John 2:1-25
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Handout
Last week we talked about Jesus calling His first disciples. John pointed out Jesus to a couple of his followers who left everything to follow him. One of them, Andrew even went and told his brother Cephas who Christ renamed Peter. We also saw Philip go and find his brother Nathanael to tell him about Jesus. We talked about when we have intimacy with Jesus, when we meet Him in the study of His Word or when He calls us we can’t help but to share that with others.
Today we are going to look at a couple of questions.
Do I believe intimacy with God is better than anything the world has to offer me?
How should I respond when things in my life hinder my intimacy with God?
The Wedding at Cana
The Wedding at Cana
On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
This story is one that we don’t have in any other Gospel and is unique specifically to John’s account. Something we haven’t talked about yet but something that is important in understanding this Gospel is asking, “Who is John’s audience?” John’s gospel was written toward the end of the first century. It is the last Gospel to be written. This being said it was probably written after all of the events of the book of Acts had already taken place. The world was a lot different than what it was during the life and ministry of Jesus. The story of the Gospel had spread rapidly into Africa, Asia, and now Europe through the missionary journeys of Paul.
John’s audience wasn’t specifically Jews but based off of his other writings his audience would have been made up of a heavily gentile audience or at least an audience outside of the monotheistic confines of a Jewish culture. In this story John takes these two worlds a pagan roman audience that worshiped in temples to false gods and idols and the hyper religious Jewish world that revolved around the law of Moses and the writings of the prophets and he brings them together to show that Christ is worthy of all glory and honor and praise.
So Jesus is just starting His ministry. He has already been baptized, He has already spent 40 days in the wilderness, and He has already called some of His disciples, but He has yet to do anything else. Here Jesus is doing normal people things. It’s funny to think about Jesus this way. He is the creator the almighty and here He is going to a friend’s wedding. I imagine people were giving sideways glances like, “When is Mary’s boy going to get married?” You know the things old people do at weddings.
Jesus is there and He’s just hanging out with His mom and His disciples when the wine runs out. Out of all the people that were in attendance at the wedding I am sure Jesus was the last person anyone would ask to handle this dilemma. He was just attending. He wasn’t responsible for hosting in any way. Still, Mary turns to Jesus and lets Him know. “They have no wine.” Even Jesus knows He isn’t responsible.
And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
Jesus response is interesting. He calls His mother woman, which back then was a term of respect. He wasn’t like, “woman!” But Jesus says, My hour has not yet come. This phrase is repeated a couple of times throughout John. Each time is building closer and closer to one specific moment.
Any guesses?
His arrest and execution.
The last time this phrase would be used in John, Jesus would’t be at a wedding. He would be at passover. In John 13, Jesus, it says, “knowing that His hour had come” He had His last meal with His disciples where He would wash their feet, predict Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial. He would pray for His disciples. He would also give them Communion. He would take a piece of bread and break it and give it to His disciples saying that it was His body that was to be broken for them. He would also take some wine and say this is my blood that is poured out in a new covenant for them. This moment here at this wedding in Galilee was not Jesus’ moment. This wasn’t the hour.
This defies expectations. What were people looking for in a Messiah? They wanted a conquering hero like David. Someone who might take up a sword and drive Rome out of Israel. What was Jesus going to do? Would He begin a conquest and ride into Jerusalem to rally the troops and liberate the city? No. He was going to lay His life down so that He might be victorious, not over Rome, but over our greater enemy, sin and death. What is Mary saying here? Here is your chance Jesus to win a couple folks to the cause. Get some important people on your side so you can have some allies in Galilee when you go to lay seige on Jerusalem. I don’t think she really knows what she is saying. I don’t think its some deep plan. She saw there was no wine and looked at Jesus to see if He could do something about it.
Mary pulls the mom card and Jesus honors her. Something interesting to look at. Jesus was obedient to all of the law including honoring His father and mother. Maybe He didn’t want her to be embarrassed or like Jesus ignored her, but Jesus steps in and does something about the problem.
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.
