Chapter 2 of John’s Gospel follows his Prologue, the Witness of Saint John the Baptist and the introduction of the first few disciples to Jesus after the Baptist had pointed him out as the Lamb of God. John begins his Gospel referencing Genesis, “In the Beginning…” but the connections do not just end there. He narrates the days, very reminiscent of the days of creation in the Genesis as well. John is writing history but he is layering with several degrees of profound theological recapitulation to the creation account and the following story of the Hebrew people in the Old Covenant, highlighting how Jesus is the a reflection of these past events but also a greater fulfilment of them.
1 On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there;
Before the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, as we understand it in the synoptic gospels, on the third day, from the starting narrative point of John’s Gospel, Jesus is invited to a wedding feast. The location of Cana is disputed between two locations one being five miles from Nazareth and the other being nine miles north of Nazareth called Khirbet Qana. Archaeological evidence and tradition puts more weight on the second suggestion. It’s proximity to Nazareth explains the invitation extended to Mary, a native to Nazareth and would have friends and relatives living within the vicinity.
It’s important to note that a wedding in first century Judaism was not a single event occupying a few hours but a week long feast, hosted by the bridegroom. It was to imitate the seven days of creation, with the marriage being consummated on the seventh day, the Sabbath.
2 Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples.
Jesus as the son of Mary and likely also known by the bride and bridegroom of the wedding was also invited to the feast. Jesus brings along his first few disciples, John’s gospel records five of them at this point, Simon, Andrew, Philip, Nathaniel and the unnamed disciple; John himself. As residents of Capernaum and the further regions of Galilee they were not likely to have known the hosts of the feast, they seem to come on Jesus’ invitation, he likely does this because he is already planning to do the miraculous sign that this scene is so famous for.
John’s recording of signs is a Jewish concept of supernatural events that act as a witness to a claim. Pharisees, scribes and priests will ask Jesus for “signs” to prove his teachings, they were not against the supernatural but were sceptical of anything that did not have a witness to it. This goes for correspondences as well, or legal claims as pertains to the Mosaic Law, you needed two or three witnesses, so Jesus uses miraculous signs as his witnesses, they are not just “magic tricks” as some people believe. They are evidence of his identity and mission.
3 When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
The wine at the wedding feast failed, this means that they had run out of it. Referencing back to a previous comment, wedding feasts in their culture were to last a whole week. Considering the amount of people at wedding, it last seven days and its all feasting; you need a lot of wine. The responsibility of supplying the wine and the food and the establishment itself was on that of the bridegroom, it was like a public declaration of “look how well I can support my wife and family I can supply all this stuff” kind of deal as well as it being a celebration.
What is peculiar is how this problem is resolved, the bridegroom does not do it, nor does the steward bring it to his attention in fact we are not even told their names. Mary knows of the problem and informs her son, Jesus. Mary was told by the archangel that Jesus would be great, Simeon in the temple would proclaim great and terrible things that would occur to herself and her son. She knows at least somewhat of Jesus’ power but she does not have perfect knowledge of it. For whatever reason, she is aware that it is his responsibility to supply the wine. Considering how the supplying of the wine is the job of the bridegroom, here we see Mary acknowledging her son as the divine bridegroom.
4 And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
Jesus responds to his mothers declaration of the problem at hand with “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” Initially, to our modern ears this sounds kind of rude, who would call their mother “woman?” but considering John’s Genesis theme again, the Greek word used for “woman” is gynai the vocative form of the noun gyne which can mean “woman” or “wife”. This is the same word used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures used by the disciples, for Eve before she receives her name. More importantly it is the word used in the protoevangelium in Genesis 3:15. The promise God made of the Seed of the Gynai that will crush the head of the serpent.
Considering this primary, penultimate prophecy that everything kind of hinges on for the redemption of our nature when death is destroyed by the seed of the woman, Jesus is born of a virgin and will later conquer death and so on, this passage becomes the grand opening of salvation history in John’s narration. Jesus is already here but he has not begun the mission yet, his hour is the consummation of salvation in his death on the cross, once the first sign is done, him acting as the divine bridegroom at the wedding then everything else can play out.
5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Mary tells the servants at the wedding feast to do whatever Jesus says. This phrase has been a focus of many in Marian devotion, some outside the true Church assume that devotion to Mary is a distraction from Jesus but she is merely the purely human conduit that tells us to do whatever her son says.
6 Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
There are six stone jars standing at the property where the wedding feast is held, holding twenty or thirty gallons each. These are for the Miqvah purification rites, a requirement laid out in the Torah. The physical washing with water was not just a hygiene thing, it was deeply spiritual and religious. Returning back to Genesis, our first parents fall and all those descended from them have this fallen nature thus every person has to be purified before certain acts ritually for the cleansing of their sin. A type of the baptism given to us as a sacrament by Jesus. Since it was a wedding feast lasting so long with what must be quite a few guests, a lot of water is required.
7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast.” So they took it.
9 When the steward 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 steward of the feast called the bridegroom
Jesus tells the servants to fill the jars with water, very simple, and they fill them up as far as the jars allow. He then tells them to take it to the steward of the feast. This is the individual responsible for the allocation of the food and drink at the event, in charge of the servants telling them when to bring things, when to clean them away and so on. After taking the jars to the steward, who inspects it before it is to be drunk by the guests, it has become wine. He is not ware of where it came from but simply calls to the bridegroom, as we have said a few times already, it was actually the bridegroom’s job to supply the wine for the feast so the steward naturally turns his attention toward him.
10 and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men 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.
The steward is shocked because of what he perceives as a reversal of norms in dealing out wine at a party. Typically you have a little good wine and then when people are drunk you can give them the cheap stuff because they wouldn’t notice but here we are where the best wine is served later because Jesus made it himself miraculously. This is considered a sign and most people leave it at that, there was no wine, he turned water into wine, wow what a cool trick that Jesus has done, that is not why his disciples “believed in him” after this event.
The deeper notion to this goes back to what the water was originally for. The water was for the purification rites, the Miqvah. This was necessary because of the fallen nature of people and the introduction of sin into the world. If you wanted to do anything good like, lets say, a wedding feast before God, everyone had to be ritually pure, especially the bride and bridegroom but also all those serving the food. The purity from sin and death was held at bay, in a sense, by these water washings. This makes the water itself a symbol of death, it is the sign of their fallen humanity, something external to themselves they require because they are unclean, dead, otherwise. Jesus takes this symbol of death, of uncleanness before God and turns it into wine. The drink of life and celebration, the very drink said to be drunk at the divine heavenly banquet in the presence of God. Jesus turns death into life as the divine bridegroom, it is an encapsulation of the entire Gospel. We are lacking so he comes in, takes charge and our nature and redeems it through the very thing that we perceived to be holding us back, death itself.
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