The Wonder Before the Wonder
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Book about the thigns I should have done.... outtabiography
Yesterday I ate a clock.... very time consuming.... especially when I went back for seconds....
Now we kind of move out of hte introduction of the main characters… and what we are ging to see is that John is kind of a dude that has symbols inside symbols… and you will start to realize that he is trying to give us stuff inside of stuff.... and once you see it your eyes will be illuminated to so much more in the scripture…
GOSPEL OF JOHN MEME
The minute you see it you cant unsee it… John 2 is the beginning of a breaking in of a new world and the completeion of hte old… the law...
1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
Weddings tended to be on tuesdays or wednesdays so you wouldn’t break into any Sabbath problems.... and the first sign that Jesus is going to do it tells us in Verse 11.... he did here… he did signs that were pointers to something that he wanted to say about God and himself… and he is sitting at this wedding… and he has done nothing yet to prove that he is who he says that he is… and here he sits at this wedding… and you and I miss this because we think wedding la di da.... and JOhn everything matters to him.. a first century Jew would not have missed this… they were expecting this messianic age… where Israel was here, and the bridegroom would show up.... and there was this expectation he would come for Israel and there would be this Messianic banquet.... and this is what happens when Jesus comes back… the marriage supper of the lamb.... and the Bible starts with the wedding in Genesis… and ends with it… and there are all these little micro weddings between....
look at Eph 5:31-32
31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
You have to leave and cleave… you gotta leave and not wait for your momma to keep making you sandwiches and washing your laundry… and you have to cleave to your wife…and the two will become one flesh… and then he says something weird.... It
32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
Wait.... when did Christ do this… when did he leave his father… oh wait… thats the incarnation… and he comes down and cleaves to his wife the church..... and here we have the picture ofa wedding in Cana...
Lets look at the setting of the wedding then.... A wedding in the evening.. a feast… and all your boys would come to her house and get her with you… and they would carry you and you would be trapsed along… and people would celebrate you… and then in a peasant cultire this is when they would stop and have fun together… no more working ten hours a day… lets celebrate with our community… the whole village would come together and celebrate you....
and you see in this situation the mother of Jesus was there… its not just a woman.... its not that Jesus was so divine that he had no human relationships… he had a mom… and other gospels tell us he had brothers and sisters....
2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.
So he comes with his new disciples and then here is the big tragedy....
3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
Whats the big deal the wine ran out? Just get something else to drink… but in a shame culture the seriousness of the humiliation of running out of wine in this culture is a huge deal…there are people in the middle east who take their own life based on this stuff… and commentaries show us that what we miss is that weddings were a legal obligation… if you ran out of wine it meant that you arent holding up to your end of hte obligation and then I can come and sue you and put you in financial ruins… and Jesus is saving them...
One scholar I read said what Jesus is doing is saving them from a financial catastrophe that would have ruined them economically for years. Which is why the mother of Jesus said to Jesus they have no wine....
I love how Jesus cares about teh small normal things… and while this situation si pretty rough… its not that God only cares about the stuff that sounds really meaningful… and this isnt just about salvation… he cares about yoru wedding and your money and your stress around life.... and he cares about those things… yes he wants your salvation… but he is in the middle of the weeds of your life and he cares about the smaller areas as well as the bigger ones.
And hes at the wedding and there is debt to fix and he wants to care about it. She comes to Jesus to deal with the problem because for thirty years she has been coming to him and he has been fixing the problem… and she knows he will take care of this…
There is this old tradition… that says when Jesus was a little baby… no one thinks its legit… so lets start there… but its a cool story.... people would go to Mary’s house and they would stare at Little Jesus and there problems would go away.... and while thats most likely not true.,, what I want you to take away from that is you can stare and get clsoe to Jesus and he can take care of your problems as well. He will help you when you get clsoe and give him your attention.... NOT name it claim it..
ANd Mary has no clue what Jesus is going to do when she comes to him… she says they ahve no wine… and SHE TRUSTS HIM… hear that… she doesnt know what answer he is going to give, but she trusts that he will give an answer to the problem… how do I know that? Look at verse 5 and we will come back to 4
5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
She trusts him so much… and this is one of the most definitive questions of our lives even if you don’t understand what Jesus is doing, and you don’t understand how he is putting things together or why things are playing out the way they are.... do you trust that Jesus is going to do the right thing… because when stuff hits the fan are you still trusting him? And things just look sketchy and they aren’t going down the way oui thought… you can handle it two different ways… you can say I don’t understand but I trust Jesus is doing the right thing… or you can say I dont understand why this is happening the way it is so I am out.... I dont trust all this stuff anymore...
