John 2:1–12

Read the passage.

“On the third day” may continue the progression that had been building in chapter one. (“The next day” repeated in John 1:35 and 1:43.) It may also be that it refers to the third day Jesus spent in Galilee after arriving there, which seems more likely as it could have taken a week for travellers to go from the Jerusalem area to Galilee on foot. In any case, that day was the day of a wedding in the town of Cana. It suddenly occurs to me that the words are “the mother of Jesus was there”, but “Jesus also was invited”. That almost implies that Mary wasn’t invited to the wedding herself, but attended in some official capacity. Almost, considering the “also” in v. 2.

At the wedding feast, Mary finds out that there were not sufficient preparations for the number of guests. The wine had run out, but the feast was not close to being done. She makes this observation to Jesus, but from His response it’s clear that she was making a subtle request. (Jesus addresses His mother as “Woman”, but at the time it was as polite as calling her “Ma’am”. It amuses me that today addressing someone with “Hey, man” is normal, but “Hey, woman” is not.) By saying “My hour has not yet come,” He lets her know that He is the one who decides the timetable and methods of His ministry. Despite this, she tells the servants to do whatever He tells them.

It is hard to figure out what her motivations and expectations were here. Clearly, from the other Gospel accounts, she knew that He was the promised Messiah, but perhaps she was wondering when He was going to get on with it. That doesn’t explain what she wanted Him to do about the insufficiency of wine at a party, though.

The first miracle that Jesus performs publicly is to turn water into wine. Specifically, the transformed water comes out of large storage basins which held the water used to wash guests’ feet when they arrived, as well as other purification rites. That the wine is used for a wedding feast alludes to the wedding banquet of the Lamb when God’s plan of salvation comes to its ultimate fruition. (Cf. Isaiah 25:6–9 and Revelation 19:6–9.)

While I have heard this passage preached on several times, I don’t think any of them paid much attention to verse 11. With this first sign, Jesus “manifested His glory”, the glory “we have seen” (John 1:14). By performing this miracle, Jesus was revealing His deity to those who saw it, that is, His disciples. They believed in Him because of what they saw Him do here at this wedding, even more than when He called them. This is why He did the miracle the way He did. If the point was just to keep the party going, it could have been done more subtly. (“Go look in the basement again, maybe there’s more you missed”, or “There’s more wine in this barrel than expected. It just keeps coming out.”) Instead, the symbolism of the water of purification being turned into the wine of salvation shows everyone the point of Jesus’s ministry as the Messiah in the first century.

We look forward to the ultimate wedding feast, when we celebrate Your eternal victory over sin and death.