The Wedding at Cana (Part 2)

1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

   4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

 6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

 8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

   They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

 11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Revelation of glory episode 1: Jesus turns water in to wine.  We’ve already magic school bused ourselves into this first century wedding at Cana of Galilee, a major community event worthy of celebration, providing laughter and joy during a time of severe theological/economic/historical drought.  But the world is a vampire.  It respects no-thing, not even the sacred, not even the temporal and fleeting world the sacred will at times provide.  And so the wine runs out.  Sucked. Dry. 

Mary is the first to notice and acts as quickly as possible, hurrying to the only person who can do something to alleviate? fix? replenish? the joy.  She lays the need at his feet.  Like any good son who’s partying is interrupted by his mother who presents him with a problem that is not his responsibility, Jesus says, “This is not my responsibility”.  He also adds “My hour hasn’t come”.  So not only like a good son but a clever son as well, Jesus responds with a combination of logic and theology.  My mom would go crazy if I talked to her this way.  But of course I am not Jesus, and I am not on a mission to literally save the world.  Nevertheless Mary persists.  Actually, she ignores his deflection of her request, but it’s not that she hasn’t heard what Jesus has said.  Quite the opposite, Mary knows full well what he said, who he is, and what he’s about (at least she knows enough to know, to intuit, the meaning of the mystery of his person).  Mary’s actions speak for themselves, “I know you have a plan but I also know that you’re able and willing, so can’t your hour come sooner than it would have?”  Of course Mary has no power over Jesus.  She has not threatened, coerced, or manipulated Jesus.  Jesus does not need to do anything.  He does not need to tell the servants what he does.  But he does.  He loves Mary’s request, her persistence, her ability and willingness to know him.  And so he honors her.

Jesus instructs the servants.  This will become the paradigm for church history, but lets keep that rabbit in the hat until later.  For now it’s what Jesus instructs them that requires our attention.  He tells the servants to fill all six of those massive stone jars with water.  A seemingly normal request, (especially for the 21^st century believer who has read this story 23-58 times) because, after all, Jesus does need to make a lot of wine right?  At this point we need to back up.  We have already missed what Jesus is doing.  We have let that little title at the top of the story determine what we read.  John includes a couple of details that profoundly affect the story. 1) These jars were used by Jews for ceremonial washing.  Ceremonial washing was necessary for Jews to remain ceremonially clean, that is, clean so they could worship.  All sorts of things could make a Jew unclean, or unfit for worship, like eating non-kosher food, coming in to contact with gentiles, or dead animals, humans, et cetera.  They would also wash, or clean themselves, before eating, and it was primarily for this purpose that these jars would have been used.  Before eating water would be taken from these jars and poured down the hand of the person, who arm would be bent at the elbow, so that the water would flow down the forearm and off the elbow.  This would have been performed on every person at the party, on both arms. 2) Each jar could hold 20 to 30 gallons.  That’s very big, and there were 6 of these jars.  If we take the conservative road, then it would take 120 gallons to fill them.  That’s a lot of potatoes.  In fact, that is more potatoes than this wedding party could possibly need, than they could possibly exhaust in a week of partying.  Now think about the servants entrusted with the task of filling them.  The party has already started, people have already been washed and are eating, and they’re instructed to re-fill these massive jars.  Yet John gives us no sign of their complaining.  They seem to follow the instructions of this semi-popular Galilean dutifully. 

Thus the dual significance of the jars: their representation of the Jewish ceremonial system and their ridiculous size.  The servants faithfully carry out Jesus’ troublesome instructions and the result of their faithfulness is literally miraculous.  Having filled each jar to the brim they draw water out and take it to the master of the banquet.  He would either have been a servant or member of the family, but either way he was in charge of the party and would have been responsible for the premature depletion of the wine stores.  Part of his job was to control the distribution and dilution of the wine so as to make it last for the length of the party.  When he tastes the water the servants brought to him it has changed in to wine, and not just any wine, but wine of a quality greater than the best wine available for this party.  This is what is implied in v. 10.  And John adds, in v. 11, that through this sign Jesus revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him. 

But remember where we started.  The problem was not that they had merely run out of a drink.  They had run out of that which symbolized joy and life at a community-affecting/defining event, during a period of history lacking greatly in literal joy and life.  But Jesus has not only given them lots of really good wine.  The real significance of the story lies in what the wine has replaced- the water reserved for ceremonial washing.  They have incredible wine in ridiculous abundance but this incredible blessing is literally taking up the space traditionally reserved for purification water.  Obviously the implication is that they can no longer cleanse themselves, for pouring wine over one’s body was not exactly prescribed in the Old Testament.  What does this mean? How can Jesus do this? Doesn’t he know the inconvenience he has caused, virtually guaranteeing their perpetual uncleanliness for an indefinite period of time? 

