International Catholic University

We have reached the conclusion of the first chapters, but we must put a proper period to that whole discussion, and perhaps we can do that in commenting on one of the lines that is on the lips of Jesus himself, spoken to Nathaniel and to the group around him: You will see greater things than that! . . . You will see angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. (John 1:50-51)

Now that's an Old Testament reference that we ought to track down. It's Jacob's dream that is recounted in Genesis 28:12.

That's the backdrop against which this remark is made by Jesus to Nathaniel and the group. You will see Angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man, not on the ladder but on the Son of Man. The imagery of ladder has high significance. What does a ladder do but give us access to a higher level? If there is an attic and there is no stairway leading up to it, it's the ladder that makes the attic accessible to you. Jesus uses himself in that way. You will see Angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man, not on the ladder, implying in this picturesque way that Jesus is our means of access to God and to Heaven just as the ladder is the only possibility you have of reaching the attic.

On that note the first chapter ends. We are pitched forward now to action, whereas all along it has been discourse. So what we find at the very top of the next chapter is the account of wedding feast of Cana.

First of all I'll make an overall comment on this episode. It is a climax of what has gone before, where there was a real press forward to something visible. Remember the last thing virtually that we heard in the first chapter was: you will see greater things than that. And now we were going to see one of those greater things: a visible manifestation of the Messiah. Now it's not just going to be concluding that this is the Messiah from what he is saying; now it's what he is doing that will enlighten us as to his identity. In that world and in that culture this was the more powerful, more effective way to identify someone: by his deed rather than his word. They would prefer to draw their conclusion about who this individual is by seeing him at work. A strange approach from our point of view -- but maybe not quite so strange when you think of it. How many of our surnames in the various European strains are based on that same theory? Here is a man called Metzger because his original ancestor going back in time was a butcher. And somebody else is called Baker because his ancestor earned his living in that fashion, and on and on. That's the point here: we're going to see things happening that will open our minds as to who Jesus really is.

That's one thing to note and the other is that we're right at the starting point of this whole self-disclosure of Jesus through the actions that he will perform, through the signs. It says here, this the first of Jesus' signs that he performed at Cana and Galilee. If this is the first, that implies that there is a second and third and so on, and indeed there are. It's all going to lead up to the Resurrection, which then is the sign above all other signs that makes the point of Jesus' identity and of his role and meaning.

To take this bit by bit, the opening: on the third day, two days later, on the third day. Is it the third day after the Baptismal scene? Is it the third day after discussions with Philip and Nathaniel? Is it purely a symbolic reference to the Resurrection? Some people have suggested that, because here we are confronted with the first of Jesus' signs. The last and the greatest of them will be the Resurrection, and here we're starting on that road that leads there, to the empty tomb. All of these signs indicate who it is that we are dealing with. That's a possibility, but perhaps it is a remote possibility, that this third day is meant to call your mind to the third day which is the first Easter.

More than likely, though, on the third day after Philip and Nathaniel's call, this particular thing happened. Now the occasion for it was a wedding. Weddings were observed with quite a flourish in those times. The reason was understandable: people led a very drab life in those times. You might think of the Sabbath: they had a Sabbath every week. That's true enough, but the Sabbath was not so much recreational. It was the time when people recouped their physical strength. That was the force and intent of the Sabbath. But as for good times, they were few and far between. So when a wedding took place in a village it was celebrated with a vengeance, so to speak, for seven days. It might be worth looking at a few places in the Old Testament that indicate just that, the seven day celebration.

First of all in Judges 14:12 there is a reference to it at Samson's wedding. He is talking to his cronies who have come for the celebration.

Let me propound you a riddle: if you can but solve it for me in the seven days of the feast, and find it out, I will give you thirty linen robes and thirty festal garments . . . . (Goodspeed Bible)

And there was rejoicing among all his brothers in Nineveh. And Ahikar and Nasbas his nephew came, and Tobias' marriage feast was held for seven days with great gladness. (Goodspeed Bible).

Now, we are told that the mother of Jesus was there, which makes it seem, at least it may be an indication, that Mary and Jesus were related to the person being married, specifically the groom. From around the third or fourth century onward a tradition developed, but there is no way of knowing whether it could be traced all the way back. The tradition was that the person being married, the groom, was a nephew of Mary, a man by the name of John, son of Zebedee and Salome. But that dates from the third century, not from the very start, and there may not be any substance to it.

Mary is called the mother of Jesus. In the Arab world to this day that is the typical, frequent way of referring to a woman, mother of so and so. It's kind of honorific, it's flattering to a woman to be able to say of her, she has mothered a son. You don't want to get too deeply into the sociology of it. But a son who was better to have in the family than a daughter because in case of war that son could do his family's share of defending the nation. He could bear arms. Furthermore a son could bring in an income at an early age. It's all very materialistic, but that may be in the background of this thinking. It's good to have a son in the family, and it's a point of honor to be referred to as a woman who has given birth to a son.

