This is a selection from my forthcoming Gospel of John in the Everyday Bible Study guides with HarperChristian. Bless you for reading.
Jesus as the First Sign
John 2:1-11
2:1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. 9 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 10 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.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
Sometimes something happens that evokes another world, or signifies far more than the simplicity of what happened. Like Kent State in my generation, 9/11 for a more recent generation. These are iconic moments in American history. A story unfolds – resistance to war, an attack of the USA – into an event that portrays and portends and prophesies all at once (and more). John captures stories and events that way with the term “sign.”
Story
There’s a wedding in Cana, a city not far from Nazareth, but at least one resident thinks Nazareth is for yokels (1:46). For him Cana was a long way from Nazareth. Mary, the mother of Jesus, seems to be in charge of the wedding, Jesus’ disciples are present, and they run out of a wedding’s major fluid: wine. Mary approaches Jesus to do something about it, Jesus rebuffs her attempt by saying “my hour has not yet come,” and that “hour” is the glorification-by-crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension (12:23, 27; 13:1; 17:1). Mary turns to the servants and orders them to do whatever Jesus says. Seemingly, Jesus either shifts his mind or perceives Mary’s surrender to him as sufficient for him to do exactly what she asked in exactly a surprising manner (McKnight, Real Mary). He speaks something into reality and turns the water in some large purification stone vessels into an abundance of wine. I once calculated it to be an equivalent of 907 bottles of wine. The “master of the banquet” tastes it and realizes this wine is superior to the wedding’s table wine (2:9-10). It is worth pondering if the water in the purification vessels has not been fulfilled and swallowed up in the wine Jesus creates. Wine is better than that water.
And the story ends.
Except for those lingering in order to understand what just happened.
Why do you think John chooses a wedding to open the public ministry of Jesus?
Sign
The most important term in this passage is not found until verse eleven, and the word is “signs,” and the water into wine miracle is the “first [or “beginning”] of his signs.” In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus does miracles but John deepens miracles by labeling them “signs.” Most think there are seven signs in John’s Gospel, with the explicit mention of “sign” in brackets and two others often mentioned as signs as 8 and 9.
1. Water into wine: [2:11]
2. Healing the official’s son: [4:54]
3. Feeding thousands: 6:14 [6:2]
4. Raising Lazarus: [12:18]
5. Lame man healed: 5:1-15 [6:2]
6. Healing blind man: 9:1-41 [9:16]
7. The resurrection of Jesus: 20:6-7; [2:18-19]
8. Perhaps also Walking on the water: 6:16-22
9. Perhaps the miraculous fish catch: 21:4-11
To make it a little more complex, John tells us Jesus did many signs, which is his favorite term for a miracle (e.g., 2:23; 3:2; 4:48; 6:2, 26, 30; 7:31; 9:16; 11:47; 12:37; 20:30). To concentrate the signs on the first four is wise, to add a few more seems reasonable, but then to realize all of Jesus’ miracles are potential signs may be the best of all.
We want to clear the air with this definition:
A sign is a public deed performed by Jesus that reveals who he is but requires faith in order to perceive its truthfulness.
As such, then, a sign is an act that, upon pondering and imagining, continues to reveal the true identity of Jesus, but only for those with faith. As God became the embodied Logos in Jesus (1:14), so God can reveal the depths of God-ness in wine. Signs are then iconic moments. The act of turning water into more than an abundance of wine iconically reveals the identity of Jesus and his abounding sufficiency, but only to those with eyes to see. Think of how the world’s finest of novels and stories have been told: they tell us a story about someone and something and we see in that telling something more than the someone or something. Good stories, whether they are Tolkien’s fictions or those of Willa Cather, top on a door that opens into deep realities. They, too, function as signs of something real-er than the story’s plain telling.
The wine reveals Jesus to be the source of uber-abundant joy. Drinking is a bodily experience of slaking thirst, and drinking wine evokes sweetness and celebration. All of this, and more, forms in the minds of those who ponder the sign itself. They are the ones who “believe” like the disciples, so fulfilling the purpose of the Gospel (20:30-31). As the children of Israel saw God’s glory (Exodus 13:21-22; 16:10-11; 24:15-17), so Jesus’ disciples are the ones who see the “glory” of Jesus (John 2:11). The sign then is a tactile, palpable experience of the presence of God. It asks you and me to answer the question of questions: Who is Jesus?
Scot McKnight, The Real Mary: Why Protestant Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus (Brewster, Mass.: Paraclete, 2016), 61-72.
In my view the context of the wedding is less important than the person who is doing the asking - Mary. God entrusted Jesus to Mary completely from the very first instant (cell division in an embryo is governed by the mitochondria. 100% of the mitochondria come from the mother's egg). When Jesus' time had come and his ministry was to begin, God would not dismiss Mary and say 'I've got it from here.' No, it is about agency. He would go through Mary to say to Jesus that the time has finally come for him to publicly reveal who he is. Through this, the Father is saying to Jesus, 'your time indeed has come.' I have felt for decades that God would not violate Mary's agency, but ask that she release Jesus for ministry and then allow her to actually do it. Mary's prayer life is almost never spoken of, but I am certain it was robust and active.
John introduces Jesus' public ministry at a wedding because Jesus brings a Kingdom that is for a community and weddings are community events. Also, weddings are covenant events and Jesus brings each of God's covenants to its point of application (telos) with the bringing of the Kingdom and announces its coming symbolically at this covenant event. The symbolism of Israel's wedding/marriage to YHWH strengthens/undergirds these notions.