It means just that.  The blessing Jesus gives means, according to their old way of thinking, that they will be ritually unclean.  And it is their old way of thinking that is required to end.  He has new wine for them that will not be held by old wineskins.  The blessing he is transcended the system through which they interacted with God.  His presence is the reason why the Sabbath can be defied, why his disciples do not need to fast, and why the distinction between clean and unclean no longer exists.  John 1:1-18 is here.  “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (1:17).  Grace and truth have arrived at a wedding in Cana.  What exactly is this grace and truth?  This the reader won’t begin to know until the third day.

The Wedding at Cana (Part 1)

1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

   4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

 6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

 8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

   They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

 11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

            Angels ascending and descending over the Son of Man, episode 1 takes place at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, the Oildale of Bakersfield, the Hemet of Riverside. And it takes place “on the third day”.  “On the third day” is a phrase with multiple meanings, each of which John could have been using. 1) a literal chronological reference, nothing more nor less. 2) a Jewish figure of speech denoting an unspecified but short amount of time. 3) part of a metaphorical construction; if 1:19-2:1 are read a certain way then the story builds on a 7 day structure, climaxing with the wedding at Cana on the 7^th day; the significance of the 7 day structure lies, especially when viewed in light of the overt parallels to the book of Genesis in vv. 1-18, in their implication that on the 7^th day Jesus is beginning a new creation.  This view has something to it, but if you want to know more e-mail me. 4) John allows the reader to believe whatever they want concerning 2:1 but, because of its repeated and redefined reference of three days in 2:19-21, leaves room for the reader to rethink the reference in 2:1.  2:19-21 describes the three-day language as a reference to the resurrection, the event that provides the lens through which John is reinterpreting the entire ministry of Jesus. John’s reinterpretation of Jesus’ ministry through the lens of his resurrection explains why his gospel took the shape it did, why it begins with the prologue and develops so uniquely compared to the other gospels. Though it is likely that all four views are actually true it is option #4 that makes the most sense of the story in vv. 1-11, as we will soon see.

            Mary, Jesus’ mother, was there at the wedding. John never refers to Mary by her name, only by her association to Jesus, i.e., his mother. This is no disrespect to Mary.  Instead it is part of the emphasis John means to place on the person of Jesus. 

            Jesus is at the wedding with his disciples and the wedding runs out of wine.  Mary comes to Jesus informing him of the problem and, judging from his response, she informs him with an air of expectancy.  They have no wine and she expects Jesus to do something about it. For the sake of understanding the story it’s important to know that running out of wine was a practically tragic thing to occur at a wedding for multiple reasons. 1) wine was a symbol of joy or life in first century Jewish culture, and to run out of it did in fact symbolize running out of joy or life.  Of course this does not mean that they did in fact run out of joy or life, but merely symbolized the occurrence of such a thing.  This does not mean that first century Jews were alcoholics.  Drunkenness was a definite, clear-as-day no-no for any Jew.  And do not make the mistake of confusing the differences between their association of wine with joy or life with contemporary association of alcohol with fun.  Not only was their wine much more diluted than our wine today, they did not depend on drunkenness to supply their “good times”, as is the case with much of contemporary culture. 2) first century Palestine suffered from the same economic polarity that plagues giant chunks of our world today, meaning that the vast majority of people were poor.  And poverty would definitely have been widespread in a town as obscure as Cana of Galilee.  An economic environment as depleted as this, coupled with the fact that the wedding was taking place in the aforementioned obscurity that was Cana, allows us to make the reasonable deduction that this wedding was a huge event for the community(s) involved.  Everyone would have been anticipating it, a fleeting glimpse of light on an ever-grey theo-historical horizon.  That this event would run out of wine, of all things, would have been devastating not only for the vibe of the week-long party but also for the legacy of the newly-weds.  This is what happened, and this is what Mary lays at the feet of Jesus.

            Her request is an interesting one.  Though she kind of knows who Jesus is (she probably hasn’t forgotten his virgin birth) there is no evidence of his performing miracles before this story.  Perhaps her “kind of” knowledge, similar to that of the disciples, derived more from experience of the holy mystery that he was than the privilege of reading gospels that we now have, was enough for her to have faith that he would/could do something.  And that seems to be all she asks him.  His reply is even more interesting.  It sounds like a rebuke when translated to English, and a more accurate translation might be “Ma’am” instead of “Woman”.  Still, though ma’am isn’t an impolite way to address one’s mother, it still is unusual.  And while he doesn’t outright refuse to help he makes it clear that he would prefer not to do anything because, number one, the problem belongs to the master of the banquet and the wedding party, not him, and number two, “his hour” has not yet come.  By “his hour” Jesus is referring to the beginning of his ministry that simultaneously would signify the beginning of his road to the cross.  Though Jesus has followers and is most definitely teaching them he has yet to begin his public ministry. 