It's noted that Jesus comes with his disciples. Here is another indication that it very likely was a relative of Jesus who is being married, so that Jesus could feel free to bring along his followers as well as himself. If it were just an acquaintance perhaps Jesus would have come alone. It is very much worth noting that these persons who accompany Jesus to the wedding are referred to as his disciples. The word is used. Prior to this time these would have been people at most friends that have clustered around Jesus, but now they have entered that category of being the disciples of Jesus. That implies that they are to learn from Jesus the Master, and also to live as he lived, to live his life. That, in a nutshell, is the concept of a disciple.

Some of these disciples of Jesus had previously been disciples of John the Baptist. Andrew, for instance, and that unnamed disciple that came over to Jesus would certainly be in that category. But we would have to conclude that they have set aside the abstemious ways that John the Baptist had. John the Baptist led a very Spartan existence. He wasn't for going to wedding celebrations and that sort of thing. But Jesus lived more normally, so to speak, more in the usual way that people in his time lived. And now these disciples of John the Baptist had put aside their rigid mode of life and taken on the way of life that Jesus followed.

Next we come to the remark made by Mary. Jesus' mother told him they have no wine. Some people wonder whether Mary was requesting a miracle here or not. Some people take a dim view of that understanding of the matter. There is no record of Jesus having performed a miracle before this, so what would put this into Mary's mind to ask him to do something as extraordinary as that? Secondly, Mary had the typical Old Testament upbringing, and in the Old Testament miracles were performed generally for the whole group, for many not for individuals. So that someone who was brought up in the Old Testament mode wouldn't think in terms of a miracle being performed in aid of a single individual. For those reasons they doubt that Mary was asking for a miracle.

But I would like to point out that maybe it was just that, that Mary asked for a miracle. I say that for a few reasons. We really have no warrant for saying that there was no miracle prior to this one. There was none reported here in John's Gospel. But John does not introduce this account by saying this is the first ever of Jesus' miracles. And number two, that matter of Mary ‘s Old Testament upbringing does that preclude her belief that God and Jesus would perform miracles for individuals. It is a generalization too broad, I think, to make, to say that in the Old Testament there is no instance of a miracle performed for an individual. After all, there is the instance of the widow that Elijah meets. She and her son are facing death from starvation. A miracle was performed in her behalf through Elijah's intercession. Another instance comes to mind. A general in the Syrian army comes down with Leprosy and is told by one of the maids that work in his household that there is a Prophet in Israel whose intercession with God is very powerful, and maybe he should go down and ask that man's prayer. And he does just that and gets his cure. He's a Syrian, not even a Jew, and an individual who is favored by a miracle.

So I don't see that this is a great problem then to rule out the possibility that Mary was asking Jesus to perform a miracle. The other thing that I think bears on all of this is then, what would Mary be asking? Was it just pointing to the obvious, to say there are these lovely flowers here on this table? It does seem as if she was expecting Jesus to take some action.

The shortage of wine may very well have been due to the presence of Jesus with his disciples. In those times it appears to have been the custom when invited to a feast of this kind to bring along one's own supplies, because people were poor in those days. Not every person was rich enough to entertain a whole big group of people, a whole village that might turn out for a wedding. So people came bringing their own food and drink supplies. There are indications of that in the literature that has come down to us. Here comes Jesus with his disciples; they have lived in a very impoverished way; they would not have brought anything with them. But they are participating in the general celebration, and this may have brought about a shortage of wine. So Mary may be reminding Jesus that something has to be done, because now they have run short of wine.

The next word that I would want to dwell on is Jesus' address of Mary as woman. Unfortunately because of the character of English and our usage of the language this is a problem. It's crude in English for us to make a direct address of a woman in that way, to say woman. At the very least it is dialect. It may be in more remote parts of the country that a man could speak with his wife in that way, as woman, but normally we don't do that.

So our first impression on hearing this is as though this were a rebuke, a put down of Mary. That's what we have to disabuse ourselves of altogether. It is a very normal way of addressing a woman, and men would not raise eyebrows at all. The problem really is with English; there is a deficiency in the language. When we speak to a woman that we are not familiar with, how do we start? If we say Miss that may not be on the mark because the person may be married. So we can't do that. Lady doesn't do it because technically it implies royalty. But even apart from that it's not our usage. How does one handle that situation? We don't have a word for it.

But in any case we have to be disabused of the thought that Jesus when speaking to his mother as woman is being anything but normal and polite. There are any number of other places in Scripture where this word is used as a form of address, and there is no thought at all of it being any kind of rudeness or roughness in using the word. Let's look at some of them. In Matthew 15:28 here is the woman who has asked Jesus for a favor for her daughter and has persisted in asking that. Jesus answered her, "Woman you have great faith! You shall have what you want."