So when the world looks like he isn’t in control, do you like mary trust that he is going to do something to take care of the problem
Dad 81… had his time but ecclesiastes tells us that wheneer we die it was our time… it doesnt feel right when we lose someone… but Jesus has it… even on this side of the veil it may not look like it… the wine has run out the party is ocming to a close.. I either trust you or I dont trust you....
What keeps us from faith? In my brain I see at this wedding Jesus is just sitting around with his disciples and he is talking and he is watching the wine run out and knows it is about to get sketchy… and he knows his ministry has to really start soon, and the question is when am I going to start it because at this point in Johns gospel it has been hidden… He is like I could pull it out..... and the problem arises… and you say do I think you are really about to do something or are you just chilling right now?
I would say that what keeps us from faith, in the keep of things are a mess so I dont want anything to do with you..... is because sometimes we don’t want it....
Prestige…You werent really looking.. you dont really want to know...
I think there are some instances where we get in tough circumstances in life… think of the de churched.... sometimes what is going on is… there are other scenarios in your life that make you not want to take a closer look and see what Jesus si really doing.. he is calling you out nad saying do this with your life… dont live like that.... its not Im just going to leave.... its if you paid attention he would show you something you dont really want to see so you say I want out...
ANd remember Mary just came and said, “They have no wine...” they never asked for anything… she didnt ask him to do antything at all…
“God fixes our prayers on the way up! If he does not answer the prayer we made, he will answer the prayer we should have made. That is all anyone needs to know.” -JI Packer
THink about that for your life, where we are afraid to pray the wrong thing…
One Scholar says this, remember Jesus is in this little podunk town, in the middle of nowhere…
“We have the domesticated God that does ordinary things.... “Many of us treat people in our homes in a way we would never treat a stranger… but the Jesus of scripture is someone who even in these moments… and he says they are people where nothing but his best was good enough.... and he says anyone can do anything on the big occasion, but it takes Jesus to do something big on the small occasion.”
What if we lived our lives in a way, like Jesus, where we gave our best to every single person we saw.... not just when it was in the big situations… but we treated everyone like they had value and meaning and purpose and we treated everyone like that all the time… even in the small moments… what if that is how e lived our life...”
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities… that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” CS Lewis, the weight of Glory
Every person we interact with is of such value there are no ordinary people, everyone will live forever… so when you interact what are you leading them to, immortal horrors or everlasting splendors… its not just getting them to just agree with your political stance..... Menge… feed them but then what to what effect....
Everyone has purpose and value and meaning… if you make one of them turn away from me you might as well tie a millstone around your neck and jump off a bridge… and every kid we interact with we need to help them to one of those ends… and this happened at a wedding in canna, at a small wedding… and nothing huge and large… and this is where he chose to make his stuff happen....
and look at verse 4
4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
Hes chilling… and he says woman.... and don’t say that.... GUNAI..... my lady.... ma’am… homer… talking about it like someone he lives.... what does this have to do with me.... and he is saying don’t worry I will settle it in my own way.... in the greek it conveys he will do it but just leave it to me… he isnt saying he ISNT going to do it…She says do whatever he tells you… because he knows....
and he says my HOUR has not yet come....what does this mean… when youd hear this youd question it… so when you come across this in the Gospel of John. You read it and think what does he mean by this, My HOUR has not yet come.... you trace it through the rest of the book and look at what this could possibly mean....
30 So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.
23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.
1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,
The hour is the moment of the cross… the greatest moment we have ever seen… and here is what he is trying to say and why it laands on communion.... hes saying dont follow me because of the great miracles and the teachings I have here.... there are lots of great teachers… but this isnt bhuddism… this isnt listening to hindu scripture… you want to know what the center of everything is… it is that I am going to die… the cross is my hour of my great glory where I will accomplish everything I am going to do.... and we have to define our life by that… where he took the wrath of God and shed his own blood and can bridge the gap.... and here he lands the story
and he says what are you going to do with the cross of Jesus… and if you do know him you get to partake in this meal with him...