            There is an additional tension in Jesus’ interaction with his mother.  Jesus says later on that he can only do what the sees the Father doing, so that when he says his time has not yet come the implication is that he is waiting for his Father’s instruction to begin.  Interestingly enough Mary does not listen to Jesus.  She tells the servants to do what he says despite his initial rejection of responsibility.  Here Bill Dogterom’s insight into the play-fullness of Jesus and those who follow him is helpful.  Preaching on the woman of the demon-possessed child in Mark 7:24-30 he describes a situation very similar to what we see in John 2:1-11.  There is a woman with faith in Jesus, his power, capabilities, heart, et cetera.  She wants him to fix something, to save someone, in a way that no one else in the world is capable of.  Indeed each woman presents a problem to Jesus that is, for all practical purposes, unfixable.  Just as people (let alone gentiles) cannot command demons to leave children’s bodies, people cannot replenish the depleted wine stores of a party in the middle of a party.  Here is some helpful cultural background for you: most places in the first century did not have a BevMo! or a 7eleven down the street.  Thus, in both instances, Jesus is being asked to do something practically ridiculous. 

But the insistence of these women is not about “getting ‘a thing’ from him but about getting real relationship with him” (quotes taken from “Faith with Attitude”, The Garden Church Long Beach, 7/9/11 and is free to download on iTunes).  Neither of these interactions is about getting God to do stuff, which the Pharisees are repeatedly after when they ask Jesus to prove his authority and to perform miracles.  No, there is a profound qualitative difference between the insistence of Mary and the gentile woman and that of the Pharisees.  They are after Jesus.  They already have faith, they already know, and want to play.  “For your answer you may go, your daughter has been healed” he tells her in Mark 7:29.  They know who he is, what he can do, and subsequently know that he can heal their tragedy.  And precisely because of their willingness to play, to press in, he does.  The woman in Mark returns home to find her daughter healed.  Mary watches as Jesus reveals his glory.  

John 1:43-51

43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”

 44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

 46 “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

   “Come and see,” said Philip.

 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

 48 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.

   Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

 49 Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

 50 Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” 51 He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”

John 1:1-18, meet Philip, a very average man. Not much is known about Philip and he is only scarcely mentioned throughout the gospels. And when he does appear in the story his role is neither great nor terrible, mostly just forgettable. A good example of this is when some Romans come to him looking for Jesus. He doesn’t know what to do, semi-panics, and fetches another disciple, who, without thinking twice, brings the Romans to Jesus. But this is the man Jesus calls. In fact, in John’s gospel, Philip is the only man that Jesus calls. And Philip, having spent an unspecified amount of time with Jesus (though probably less than more) responds beautifully, as did the previous disciples. Having collided with John 1:1-18 Philip is compelled to tell somebody about what the heck he has just experienced, and the first person that comes to mind is Nathanael.

Nathanael, it seems, was at least a good friend to Philip and was likely well hearsed in Jewish scriptures, hence Philip’s description of the man he has just encountered as “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote”. That’s quite a claim for a Philip of Bethsaida to make. But, then again, he just collided with John 1:1-18. And Nathanael, hitherto lacking the privilege of colliding with John 1:1-18, responds as anyone would who is told by average Joe not only that he’s just met the man predicted throughout all of the scriptures, but that this man is from Galilee, the Visalia of Fresno, the Bakersfield of San Luis Obispo, the Clippers of the Lakers, the Starbucks of Kean. Verse 46: “Can anything good come from Bakersfield?” A solid question in its own right, Philip doesn’t even blink. “Come and see”, he says. Philip- with a smirk? a big goofy grin? who knows- invites, welcomes, dares Nathanael to see for himself. Intrigued, Nathanael accepts the dare.

 Jesus saw Philip and Nathanael approaching. In the Greek the language here implies that Jesus looked searchingly, probingly at Nathanael before he speaks. The words he chooses are humorous yet profound in a way that fails to translate to English. The phrase “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit” draws on the story of Jacob in Genesis, where he is described, before having his name changed to Israel, as having deceit or guile. Thus Jesus is introduces Nathanael to the other disciples with a word play: “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob”. But there is more than word play going on. Jesus’ introduction/description of Nathanael, viewed in its first century Jewish context, is also a supremely high compliment. The quality of having no deceit is ascribed in the Psalms to the one who is to liberate Israel in the last days, a fact that would not have been lost on Nathanael’s ears. And he replies, “how do you know me?”, a question which obviously implies his acceptance that Jesus does in fact know him.

