(Traffic Alert: I’ve made a detour in my drive through the Gospel of John. Previously, I concluded some reflections on the Prologue (1:1-18), and indicated that I would resume with the calling of the first disciples (1:19-51). I hope to circle back to that, but I’ve found myself going off-road and into Chapter 2. This chapter begins with what John identifies as “the first of Jesus’ signs” through which the disciples are said to have seen his glory, and believed (2:11). Which means it was kind of a big deal. Read on for an explanation.
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And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory…(1:14)
But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (20:31)
The words recorded above represent bookends to the gospel of John, and they reinforce one truth - that the gospel of Jesus Christ can be heard, read, known, and believed, even for those who were not witness to his life. And in fact, especially if you did not see him in the flesh. God assumed humanity, John testified, and we saw the glory which transformed us from fishermen to Jesus-followers.
After the calling of the first disciples (1:19-51), John’s narrative begins in earnest; and how it begins is set before us in John 2: 1-12. It is here that John claims that “this the first of his signs Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.”
But what exactly was it that John and the others saw? How does what we read today reveal the glory which Jesus possessed? And if this is the first of his signs and the first glimpse of his glory, how does it prepare us for what is to come?
John’s answer comes in a series of details about what happened, and what it was they saw. Here is how he begins.
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.”
Right away we’re given a picture to observe, but with only enough information to prompt further questions. A wedding we readily understand. A wedding which encompassed an entire village is not at all a stretch. But John reveals that “the mother of Jesus was there” and was deeply enough involved to be privy to a potentially scandalous happening. She knew there was no wine.
In the Ancient Near East, a wedding celebration was a multi-day event, and it was the responsibility of the groom to provide sufficient food and drink for the guests to last to its conclusion. To run out of wine would be a major social disgrace for this man in front of all his guests. That there was no wine was not a bit of information the family would want to spread.
But the mother of Jesus did know. And of all the people or places she could have sought for a remedy, she chose just one: Jesus. According to v.12, there were brothers of Jesus present; yet it was Jesus whom she approached with the simple sentence, “They have no wine.”
What would possess her to approach Jesus? The answer is that she knew something about Jesus that his disciples did not yet know.
They knew nothing of his conception and the announcement of the angel Gabriel.
They knew nothing of the shepherds who had left their fields and flocks to tell Mary and Joseph what they had seen and heard.
They knew nothing of his presentation at the temple, and the prophecy of Simeon.
They knew nothing of Jesus, who at age 12 spent a series of days in the temple in Jerusalem - without his parents knowledge.
We are not told explicitly what she asked Jesus to do; but it is not difficult to surmise. She knew what Jesus possessed in himself. She knew Jesus was in a class by himself. All that was left was for Jesus to connect the dots.
Which he did. But not in a very promising manner. Jesus addressed her politely, but not intimately (“Woman”); he speaks to in a civil manner, but with no apparent interest. Not my monkey. Not my circus. Why not? “My hour has not yet come.”
Here in the story of Jesus’ first sign, we are thrown a curve ball. We’re confronted with a mystery which has yet to be revealed, but it has a direct bearing on this event.
Without going into a lot of details, we can say at least this much. “The hour” to which Jesus refers is intertwined with his suffering and death. Jesus announces its arrival after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when he is told by Andrew and Philip that Greeks had come to the city and wanted to see him. Only then do we hear him say, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…”
What Jesus then adds makes the picture all the more significant:
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.
All this is yet to come, but is already present in Jesus’ mind and heart this, and not the wedding, is his hour. That is the spotlight ordained for Jesus - not, as the devil suggested, by throwing himself down from the temple, nor turning stones to bread, or by gaining the whole world at the devil’s bequest. Rather, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Until that time arrives, there is a boundary Jesus observes concerning what he does or does not do; and it also acts as a boundary dividing those who know him and those who do not.
So does Jesus appear before the entire wedding party and guests, and before everyone’s eyes, miraculously produce wine? No. Cana is not his spotlight.
And that is the detail which John and the other disciples see first. It is what he didn’t do.
Perhaps it would be good to ask of ourselves, what we believe is the spotlight ordained for us. It’s no secret that we live in a church culture which has embraced media platforms, podcasts, YouTube channels, and yes, even Substack columns. All of these have enabled high-visibility leaders and even celebrity pastors. In scores of evangelical churches you will literally see the preaching pastor in the spotlight, while the rest of the congregation is shrouded in darkness. It makes for great theater. But it does not make for good discipleship; it fails to resemble the one whose “glory” was found elsewhere.
Whatever it was that the disciples saw began with what they did not see. And that leads us to a second detail.
They saw a Jesus whose sign was seen by very few.
This, of course, can be stated in the reverse: they saw a Jesus whose sign most people missed. Which may suggest a question I assume to be familiar to most:
If a tree falls in a forest, and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?
