JOHN107 - Jesus Saves the Party Without Ruining the Plan

John 2:1-11

Matt's book, The Lightning-Fast Field Guide to the Bible is available NOW! - here's a link that gets TMBH a little kickback: https://amzn.to/4pEYSS9

Thanks to everyone who supports TMBH at patreon.com/thetmbhpodcast

You're the reason we can all do this together!

Discuss the episode here

Music by Jeff Foote

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

One time I was in the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming. It was just an amazing range. It's super wild. One of the wildest places in the Continental 48. And I was up there with a buddy. We rode in on ATVs, and then we hiked back into the wilderness, you know, no motorized travel area. And we went pretty hard. We were going pretty deep into the high country to fish for golden trout way up high. And on the way back down, we got caught in a big, nasty storm that rolls in. You know, it just happens from time to time. And I had the like rain gear, but I didn't have like, you know, anything to really make a little impromptu shelter out of. But there was kind of this little thicket right there. And so my buddy and I ran over into this little thicket and it provided some shelter, but it was raining really hard. But still, it was way better to be in the thicket than just out there. And then my buddy was like, hang on a second. I think I've got something from my last trip. And he goes rummaging around his bag and he pulls out a folded up tarp. We're like, oh, well, it's amazing. We unfolded the thing and it was huge and it covered us both and it kept us dry. And it rendered, I mean, the thicket was great. It really, it was a lovely thicket, no knock against the thicket, but it rendered the thicket entirely obsolete. You know, the second that tarp came out, there's just no reason to be under the thicket anymore. Likewise, the whole Old Testament law, ceremonial cleansing, washing, you got to do all these steps to be religiously and civilly clean for your community. And this is a way to have access to the religious rhythms of life. That was like the thicket. You know, yeah, it was pretty good. It sort of worked. But then Jesus shows up as demonstrated in the miracle we're looking at in John chapter 2. And it's like he's the tarp. It's just what he brings to the table and the paradigm that he initiates is so much better that it's like, yeah, thanks, thicket. We just won't be needing you anymore. I think that is why the fact that the stone water jars are what contain the water that Jesus turns into wine in John chapter 2 is such a big deal. Here's the passage. On the third day, a wedding took place in Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 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 has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you. Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, Fill the jars with water. So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He didn't realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, Everyone brings out the choice wine first, and then gives the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink. But you saved the best till now. 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. Now there's a couple subtle little things that I think are very interesting here. One, the first people to encounter a miracle where Jesus breaks the laws of time and space in the Gospel of John do not get named. They're just servants who fill jars when they are told to do so. And then Jesus tells them, you know, draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. But you know, first he told them, fill it. And he they filled the jars, it says, to the brim. Now that is to be taken literally, that means that you got a little bit of surface tension on the top. Like picture what happens when you fill a vessel all the way to the brim. Surface tension holds that water such that it actually a little bit, if you look closely at it in profile, that water actually kind of domes and more water, just barely, than is the volume of the container is kind of being held by the container because of surface tension. So if it's actually to the brim, what I'm about to say applies. If it's only like metaphorically to the like it's basically right to the brim, it still applies. Because what this means is that these guys, the servants who filled it up, who know they just poured water in there, they are standing here watching this miracle. And when does it happen? Right? Because they would see the water the whole time. They never broke line of sight with it. And Jesus tells them, draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. He doesn't say, now draw out some wine and take it to the master of the banquet. So are they thinking they're dipping out water at this point? Does it still look like water to them at this point? I mean, it kind of looks to me like the miracle actually maybe happens as the servants are carrying it from Jesus and the jars over to the master of the banquet. I do think it's also interesting, and of course I'm reading way too much into this, that if it was full to the brim and you plunge in a ladle or a cup, what's gonna happen? You break the surface tension, and the displacement of that cup or ladle would be enough to cause it to overflow, which maybe has tiny I'm imagining it, but it's kind of cool to imagine it echoes of the 23rd Psalm with my cup overflowing. At any rate, these servants, they got a cup full of something, and they're going over to the master of the banquet, who's probably pretty on edge. I mean, I don't know, maybe the master of the banquet doesn't totally know what's going on yet in terms of the situation, but the servants have got a pretty good grasp of it. Whatever the case, they take it over to the master of the banquet. Now, this would be like maybe the father, the patriarch of this household. It would maybe be a gregarious relative who could keep uh like an MC who would kind of keep things moving along. Maybe this is the head servant. Uh picture Pembroke Shireton Manor, the beloved show on PBS, and the guy who hires all of the staff and keeps everything moving. Maybe it's that guy, whoever it is, that's the first guy to truly taste of a miracle of Jesus. Because whenever it is that that water actually turned into wine, well, it's wine by the time the master of the banquet tastes it. So if this master of the banquet is a gregarious friend who's just emceeing things or the head of the household, he's probably drinking the wine that the servants brought because he likes wine and it is a party, and he would like more wine now, please. However, if this master of the banquet is in a role like the lead servant on PBS's beloved period drama, Strathington Haven Wood Court, then he's probably tasting the wine to make sure it's not gonna kill the