Jesus goes and has the servants fill up these massive jars full of water. At minimum it was like 120 gallons of water. This must have been a pretty massive wedding and running out of wine this soon would have been a pretty massive embarrassment for the host. Jesus has them fill all these jars and they took the water to the master of the feast and somewhere between the jar and the host the water had become wine. Not just any wine but wine that was better than the first wine.
What is John telling us?
For a Gentile audience
For a Gentile audience
Jesus is greater than any other god. The Greeks and the Romans both worshipped a god named Dionysus. This was the god who had the power to create and inspire ecstasy, pleasure. He was a fertility god and a god of parties. He was primarily known as a god of wine and grape-harvest. For a Greek and for a Roman Dionysus was one of the most important gods they had. He was responsible for everything they enjoyed. When John shares this story, he is showing his Gentile audience that Jesus is the real deal. He isn’t some made up god of wine. He is giver of every good and perfect thing. Is John saying that following Jesus is going to be all parties and drinking? Quite the opposite actually. What John is teaching us is that what Jesus offers is greater than anything we’ve had before. A life in Jesus is greater than a life apart from Him.
Do I believe intimacy with God is better than anything the world has to offer me?
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Intimacy with Christ is greater than anything the world has to offer. The world offers a cheap substitute to the genuine article. Jesus is the real deal. The life Dionysus offered was a life of abuse, destruction, and poor decision making. Jesus offers life that is abundant. Life that is filled with every Spiritual blessing. Hope, peace, love, rest.
For a Jewish audience:
For a Jewish audience:
We look to someone who Jesus was often compared to: Moses. Moses was the one who led Israel out of slavery and parted the red sea, he was the law giver. He wrote the first five books of the Old Testament. We know he didn’t do any of that by himself but he was a very important character in Israel’s history. He is the one who detailed the purification laws and established the priesthood in Israel and here is Jesus using these jars for purification to turn water into wine. What makes a person pure? Is it water? Maybe if you’re washing your hands, but on a Spiritual level Jesus is the purifier. This was John the Baptists whole deal! I baptize with water but Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Something greater than the Old Testament law is here. Someone greater than Moses is here. The first plague Moses did was turn water into blood. The first act of bringing judgement against Egypt was turning water into blood. Jesus is the opposite. His first miracle. Before He ever healed anyone, before He ever walked on water or calmed the storm, John tells us that Jesus turned water into wine. He isn’t there to bring condemnation. He is there to offer new life and grace. John said it earlier in chapter one.
For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
Moses brought the law. He brought condemnation against sin. Jesus came bringing grace and truth. Freedom from sin not condemnation against sin. We will get to this another week but this is what Jesus says in chapter 3.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Jesus is greater than Moses.
Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.
For every audience:
For every audience:
Jesus has the power to transform. He took regular old water and transformed it to good wine. Christ has authority of this world. Why? He created it. Miracles are only miracles because we forget that all things have to answer to Jesus. If Jesus can do this to water, He can do this in our lives as well.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
John follows up this story with one that is just as thought provoking as the first one.
Jesus Cleanses the Temple
Jesus Cleanses the Temple
The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Passover was an important Jewish festival to remember how God had delivered them out of the hands of the Egyptians and how the Angel of Death had passed over the doors painted in blood. All of Israel gathered in Jerusalem specifically to the Temple to worship, offer sacrifices and celebrate this Passover festival. Jesus, as an Israelite, also finds Himself in Jerusalem.
In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
Jesus goes to the Temple and sees people selling animals and exchanging money within the Temple. Just imagine that for a second. Imagine your relationship with God. Your intimacy with God is dependent upon going to a specific location and this holy place of worship is being used as a marketplace to sell animals. It stinks there’s poop everywhere. The worst part isn’t that people are distracted. By selling these animals people were profiting off of the atonement of other people and worshippers weren’t really sacrificing as an act of worship they were just going through the religious ritual.
Relationship with God is not about making a profit or checking off religious boxes. Something greater than Moses was here. While Moses led the people out of their slavery to Egypt at Passover Jesus was leading people out of their slavery to sin. These people had turned the house of worship into a house of commerce. There was no authentic worship happening here. Jesus knew that. When He saw what was happening in God’s house He was compelled to act. Jesus flipped the tables and drove the sellers out of the Temple. Zeal for His Father’s house consumed Him. God is not satisfied with a religious going through the motions. He wants authentic worship.
