The Scandal of Jesus (John 2:1-12)
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[00:00:00] Well, today we're gonna look at one of my all time favorite stories in the Bible, especially favorite stories about Jesus. Today we're gonna look at Jesus turning water into wine. It's a story that many religious people often explain away, and I have heard this for years and they get very creative with how they explain it away.
But I wanna show you today that this story is even wilder than you probably think it is now. Now if you like this whole discussion today, I actually have another podcast called Cabernet and Pray, where we drink wine and we talk about theology.
So if this story resonates with you, check out that podcast Cabernet and pray. Now, today we're gonna look at John chapter two, beginning in verse one. Says the next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there and Jesus and his [00:01:00] disciples were also invited to the celebration.
The wine supply ran out during the festivities. Now, this is where you'd get a record scrap, right? It doesn't matter if you're in the first century or today. If you're at a wedding and there's a wine supply that runs out, it is bad news for everyone. Now, we might think this is a very practical, normal, non-spiritual problem, but this is the setup for something incredible that Jesus is about to do.
So the wine runs out. Jesus' mother told him they have no more wine. I love that. She points us out to him. Dear woman, that's not our problem. Jesus replied, my time has not yet come, but his mother told the servants, do whatever he tells you. She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, whatever he tells you, do it.
Standing nearby where six stone water jars used for Jewish ceremonial washing. I. Each [00:02:00] could hold 20 to 30 gallons. Jesus' mother comes to him and points out something obvious that he would've seen. This is kind of like when my wife points out, Hey, we need to take out the trash, right? What she's saying is, trash is full.
Can you go take out the trash? This is what Jesus' mom is doing. Hey, they have number one. You need to do something about it. You need to get them more wine. And Jesus' reply is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. My time has not yet come. What he means by that is, if I do this, the clock starts on my road to the cross, and he knows that better than anyone else at this party, and that's why he's going.
I don't think it's time yet, but his mom kind of ignores him, says, do whatever he tells you to do, and she's inviting him to just bend the laws of nature. Now, there's an important detail in this story that we often overlook. What were the jars?
Therefore, right, these [00:03:00] jars are gonna become vessels of wine. What were they? Therefore, we read about this in verse six. So standing nearby were six stone water jars used for Jewish ceremonial washing. So, no, this is a big tradition here and this is something that's different for us.
For them, you would become spiritually holy by physically washing your hands. Now we think you become physically clean, right? By physically washing your hands. We don't associate a spiritual dynamic to that, but they did, and this was a tradition, a rule, if you will, that Jesus often got in arguments with people about, we find an example of this in Matthew 15 versus one through three.
It says, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrive from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked him, why do your disciples disobey our age old tradition for they ignore our [00:04:00] tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat? And Jesus replied, and why do you by your traditions violate the direct commandments of God?
What we're gonna see here is that Jesus is repurposing a religious item.
Now it's hard to find a modern day comparison to this. Perhaps if you saw kids swimming in a baptistry in a church. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong about that. You go, well, it's water, and I guess you could swim in it, but that's not what that water is used for you. You would feel a little bit weird about that because church can often become about traditions and expectations, and Christianity can often become about traditions.
And expectations. In fact, maybe you think that's all that Christianity is, and this is why this story is so profound. Let's see what he does next. In [00:05:00] verse seven, Jesus told the servants, fill the jars with water. Now they're thinking, okay, we're gonna wash our hands. When the jars had been filled, he said, now dip some out and take it to the master of ceremonies.
Here's where they're thinking either this guy is nuts or he's trying to get us all fired. We don't serve the ceremonial handwashing water. What is he wanting us to do here? But the servants followed his instructions when the master of ceremonies tasted the water that was now wine, which you can imagine them going, whew.
Not knowing where he had come from, though, of course the servants knew wink, wink. He called the bridegroom over. A host always serves the best wine first, he said. And then when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine. But you have kept [00:06:00] the best until now. This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was the first time Jesus revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him.
After the wedding, he went to Capernaum for a few days with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples.
Let's do a little math here. How much wine are we talking about? Well, we know that there's six jars and each jar holds 20 to 30 gallons of liquid, which would be about 180 gallons of wine. Now, on average, a gallon of wine equals about five bottles. So if you can do some quick math, that means Jesus made roughly 900 bottles of wine at a party that had already run out.
Wine. Like when people say, oh, this was grape juice, and no, they weren't drinking the excess, and they all like, you don't understand the details of this [00:07:00] story. This is a wild story of what Jesus is doing. Have you ever been to a party that served 900 bottles of wine? After the initial wine ran out, that is one heck of a party if you average like let's say $30 a bottle 'cause it's good wine.
So it's not the cheap stuff. This would be $27,000 worth of wine that Jesus just made in modern day currency. Jesus is practically his own winery in this story.
Now this story is scandalous, but not for the reasons why. We often think this is a scandalous story, but we miss why the scandal is not that Jesus used alcohol, but that he repurposed a religious item. See, part of believing in Jesus, a huge part was [00:08:00] moving away from religion and choosing Jesus.
Instead, Jesus invites each of us as he did in this story, as he does today, to see beyond traditions and expectations and rules and religion, and instead to find our life in him. And to make that point, he repurposed a gigantic item that they would've all used to connect spiritually with God and instead gets them to see that he is now the one offering life.
You will not ever find life in religion or in rules or in the expectations, but you absolutely will find life. In the person of Jesus, and this story reminds us that Jesus is always inviting us away from religion [00:09:00] and toward him. I'll see you next week on Rebuilding Faith.