So you can just see from the context here that there is no roughness in this dialog. It's a perfectly normal exchange between Jesus and this woman. He says, woman you have great faith. No reason to put her down.

Then in Luke 13:12, another instance of this. When Jesus saw her he called to her. This is the woman in the synagogue who was bent over and had this ailment for 18 years. She was bent double and could not straighten herself up at all. When Jesus saw her he called to her, "Woman, you are freed from your sickness." There would be no possible way that you could read any thought of sterness in Jesus at this moment, any effort to correct this woman. Just rule it out completely. But it's out of his benevolence that she doesn't even ask him for a favor and he grants her this cure.

We have to relate to this expression differently than we normally would. There is also this to be pointed out about the use of the word woman here. In this Gospel a certain meaning is put upon Mary as the woman who is on hand at the important moments of salvation history. This certainly is one of them, the very top of Jesus' public life. Remember at the cross -- that by the way is the best example of all, I think, to show that the use of the word woman in this case is completely without any kind of bad feeling. On Calvary this gospel reports that Mary was present and Jesus says to the disciple whom he loved, "Son behold your Mother." And he says to Mary, "Woman behold your son." There is a special impact to the use of that word woman in this gospel. And in the background of that use is the reference back in Genesis, God says to the serpent,

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
And between your posterity and hers;
They shall attack you in the head,
And you shall attack them in the heel.
(Genesis 1:15, Goodspeed Bible)

So this has to do with the fall of man and the salvation of man. In this gospel the author takes great pains to show us Mary present at these critical moments that contribute to, that work toward, the salvation of mankind. It's all a take-off on that reference to woman back there in Genesis. Woman what is this to you and to me?

Once again unfortunately this is a roughness as it comes out in English, but that is not present in the original at all. It just is a simple expression of disengagement. What Jesus is saying is this is not my province. It is much as if someone should come into this room to say that there is a leak in the faucet down the corridor. All I could say is you will have to get maintenance and besides I have no authority around here to make any kind of rearrangements. That's all, a simple disengagement without any overtones of criticism or annoyance even. It's just stating fact, this is not my realm of activity, I have nothing to do about this and I shouldn't even. That's somebody else's task and I shouldn't interfere. That's really the force and the spirit behind those words, what is that to you and to me?

Mary's response to that is, do whatever he tells you. There is clearly persistence in that. Mary does not just give up when Jesus replies to her as he does that this is not my province. It's interesting to know that this kind of perseverence, let's use the kinder softer word, this kind of perseverance in the face of what appears to be Jesus' refusal is constant throughout the Gospels. Time and again people come to Jesus for a favor and they stay with their request. They're not easily put off, and invariably they are rewarded for their perseverance.

We should look at a few examples of that.

Now this woman is nothing if not persistent. This persistence is an expression of faith. This woman deeply, firmly believes that Jesus can accomplish this miracle that she is asking for. So it is elsewhere where people keep after Jesus to get what they are requesting.

Let's look also at John 4:47.

You see, the fellow keeps after it, and he doesn't wilt when Jesus seems not to hear or when Jesus seems uninterested in doing anything. And what is the upshot? Jesus says to him, You can go home; your son is going to live. That's the way you should read Mary's persistence here. It's an expression, an indication of her deep faith in the ability of Jesus to correct this situation.

Consider is the containers that are mentioned here: six stone water jars. Some people have a heyday in seeing symbolism throughout this Gospel. The Gospel is very keen about symbols, but some people go overboard, and this is one instance where some do. They say six is one less than seven. Seven is the number of perfection, so this is seen as a comment, an all too subtle comment on the inadequacy of the Jewish faith, the Jewish religion. It's six, it doesn't come up to seven, and these stone water jars had to do with a religious practice of the Jews. Therefore this is a remark, a hint, an insinuation about the imperfection of Jewish religion. That is a bit far-fetched. Maybe it mentions six is because indeed there were six and that's that without further implication.

Some people even fix on the stone, the fact that they were stone not clay, and they hark back to a text in Exodus which speaks about stone water jars that have been polluted in some way and how they ought to be purified. That, too, is rather a brash connection that very likely doesn't exist. They are called stone water jars because they were stone and not clay and that's all there is to it.

Now we are given some indication of the volume of water and subsequently the volume of wine that is involved in this miracle. Each jar contained fifteen to twenty five gallons. That of course is an approximation; the fact is that with embarrassment we have to confess that we don't know exactly the measurements that prevailed in those times. There has not been a continuity when there was a conversion from the measurements that they used at that time to a subsequent measurement finally getting around to our measurements of quarts and gallons. No one took the trouble to show the equivalents, so we are left pretty much to guess. But a pretty good guess would be that fifteen to twenty five gallons, which is a considerable amount of wine that was produced as a result of this miracle.

