JOHN104 - These Jars Are Meant for Washin'

John 2:1-8

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Music by Jeff Foote

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Alrighty. Today's the day. We are breaking down the turning water into wine miracle in John chapter two. We've been building up to this for a while, but there are a lot of other things that need. I mean, we we're not in a rush, right? There were other things that needed to be talked about. Well, now we're finally ready to get into the guts, the nuts and bolts, the transformative moment here of this first miracle of Jesus in the Gospel of John, or first like overt miracle. Now, John doesn't call this a miracle. He likes to use the term signs, and we'll unpack that a lot more. John 2 11, after this whole miracle has already happened, John gives this summary statement of it. He says, 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. So John, throughout his gospel, is going to think, hmm, it's transactionally a bad word. That might be a little too strong, but he's going to think in terms of Jesus' miracles. Every time he breaks the laws of time and space, he's making a point. We're learning theology, we're learning stuff about the character of God and the plan of God. And it means something. There are layers of meaning that John sees and really sets up for the original audience and for us, the secondary audience, around each of the things that he calls signs. He doesn't just like, you know, Jesus did this and then that happened. There's uh language around it, there's ancient symbolism around it, there's cultural symbolism around it. And you're supposed to sit here and chew on what you just saw and think about what that was a sign of. And I think the guts, the nuts and bolts of this miracle, uh, some of the details that are easily overlooked are where a lot of that meaning, a lot of that symbolism, a lot of what is being signed, according to John, is hiding out in this particular miracle. John 2 1. On the third day, a wedding took place in Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had been invited to the wedding also. And when the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, They have no more wine. Dear woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied, My time is not yet come. So it seems like there's maybe not going to be a miracle, because we get just this tiny little aside that we've been talking about for the last few days. But then this is very interesting. His mother, Mary, is like, Oh, well, that means yes. Like in our little, you know, inside the family speak. That might sound like no to all of you outside the family, but inside the family, that means yeah, he's gonna do something. And so she just, I mean, she hears, dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come. And she's like, All right, go time, action, miracle inbound. Okay. So in verse five, it says, His mother, Mary, John doesn't use Mary's name, his mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. That's a pretty cool gesture of faith. That's been kind of Mary's strong suit up to this point, as I argued over the last few days. I think Mary, like every New Testament character other than Jesus, is gonna wobble a little bit. She's gonna have some moments where she's not quite sure what to make of things. But here, I think we see what Mary typically is, which is just faithful and very trusting, very confident in who her son is. So she pulls some servants aside. They're no doubt all panicked and everything. I can kind of picture the scene there, by the way, because the women in my family like shows that have names like Shivington Chapel and Chestershire Castle, where there's a lot of people from the 1800s or early 1900s, and they all dress nice, and there's all kinds of scandalous love affairs, and their servants work in the house and they got little bells that they can ring, and then they gotta run up there in their little outfits and be like, yes, what can I do? And then they it's all about like they plan things. So I've accidentally osmosed a lot of this genre of PBS storytelling into the sides of my brain on accident from my family consuming a lot of Chamberlainshire keep. And I've osmosed entire episodes of gigantic frantic situations just like this one, where the staff has to save the day and come up with something or risk embarrassment for their noble lords, their employers. So you can kind of imagine these people freaking out. These are household servants, some of them bond servants, no doubt some of them slaves. If you want to get a better sense, by the way, of what slavery looked like in the ancient world compared to kind of how we picture it more recently. I did a whole deep dive on that in my season on Philemon. Maybe Jeff can link that down below. But regardless of their state of servitude or employment, it is about to become apparent to the party that the host is gonna have egg on his face because he did not plan properly for this. I mentioned a couple days ago that this would even call into question the ability of the one party to follow through on maybe dowry promises, property promises that were made to arrange this wedding in the first place. Remember, different times. I mean, maybe this couple deeply loved each other, maybe it was all arranged, maybe both. I don't know. But for certain, there would have been certain expectations between families in terms of who will do what, and it would be a very bad look right out of the gate to not even be able to afford wine for the entire event. And Mary, of all people, who is this? Worst case scenario, complete rando, and they have no idea like this is just a guest at the party. She's been pleasant enough, I guess, but we don't really know her. Maybe best case scenario, this wedding is somebody who's related to Jesus' family. I don't know. Some people have speculated that maybe this wedding has to do with John's family or Nathaniel's family. Nathaniel was from this neck of the woods, this town in particular. So maybe they have a reason to believe Mary, maybe they don't. But the fact that some lady walks up to them and is like, do whatever he tells you, means that she has prepped them quite a bit. Surely they have better options than just have this guy tell you to do something. Like, do you have wine or do you not? Is there wine on the premises or is there not wine on the premises? If there's not wine on the premises, we've got a bona fide problem here, and we're kind of wasting time just listening to some guy. So who laid the groundwork for them to listen and do what he said and burn precious time on this instead of running out to the equivalent of first century convenience store to try to round up some wine? Well, maybe it was Mary who's been telling them, you know, as she's been watching the wine reserves, you know, taper off. She's been telling them this is my son's moment. He he can actually do something about this. You just gotta trust me. Maybe it is the disciples. You know, if this is somehow related to Nathaniel's family because he was here, and maybe Nathaniel knows these servants and he's been like, Yeah, I was under a fig tree, and he and you know, maybe Nathaniel explained the whole thing about what he's learned from Jesus, what he's seen from Jesus. Yeah, there's a baptism, like a voice from heaven showed up. It's like, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. Do what he says. The Holy Spirit alighted on him in the form of a dove. Like this guy's a big deal. Maybe that is what did it. Maybe Jesus himself has been remarkable in the way he's participated in events here. Maybe his reputation has preceded him a little bit. And instead of being the carpenter's kid from the rival high school town next door in Nazareth, he's someone who is kind of gaining a little bit of regional notoriety and questions are arising. Maybe it's a combination of all of it, but whatever the situation here is, these servants are in such a desperate spot that this seems to them to be their best option. I just think that's incredibly fascinating. Okay, so it goes on. She says, Do whatever he tells you. Then in verse 6, it says, nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from 20 to 30 gallons. This is already getting weird because these jars aren't for drinking, these jars are for washing. Now, I don't think it's like people dipped their hands into these jars, so it wouldn't be totally gross, but it's just not what they're designated for. They're not the kind of thing that you would keep wine in. And so already faith is being a little bit tested here. I'm sure Mary is like, interesting. Let's see where this goes. I'm sure the servants are like, uh, not how I thought solving this would go. If by some freak chance this does work, not sure how keen the host is gonna be on the look before his guests of the wine being served out of the washing jars, but we're desperate. Okay, we'll get the jars and we'll fill them with water. And tomorrow we'll think through more of the implications of what happened when they get filled with water and somewhere off screen. I mean, it doesn't say then they turn then the water turned into wine. Somewhere off screen, it just becomes wine. But, and this is my final teaser for the fun stuff we're gonna get into. Remember at the beginning of this conversation, we're talking about how John calls these signs and not miracles. I mean, I think miracles is a perfectly fine word, but he says signs. This means something, it points to something. And I think what it means, what John wanted the original audience to get, and what John wants us to get, is hiding right there in the vessels that are gonna hold the water that turns into wine. More on that tomorrow. I'm Matt, this is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon, I'm gonna get a lot of people.