect God to reveal Himself as well, as indeed He does here.

When Jesus sees Nathaniel He declares that he is a true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit. Literally it says “no guile”. This is a reference back to Jacob, for whom deceit was a way of life. Note that Jesus does not rebuke Nathaniel for doubting Him, rather He commends him for his straightforwardness.

John 1:45 - We have found the Messiah

Philip was convinced that he had found the Prophet. The prophet is the one Moses spoke of in Deuteronomy 18:15,18. Islam claims that Muhammad is the prophet that Moses was speaking of.

Philip refers to Jesus as coming from Nazareth and being the son of Joseph. Nazareth was the town where Jesus was brought up. In Luke 3:23 it says that Jesus was thought to be the son of Joseph. Clearly the virgin birth was not made a big issue of. Now why is that? I firmly believe that it is true, but it is also true that apart from the accounts in Matthew and Luke nothing much is made of it. Let me make a suggestion. First, the people of the time knew full well that virgin births were not the norm, nor was there any way of proving that it was a virgin birth (would be interesting to see what a DNA test showed!). So there was no point making a big issue of it. Conversely, the resurrection could be proved, or at least shown to be perfectly reasonable. Many people had witnessed the risen Christ, and no one could produce the body. So the claim of the resurrection, while at least as monumental as the virgin birth, could be supported by evidence. So we do not believe Jesus is the Christ because of the virgin birth, whereas the resurrection does show that He is the Christ. We believe the virgin birth because it is recorded in Scripture, and because it is perfectly consistent with Jesus being the Son of God.

Notice also that Philip believed quickly. Evangelism is not all about us, not all about presentation skills etc. It is about us bearing witness and the Holy Spirit working in people’s lives. So something that might seem innocuous to us can have a monumental effect because of the work of the Spirit.