bridegroom. I mean, it'd be like Nehemiah, who's the cupbearer to the king. You know, this is a person in a trusted role. Well, it says that the master of the banquet didn't know where it came from. Only the servants who had drawn the water knew. But imagine their elation. Well, it's not water anymore. Then the master of the it passes that test, right? I mean, this is kind of one of those moments like in a caper movie where you're fingers crossed. I hope we can pull this off. The servants are like, Here, we got you. You said you wanted more wine, you know, for the party. So here is some of that. You should just drink it. Mmm, drink it, mm-hat's good. Drink it. And so he drinks it and he's like, okay. And like in a caper movie, when the sentry you need to get past isn't alerted, there's kind of that relief moment here that I think the original audience would have felt. Will it pass muster? Will the master of the banquet accept this wine? Oh, he did. Oh, he did. Not only that, but then the master of the banquet called the bridegroom aside and said, I'm gonna paraphrase here a lot, dude. What are you doing? I just got the newest batch of wine. It's phenomenal. Do you do you know that they're serving the super good stuff right now? You dog, you. Uh most people try to save a little bit of money on the back end of the festival, get everybody liquored up and then give them the garbage stuff, right? I see you breaking out the best stuff at the very end. I'm impressed. Noted, you're a man of class, man of class. Again, tiny bit of paraphrasing there. If you go and look at the original Greek, I think you'll see that nothing I said is is at all what's there. But come on, you can picture this scene socially, right? And really that's what this whole episode today has been about. We're gonna get into what it all means theologically tomorrow. But today I thought it'd be fun to envision the scene, think about the pressures that all the different characters are feeling, and think about who knows what and where everybody is sitting at the end of this miracle. So let's work backwards in terms of the characters who we meet. Okay, the guests. What do they think? Well, they're they're just happy. They have great wine, and they think this is the best party ever, and they think their host is incredibly generous, and they're probably feeling great about the wedding they are there to celebrate. If this is a portent of things to come. Oh, to the bride and groom, you two are gonna be so happy together. Okay, well, let's talk about the bridegroom and the bride. They're elated, everybody at the party is happy, and the bridegroom looks awesome right now, and we don't get his response, but you know, I couldn't blame the guy if he went with just something like, Well, yes, master of the banquet. Thank you for noticing. Yep, yep, that's totally what we're doing. And then maybe he pulls aside somebody else. It's like, what are we actually doing? What's what the heck is going on? Are we burning money right now? Like, I don't know. But he looks good either way. Maybe he has a slight panic attack about whether they served bad wine first and now they're serving good wine. Maybe he'll do a double check to make sure the first wine was actually good. Go check those labels. But in the end, we know he's gonna feel great about it because we know he did serve the right wine at the beginning. So, bridegroom's happy, bride is happy, guests are happy, family of the bride is happy, the patriarch of the family looks great, the matriarch of the family looks great. Now, how about the master of the banquet? He looks great because he got to do the thing where he's like, You are a man of taste. Well done. And he's the one hosting the banquet, trying to keep everybody hyped up and happy. Well, he just got given a huge gift in this regard. And then we take it back one more level to the servants. Like they're happy because their bosses are happy, and you know, you know, if they ran out of wine, it's probably on the master of the banquet, but they know they probably would have got blamed. But I don't even think that's their chief concern. Yeah, everybody's happy. That's great. We've done our job well, everybody's happy with us. Cool. I think their chief concern is, yeah, but about that water that just instantly turned into wine and it was great wine. I'm guessing they all put their heads together and were like, you do you guys totally understand what just happened there or what we saw? And I'm guessing they all compared notes, but they all saw the same thing, and they just get to store that up and ponder it in their hearts and wonder what was going on. Okay, let's go back further into the story. How about the disciples? Well, we get the answer to that one. Uh he thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him. We'll break that down more later on, but it would seem this had a very positive effect on the disciples. They're like, okay, I've seen enough. I I know what we're doing here. How about Mary? Well, she's got to feel incredibly vindicated. She's got to feel great about this. Like I told you guys, like, remember the He-Man thing? Like I told you it was true. Now you can believe me. What an amazing moment this has got to be for not just a mom, but that mom in this situation. Then let's go one step further back. Jesus indicated resistance to doing this. He said, My hour or my time has not yet come. But then he did it. Okay, so now does Jesus have to be on edge because the timeline has been accelerated? Well, no. Jesus is very shrewd, and we're gonna see that throughout the rest of the book of John. He just found a way to thread the needle. I mean, think about the provenance, the custody of knowledge here. Guests don't know, at least not while it's going down. I assume they heard about it later. Bridegroom and bride don't know, master of the house doesn't know, master of the banquet probably doesn't know. Only the servants, Mary, Jesus, and the disciples actually know at this point. So it isn't being broadcast what has happened, and Jesus will just get on down the road. Now, probably when people hear about this, they'll be like, eh, maybe. But the witnesses who were there and saw it, they can vouch. So Jesus ministers in the moment, he ministers to his disciples, bolstering their faith, and he demonstrates his power and authority in a way that communicates a whole bunch of theology that we'll talk about tomorrow, and also doesn't accelerate his timeline in a way that would bring into jeopardy the whole redemptive plan for all of humanity and history, which I think is in yeah, it's a pretty big deal. I'm grateful to him for taking that into account. All right, tomorrow, theology stuff. What does it mean? Why did he do this? How is this a sign, and what is it supposed to be a sign of? I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.