Daily Reading: (John 2:1-7):
“On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.”
In the text today there is a grape job at hand with only one person who is up for the task.
“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. Jesus is not being disrespectful to her but He is saying with this miracle that I am about to do my public ministry will begin and my relationship to you is about to change.
Jesus had to work against the assumption of His day that His physical family had an inside track of His blessing, it is not His physical family but spiritual ones that receive His blessing.
Jesus made the equivalent of between 600-900 of our modern-day wine bottles for this wedding. Way more than enough for everyone who is at the party. In fact, the wine is so good and there is so much, why not invite others to the wedding banquet? Isn’t that our mission? You see Jesus’ supply is an abundant one available for all who tap into it by faith (John 2:6-7).
Jesus desires that you and I, would be like those jars and receive from Jesus to the fullest. Ephesians 4:13 – uses the phrase “fullness of Jesus.” A vessel full of the grace of Jesus is a blessing to those around it.
If you were paying really close attention Jesus purposefully chose the water pots. He didn’t choose the old empty wine bottles. Jesus says in Matthew 9:17-that you can't put new wine into old wine skins, because the wine skin will break. In ancient history, wine was stored in leather bottles/flasks made from the skin of animals. ... Refilling the skins (presumably with newly fermented wine) would cause them to burst. Fasting was as part of the Jewish system of relating to God. Now Jesus says, the old wineskins of Judaism can't contain the new wine. In other words, the yearning and longing of the old fasting was not based on the glorious truth that the Messiah had come.
Jesus chooses to use water jars that were appointed for “purification,” to point to his own death as the ultimate purification for sins. His blood/ the wine would nullify and replace the Jewish purification rituals of the washing of water.
“What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory” The glory of Jesus is that He alone, once and for all, made purification for sins. You don’t turn to ritual. You have been made clean by the blood of Jesus.
In Jewish culture the groom was responsible for the wine at his wedding. It was the grooms’ shortcoming that let the wedding run out of wine (John 2:9-10). The first miracle Jesus does is to complete what the bridegroom at a wedding could not do to show that Jesus is the ultimate Bridegroom to the Church.
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