It is Better to Overprepare
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Remember when we were kids and we would watch television shows like “The Dukes of Hazzard” or “Happy Days” or whatever you watched. They would get to the end of the season and you would have to wait for the new season to see anything new. The thing was that unless the previous season ended in a cliff hanger, then the show was not in the same space as it was. Time had passed. Sometimes they would explain it and sometimes not.
As we continue with our study in John, we are at one of those point. We worked our way up until Jesus was going to begin His ministry…here are some things that we didn’t see:
Jesus Baptism
Jesus in the Desert to be Tempted
Jesus calling His disciples
Jesus in the synagogue teaching from Isaiah 61
Now, Jesus is about to begin His ministry. John relates this by jumping right into a miracle.
John does not refer to the as “miracles” though, he calls them signs. Signs point to something. In John’s case, he says that the miracles that John performed were signs that pointed to Him being the Son of God that we might believe.
SO here we are, lets set the scene
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.
Weddings in Jerusalem were no minor thing…and they are quite different than what you and I expect if we go to a wedding today.
First, the actual wedding ceremony was more of a legal proceeding. A contract was entered into between bride and groom.
After this, the groom would be escorted to his home to get dressed and the bride would be escorted to the place where she was going to get dressed. Both Bride and Groom would be dressed as regally as possible. Often the Bride would have precious jewels braided into her hair.
At the appointed time, the Groom, accompanied by the one who was called “The friend of the Bridegroom” - what we might call the best man - they would go to get the Bride and all of her attendants that were helping her get dressed. There would be a procession from where the Bride was “gathered” to the place where the feast would happen.
The feast was an ongoing thing. It would last for 7 days or even more, with people coming and going. The Bride and the Groom would be seated like royalty and they would be waited on.
So here we are at the wedding and Jesus mother, as well as Jesus and His disciples had been invited…which probably means that Jesus and Mary were related to either the Bride or the Groom.
When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
This is a problem. Weddings were huge things and the Groom would be humiliated if they ran out of wine or food. Not only that, but it was quite possible that the groom would be fined or even sued for not providing for his guests…this is a big big problem. How Mary got involved, we don’t really know, but it seems to support the idea that she was related to the Groom…and fairly close because she was in a “catering” role.
And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
Woman: This sounds like a harsh rebuke to our ears…but it was actually a term of endearment that a man would use for his wife or in this case, his mother
What does this have to do with me: Greek actually reads what to me and to you woman…there is a little bit of a rebuke here, and it is explained by the rest of Jesus statement, my hour has not yet come.
There seems to be an implication that Mary was asking Jesus to reveal Himself for who He is…and Jesus responds in a manner that suggests “I am going to do this, but the results will not be what you think.”
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Mary hears what Jesus had said, and she has made her request, now she is resolved that “what will be will be”. This is instructive. So many times when we go to Jesus, we go with our thoughts and out ideas about how things are supposed to work out. Yet Mary shows us the correct response, leave it in Jesus hands.
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.”
Imagine those servants as they put the water into the jugs…and then took the water out and served it to the master of the feast
The wine was good
not a statement on drinking - just a glimpse into the culture
The Bridegroom was not humiliated
This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
There are people who make a whole theology out of Jesus turning water to wine and how it showed the superiority of Jesus over the Law…I think we are in safer water if we just understand what John wrote:
This miracle manifested Jesus glory
Remember what John said in the opening of this gospel, through Him everything was created…Jesus created wine out of 6 jugs of water.
His disciples believed in Him
They were following Him, but this moment made them realize something…this man, even though they did not completely understand who He was, was something special.