John 2:1-25
RTNT 2021. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with His disciples. (v. 2) I mentioned yesterday that Cana was less than five miles from Nazareth, so it’s reasonable that Mary and Jesus would be known to the bride and/or bridegroom and be invited to the wedding. His disciples were with Him – possibly He left the Jordan valley with His disciples because He knew of the wedding invitation. Or it could have been that as they were simply leaving the Jordan valley and Nazareth was closer than Capernaum or Bethsaida, the hometown of the other disciples who were following Jesus. That His disciples were with Him would have given Him reason to go “down” to Capernaum (v. 12), a city at the top of the Sea of Galilee where Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John were fishermen. We will see later that Capernaum became the center of Jesus’ Galilean ministry with Jesus often staying at the home of Simon Peter.
I came to EKU as chair of the Department of Economics and Finance. One of the faculty members who interviewed me was a solid Baptist who had been teaching a Bible Study in Richmond for some 30-40 years. I wanted to level with him as to the fact that one of my hobbies was brewing beer. I wondered what his reaction would be. His reply: “Well, I understand that Jesus was quite a wine maker Himself.” I recall that conversation every time I read of Jesus’ miracle at Cana.
Did Jesus cleanse the temple one or two times? I’ll leave that up to you all to go to your study Bibles or search the Internet for the answer. Recall that we are doing a chronological study, intermixing the gospels, so if there were two cleansings and John’s gospel is mostly chronological, then Jesus would have cleared the temple at the beginning and the end of his ministry.
See also: January 27 / John 2:1-12; January 28 / John 2:13-25
Have you ever thought about the quantity of wine Jesus produced here and what that might say about the size of the feast? John 2:6 indicates that we have 6 jars, each holding 20-30 gallons, which works out to 120-180 gallons of wine! Today, a typical bottle of wine holds 750ml, which goes to say that Jesus quietly produced about 600-900 bottles of wine! That’s a big feast! (Or a lot of leftover wine for the newlyweds…)
Lots of wine, big party! BTW, in my study of Nathaniel aka Bartholomew, he was from Cana, and may have seen or met Jesus prior to yesterday’s introduction.
I liked the part about Mary just telling the servants to “do whatever he says”. She may or may not have expected a miracle. How often we tell Jesus exactly what we want and when, where and how. It is so much better when we follow His lead! Especially when we wait, we get the best wine!
Good points, Debbie. Mary’s “do whatever He says” is something we should all heed all the time!
I really like this biblical passage because I think it clearly shows Jesus’ human side as well as His divinity. I like to think that John the Evangelist is letting us read between the lines, so to speak, as to what went on behind the scenes with Mary and Jesus. Mary asks Jesus to do something about the wine situation, not to benefit her but to prevent the bride and groom from being totally embarrassed on their wedding day (maybe she remembers a time when she may have been embarrassed on her wedding day when she was with child or had a baby with her). Jesus says to Mary that His time has not yet come to perform a “miracle” ministry, essentially saying that this was not consistent with God’s plan for His ministry. What happens next I think is a very human interaction between Mary and Jesus. Mary may have said something like “Jesus, please.” And Jesus may have said “OK, fine.” And Jesus then changes God’s plan because His mother asked Him to. What could be more human than that? It also reflects Jesus’ divinity since who can change God’s plan except God?