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.”  And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”  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 (Joh 2:1-10).”

This passage is so much fun!  There is so much symbolism here.  Jesus’ miraculous ministry begins in the context of the Jewish wedding.

“This context screams messianic prophesy associating the Messiah’s first coming with the purchase of His bride and His second coming with the celebration of the consummation of that which He has purchased.” 

In the days of Jesus, a wedding was a protracted affair.  First, the groom would travel from his father’s house to the house of the bride’s father.  He would pay the purchase price, in order to establish the marriage promise or covenant, and then he would return to his father’s house.  During the next year he would stay at his father’s house making the living arrangements for his bride.  His bride, although she knew he would return, did not know exactly when he would return.  When the groom returned the marriage would be consummated amid a celebratory seven day wedding feast.  This context screams messianic prophesy associating the Messiah’s first coming with the purchase of His bride and His second coming with the celebration of the consummation of that which He has purchased.  Jesus chose this context to point his audience to their own messianic expectations.  They were anticipating a messianic wedding.

“The feast that Jesus is pointing to will be a celebration larger than any other because the cause of the celebration is the eternal end of death and tears, the eternal end of sin.”

In Isaiah (25:6-9) we read,

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

What Jesus’ contemporary readers didn’t know was that feast mentioned here was to be a wedding feast.  They knew that they lived in anticipation of this feast, but they didn’t know it was a wedding feast.  Note the rich food and wine.  Jesus will, over the course of His ministry, associate himself as both the food and wine of this feast.

And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations

That veil, that covering, is the shame that is the result of our own sins; our own failings.

He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.

The feast that Jesus is pointing to will be a celebration larger than any other because the cause of the celebration is the eternal end of death and tears, the eternal end of sin.  This will come at a price, the purchase price of a bride.

It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

Jesus chose the context of a wedding feast to be the context of His very first miracle.  But this wedding, the wedding that Jesus and His disciples had been invited, was about to fall apart.  The wine had run out!  I cannot imagine that even a small version of a Jewish wedding in these times would have been inexpensive.  The very presence of the stone washing jars, associated with the purification rituals of devout Jews, testifies that this was a wedding hosted by a family of devout observing Jews.  They would have had a social interest in maintaining their status before the community and they could not afford the wine at their own wedding.  Oh, the scandal!  And all that scandal would have been captured in Jesus’ mother’s statement, “they have no wine.”

Jesus’ response immediately commands his mother’s attention.  “Woman, what does that have to do with me?”  Now, I do not believe that Jesus was using the condescension that this phrase would have generated in our own generation.  But he has changed the formality of his address for an intentional purpose.

As a leader of soldiers, I have subordinates that I would often address simply by their last name.  In doing so I am denoting a level of familiarity within the context of military protocol.  Conversely, when I address them by their rank such as private, sergeant, or lieutenant I am changing the level of familiarity and thus the tone of the conversation.  This is especially true if I use their rank in the absence of their last name.  Jesus was not referring to his mother as mother nor did he use her proper name.  He addressed her as woman to bring her and those in His audience to a higher level of attention in order to highlight his next statement, “My hour has not yet come.”

“Now that Jesus has their attention, He is declaring that the hour of their Messiah is close.”

John, the author of the Gospel, has already declared Jesus to be “the Word,” “the Light,” and “the Life.”  He narrated how John the Baptist was confronted by the priests and Levites who wanted to know if he was the messiah and recorded that John the Baptist not only denied being the messiah but identified Jesus as “the Lamb of God.”  The earliest disciples recognized that reference as a reference to their expected Messiah and as a result decided to follow Jesus.  Andrew even went and found his brother Simon, later renamed Peter by Jesus, and told him, “we have found the messiah (Joh 1:41).”  Now that Jesus has their attention, He is declaring that the hour of their Messiah is close.

I picture Mary, Jesus’ mother, struck dumb in that moment.  Locked, eye to eye with her son.  She meant to communicate her sympathy for the family that was about to lose standing socially and Jesus responded with, “Woman, the hour of the Messiah has not yet come.”  In that moment she may have recalled the night the angel appeared to her saying, “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son… He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High (Luk 1:31-32).”  Perhaps her mind jumped from there to her visit with her cousin Elizabeth who when pregnant and carrying John the Baptist declared as the baby John leapt in her womb, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb (Luk 1:42)!”  She must have considered the shepherds, the star, and the wise men.  How Simeon had declared her son to be the Christ saying, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed (Luk 2:34-35).”  And, when Jesus was twelve, how they had lost Him only to find Him in the temple.  How everyone was amazed by His understanding.  “Do whatever He tells you,” she responds.

What is the hour of the messiah?  In the days of Jesus, the opinions of both the learned and the unlearned were diverse (Scott, 322-323).  “The Messiah was expected to be at the center of the great eschatological drama of the final age… He was to be the inaugurator of that age, the one to bring it into existence (Scott, 322-323).”  The diversity of opinion on the subject comes from the implications each of the titles used of the Messiah in the Old Testament had on contemporary thought in Jesus’ days.  The Suffering Servant, Son of Man, The Prophet like Moses, The Lamb of God; each of these carried with it a messianic task (Scott 322-323).  But rest easy Jesus is about to provide some clarity.

He commands the servants to fill some ceremonial jars with water and then to take that water to the master of the feast.  I mentioned earlier that I could not imagine even a small wedding to be an inexpensive affair.  One of the ways they would reduce the expense was to serve the best wine first so that discerning pallets would discern the high quality of wine.  As those discerning pallets became less discerning or as the evening wore on and the more prominent guests had gone the master of the feast would bring out the lower quality wine.  Usually the best wine precedes the poorer wine but in the case of this wedding the poorer wine preceded the higher quality wine.

“What this miracle is announcing is that the Messiah is going to inaugurate a new covenant that will be better than the old.”

In the context of the wedding covenant celebration Jesus was bringing attention to the wine of that covenant.  What this miracle is announcing is that the Messiah is going to inaugurate a new covenant that will be better than the old.  Jesus was pointing to the prophet Jeremiah’s words.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more (Jer 31:31-34).”

Jesus was pointing to the day in which a better covenant was coming.  His hour would inaugurate that covenant.  And although it was not yet His hour, He took advantage of the context of this Jewish wedding to tell them, with authority, that the hour was almost on them and to provide a little clarity about what that meant.

Today, if you are reading this know that the hour described by Jesus has already come.  It is the hour for which all creation was created and has eternal significance for you and your loved ones.  If you don’t know what Jesus has done, I would encourage you to find a local church and sign up for a Bible study or Sunday school.  Learn about Him.  In earlier blogs I wrote about the morality and sovereignty of time.  They present the reality that time is not eternal and that you are accountable for what you do with it.  Don’t wait.

If you are not yet ready to find or commit to a local church and you have more questions.  Feel free to contact me.  Good questions are the source material for good blogs 😉

If you are already counted among His own and want to grow a deeper more resilient faith then continue to learn and get to know Him.  I would specifically encourage a study through Hebrews.  There you will find Paul’s explanation of the superiority of the New Covenant over the Old Covenant.  But there is also so much more to discuss in regards to this passage in John; that the servants knew where the wine came from when the master did not and the significance of the stone jars and the rites of purification.  Why the third day?  Discovering what they mean starts with a question.  He, through the Spirit, will reveal Himself to you.

Thanks for reading and do not forget to subscribe to my e-mail below.  I am working on some great things and I would hate for you to miss out.

Photo by Fabio Sangregorio on Unsplash

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Scott, J. Julius, Jr. Jewish Backgrounds of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2000. Find this resource in the Faith, Hope, Love (Life) Store

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