Jesus’ response is interesting. “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you”. A seemingly normal response, Jesus probably saw Nathanael the day before under a tree and remembered his face. But if this is all Jesus is saying then why such an extravagant reaction on the part of Nathanael? Jesus has said about 20 words to Nathanael, who originally approached Jesus with skepticism and doubt, but Jesus already has him addressing him as “Rabbi” (master, teacher), “Son of God” (not yet understood as only begotten son of the father, but a person whose relationship to God is of unsurpassable intimacy and quality), and “the King of Israel” (self-explanatory, but means Nate has confessed this man to be his literal king). Though it’s true that all these categories that Nathanael is invoking will be redefined by the cross and resurrection, he is, nevertheless, using the very strongest language at his disposal to answer to the mysterious Galilean.

So what the heck did Jesus mean, or what the heck did Nathanael hear, when Jesus said he saw him under the fig tree before Philip brought him? Perhaps Jesus’ confession that he saw Nathanael before Philip brought him meant more than he remembered his face from the other day? Perhaps there is some significance to Jesus’ description of the tree Nathanael was under as a fig tree? At this point a level of caution is appropriate, as it always is when scripture takes us down mysterious roads with very few signposts. The reader is free to ride the symbols and metaphors as far as they like with the danger lying in their riding them right off the page, far beyond the scope of the author’s intention and the possibilities of the symbolic world. But reasonable exploration is healthy and in cases such as these, is encouraged by the text. The fig tree, used frequently throughout the Old Testament as a symbol for Israel, was also commonly used to study scripture under, meet with rabbis under, and pray and meditate under because of its broad leaves that provided shade on hot days. Looking at Jesus’ statement through the lens of Nathanael’s response, it’s possible that there is some correlation between what Nathanael was doing under the fig tree and Jesus’ confession of seeing him there. Remember, this Galilean is John 1:1-18. Anything is possible, though Jesus isn’t omnipresent, omniscient, or omnipotent (qualities he surrendered in the incarnation, i.e. Philippians 2). But it remains likely that Jesus saw, met, encountered Nathanael supernaturally while Nathanael was engaging with his Creator in one of the ways mentioned above. Of course, Jesus is Nathanael’s creator, and despite his incarnated state is capable of such an encounter, even though Nathanael is not capable of knowing such a fact at this point in time. It seems that Nathanael, upon his collision with John 1:1-18, is at least aware that he is encountering a person who stretches the linguistic categories available to him.  Nathanael has encountered- at least -transcendent, holy mystery.

And Jesus isn’t done. And that’s what he tells them (in the Greek it’s clear Jesus is now addressing multiple people, presumably disciples). They will see greater things than that (than his encounter with Nathanael). “Very truly I tell you”, emphasizing the truth and importance of what is about to be said, “you will see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man”. A loaded statement indeed, Jesus is combining two extravagant stories in the Old Testament to describe the significance of his life. The former image, of angels ascending and descending from earth and heaven, comes from Genesis 28. Jacob has a dream of this taking place over the place he is sleeping and, accompanied by the significance of the words he hears God speak to him, is compelled to build an altar when he wakes up. The dream spoke to the unique presence (literally, functionally, and in the future) of God in that place. The Son of Man reference comes from a vision in Daniel 7 where “one like a son of man” is lifted by clouds into the presence of the Ancient of Days. In the vision the son of man is the representative of the people of Israel, whose ascension on clouds to the throne symbolizes his/Israel’s vindication before the world. So how do these two Old Testament references function in John 1:51? Basically Jesus, in the way he combines these references and phrases the statement, is claiming to be both the Son of Man and the place over which heaven is communicating with earth (communication between heaven and earth being the implication of the angelic imagery).  Now notice the language in the text: Jesus is speaking in the future-tense to the disciples, while I just spoke in the present; Jesus is speaking in the future tense, of a coming event, but the event he’s speaking of is their seeing. In other words Jesus, John 1:1-18 walking around Palestine, already is the locus of divine communication between heaven and earth, but the day is coming when the disciples will see this. He is promising the opening of their eyes, a new understanding, insight into the mystery that stands before them and presses their categories of understanding to their very limits.

And so ends chapter one. John has brought us through the prologue, the witness of the Baptist and his struggle to get people to follow Jesus, and then to Jesus himself. Few are drawn to him, fewer are called by him, but these few encounter the Galilean in such a way that they are immediately propelled back out to their little worlds, only to draw fragments of those little worlds back in to Jesus. The promise of verse 51 closes the beginning of the story in a way that’s fitting for those first disciples and readers alike, testifying to the truth of verses 1-18 while propelling them/us into the rest of the story: “You are all awed by the way I’ve interacted with you so far, well you haven’t seen anything yet. Soon you will begin to grasp just who it is I am because, indeed, I am”.

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