There is a reference made to a head waiter here, and some people see more in that reference than really is present. These people point out that it was not customary among the Jews when they launched a celebration of this kind to have a head waiter. Normally the groom would simply engage a good friend to manage the whole celebration. Some people then go on to say that the words head waiter indicate that perhaps the man who wrote up this account was unfamiliar with the Jewish scene and is describing things as they would have happened in the Greek world. That is an exaggeration, that conclusion. More than likely what you have here is a man who was at home in both worlds, the author of this Gospel, and writing as he knew for people who would be in many instances Greek-speaking, he uses an expression that would be familiar to Greeks, although he knows that normally a friend of the groom would have run the affair.

The author of this Gospel seems to have been very well versed with the Jewish scene. Some time ago a Jewish scholar in England decided to read the Gospels to see how he in his own studies of Jewish situations at the time of the Gospels might profit from what he had learned from them. His comment was, after reading the four Gospels, John's Gospel is the most Jewish of them all. That came as a great surprise to Christian scholars because they didn't have that impression. Matthew has such a strongly Jewish coloration. For this man who knew whereof he spoke, a Jew himself, to say this was sobering to Christian scholarship.

Now we are told that the head waiter comes up to the groom to say, usually the choice wine is served first, you saved it for the end: how come? It was regular etiquette or routine at these festivals to serve the best wine first. It's simply an instance of human shrewdness. I imagine bartenders must do this often enough knowing that a fellow is going to go in for a series of drinks. You start out with the best ingredients at first, but toward the end a fellow will be so taken with drink that he won't be able to distinguish good from bad. And that's all that this reference means. It's a shrewd human practice.

Now we come to the real punch that this episode has. It really is not just a stray account of a miracle that Jesus performed. It is really put down to show you the actions of Jesus as identifying him. Up until this point it's been his words that have served to characterize him, to pinpoint his identity, but now it's his actions. It is an explosive moment.

This, the first of the signs of his mission, Jesus showed at Cana in Galilee. By it he showed his greatness, and his disciples believed in Him. (John 2:11, Goodspeed Bible)

Jesus answered,
"The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains just one grain. But if it dies, it yields a great harvest."
(Goodspeed Bible)

Let's pause for a while now to probe the very significant and substantial theology that is embedded in this account. What we are told at the conclusion of this account is what the miracles, the signs of Jesus, achieve. They serve to identify Jesus. That's the point. If Jesus can do this, change water into wine, if Jesus can cure a person who is gravely ill, if Jesus can maneuver nature as he does in calming the storm at sea, what is this saying about his identity? That's what is very much at issue here. We're seeing Jesus in action. And what conclusion are we to draw? He is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Another thing to note here in this passage is what might be called the replacement theme. By that we mean that you have something in place, and then something comes in to substitute for it, and what comes in brought on by Jesus Himself supercedes, exceeds, is more significant than what it is replacing. And always it is Jesus who is doing that. Here, a clear-cut instance is replacing water with wine. Wine is ever so much more precious, so much more appreciated, so much stronger, nourishing even than water. Here was a Jewish usage, water in those jars used for Jewish religious ritual purposes, and that is being replaced by wine. Wine tops it by far.

We are going to see other instances of this; this gospel is shot through with those ideas. Whereas at one point in time God's people were nourished in the desert by manna which sustained their bodies, kept up their physical health, now Jesus comes to bring not manna but the Eucharist. His body that is infinitely more valuable and necessary and craved for than manna ever was. Manna just kept up one's physical forces, but the Eucharist nourishes our spirit. Jesus is spoken of as the Light of the World. Consider the practice of illuminating the temple on the occasion of the celebration of the dedication of the temple. Very striking moment: it must have been an experience to see this illumination. But Jesus is not just the lighting up of one building. Jesus is the Light of the World. We keep seeing this in this gospel: the replacement, usually of a Jewish religious practice, with something that Jesus brings on and that supercedes it in every way.

We want to talk about the wedding as a Messianic fulfillment. You see the Scripture and the people in the Scriptures have to gear us to the great Day of the Lord, the coming of the Messiah in glory. It's going to be an absolutely overwhelming experience. How to suggest that? How can you put across the idea that something really tremendous will be this Day of the Lord? The best way these people thought of suggesting that is the wedding theme. The wedding was a high point in any villager's life. When there was a wedding that was a memorable thing, something really to look forward to. Think of the Day of the Lord that way, as one everlasting wedding. Our attention is pointed forward to the great times that will come with the return of the Messiah. Always the image used, the reference made is the wedding, the wedding banquet, the wedding feast.