And likewise, if a sign is given, and there is no one to see it, does it reveal anything?
In the case of the latter, the answer is “Yes.” What was revealed was for the sake of those for whom it was intended.
The second movement of this story takes place as Jesus’ mother, who had brought with her servants to assist her, leaves them behind with one sentence: “Do whatever he tells you.” They were now at his disposal, and just as much in the dark as the disciples. But they were all about to see the lights come on.
John describes in detail what transpired next. He takes notes of six huge stone jars capable of holding 20-30 gallons of water. These Jesus instructs the servants to fill with water. That is done. And then comes the moment of truth.
Draw some out, says Jesus, and take it to the master of the feast.
What the servants drew out, of course, was not what they put in. They had now seen Jesus’ sign, but not in an earth-shattering way. And the master of the feast and the guests? All they knew was that the wine - for that is what it was - was very good, and there was a tanker full of it. It was, without doubt, a face-saving moment for the groom, who may have entertained desperate thoughts about how to escape. Did he ever learn the truth? We don’t know.
This sign was meant for very few.
Interestingly, this is consistent with what we are told about Jesus, the disciples, and the crowds in Mark’s gospel. There we are told that in the privacy of the twelve, Jesus explained what was happening before their eyes and ears.
To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything is in parables so that they may indeed see, but not perceive, and may indeed hear, but not understand. (Mark 4:11)
In Mark, Jesus explicitly compares his message with Isaiah’s prophecy. It was Isaiah whom God called to preach to his people, but also know from the outset that his message would be ignored. In fact, hearing Isaiah without repentance and faith deadened their souls to the truth.
This is the pattern which emerges in Jesus’ ministry. His message was publically proclaimed, yet hidden in plain sight. His parables revealed truth to some, but left others in the dark.
What we are witnessing both in Mark and in John is the mystery of God’s election. How could the religious professionals of Jesus’s day hear his words, see his works, and yet remain untouched? Why did the crowds see the same Jesus and hear the same words, but only the disciples had eyes and ears to receive it?
We find ourselves face-to-face with the God who said to Moses, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”
If we don’t read closely what we find in John’s gospel, we may labor under the impression that at one moment Jesus’ followers witnessed a coercively powerful miracle which compelled belief from that moment on. But the reality is more mysterious, because in John’s gospel, the threshhold for wonder and amazement keeps breaking.
they saw water turned to wine
they witnessed a centurion’s servant healed from a distance with only a word.
they saw a lame and miserable man get up and walk - even if it was only to be a tattle-tale on Jesus
they saw a man who was born blind see, and suffer rejection for Jesus’ sake
they saw bread and fish appear in the wilderness with neither farm nor store in sight
and they saw Jesus call out of the tomb a man who had been dead for four days
What they discovered is that Jesus is more than simply the sum of all these various wonders. And that is the third detail the disciples saw.
They saw a Jesus who brought something new into the world which he entered.
“New” is a pretty good word to use when you want to describe what happened when the Word became flesh. It was a word of Jesus’ choice when he wished to distinguish himself and his message from the traditions of the Pharisees.
No one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins - and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.
It came as a surprise to many that the discipline of fasting practiced by the disciples of John the Baptist was not imposed on Jesus’ disciples. But the reason is clear. Fasting makes no sense in the presence of the one who brings God’s feast. It fails to do justice to the epoch-making events of Jesus’ incarnation.
What we discover is that you cannot “add” Jesus to life and expect everything else to remain unchanged. You aren’t simply changing the sum; you’re changing the equation.
So John records a third movement in this story of Jesus, the wedding, the water, and the wine. In it he includes the words of those who tasted the new wine.
When the master of the feast tasted now become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants 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.”
It’s no exaggeration to say that, in Jesus, God saved the best for last, and invites us to taste and see that the Lord is good. The glory which the disciples saw that day was their first glimpse of how Jesus makes all things new. And that would be the pattern they witnessed:
In whatever village Jesus entered, he brought the good news of the kingdom
In whatever synagogue Jesus spoke, he taught with the authority of someone who is more than a rabbi
In whatever house he entered, he brought healing, he brought forgiveness, he brought hope, and he brought joy.
On any given day, it’s safe to assume that the people we know and the people we meet are living with untold disappointments, nagging doubts, or burdens they can no longer bear. They may find themselves part of the increasing number of our present time who are overcome by anxiety, loneliness, or depression. And we ourselves may be among them.
What John testifies is that he has seen the one who has stepped into our griefs and sorrows. He invites the overburned to find rest. And there is no person, place, or thing which he cannot make new. And if we have seen a glimpse of that glory, we possess what this world needs. And, like John, we can point people in the right direction.