What does my worship say about my relationship with God?
Is God honored in my worship or am I only putting on appearances?
Jesus elevates this idea of worship. Worship is not what a person does at a specific place. Worship is what happens in the heart.
So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
The Temple of God isn’t just a building. The Temple of God is where His Spirit dwells. In Christ our bodies have become Temples of the Holy Spirit. He lives with us and every where we go we are a living act of worship to God.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Understanding that worship isn’t what we do in a building but is instead how we live our lives we ask the questions again.
What does my worship say about my relationship with God?
Is God honored in my worship or am I only putting on appearances?
The people who were there were confused. Why are you doing this? What sign do you show for doing these things? And Jesus replies saying. Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. The Temple that they were worshipping in was massive. It was built by Herod the Great who was the one in the Christmas story who tried to have baby Jesus killed. It took 46 years to build this massive temple. It was an incredible undertaking that took a lot of manpower to construct. Jesus says destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. Now Jesus was a carpenter but was He really that good of a carpenter? He isn’t talking about this building. He is talking about His body. Jesus predicts His death and resurrection as the proof that He has authority to do these things. Jesus is ushering us into a New Covenant. The Temple and sacrifices were done away with when Jesus offered Himself as the ultimate sacrifice for sin. Through His death and resurrection Jesus has made it so that the Holy Spirit now dwells in the hearts of His people. Our bodies are a Temple for the Holy Spirit.
What does your temple look like?
Do the things that broke Jesus’ heart and moved Him to action break yours too?
There have been times in my life where I have allowed merchants into my house of worship. I allowed these little things to creep in and take root. To set up shop until they had completely taken over my life. If we are honest with ourselves we all have some tables that need turning. My prayer for you and for me is that zeal for God’s house will continue to consume Jesus and that these things in our life that hinder our intimacy with Him, He will continue to drive out. The good news is that if you have sin in your life, bad habits, brokenness. Jesus wants to heal and restore. Sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes we don’t want Him to. But it is necessary. Part of intimacy with Jesus is surrendering and saying, “I am your temple get rid of what shouldn’t be here”.
I have had days, weeks, years, where I was more than comfortable in my sin. There was no zeal in my life to pursue holiness only a religious apathy. I was content with going through the motions. Putting on the appearances. It took Jesus stepping into my Temple and tossing tables over for me to begin to grow in intimacy once again. When we grow in intimacy we want nothing to keep us from Jesus. We want an unhindered intimacy. Is that always obtainable? No. We are prone to wander, we are easily distracted. But loving Jesus and growing in intimacy means that we are always looking for those tables so that we can get them out as soon as we can. We see them kick the legs out on their table and start shaking out the table cloth and we say, “Hey you gotta go. You cannot stay here.”
Does this mean we should only be concerned about our bodies as a temple and not also how the church itself runs? No. As a body of believers we also have to look at what our corporate worship looks like. We have to think through what might be a distraction to people as they worship. What honors the Lord in worship. How we can connect our brothers and sisters to Christ and help them grow in intimacy with God. Sometimes there are times to stand up for what is true and be vocal about what the church is doing. Especially if it is offensive to God and doesn’t honor Him. Did Jesus toss temple tables over His personal worship preference? No. I don’t like the music you do so I am going to crash out and throw your guitars on the ground. No. I don’t like the color of the carpet so I’m just gonna rip it up. No. Jesus was passionate about what honored God and we should be too, but it begins in our own hearts. If we are growing in intimacy with God, preparing our hearts as a Temple for the Holy Spirit, my prayer is that we will have the wisdom to know when it is the right time to toss tables like Jesus and when it is the right time to just let it go. Not everything is worth fighting over. Not everything is worth throwing away friendships with others and relationships that just need some wisdom and a kind word to help them grow.
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.
Do I believe intimacy with God is better than anything the world has to offer me?
How should I respond when things in my life hinder my intimacy with God?
