The Main Idea: True belief can only begin once God’s glory is revealed to us.

Digging deeper:

Chapter 2 of John can be subdivided into three sections. This first section (verses 1-11) contains the well known story about Jesus turning the water into wine (very good wine at that). Every detail of this story is important and meaningful, but the underlying reason for this story cannot be found in a wedding or water being turned into wine. The real reason for this story is twofold and revealed in verse 11. Jesus made known His glory, as we previously read in John 1:14:

¹⁴And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And the second reason is so that Jesus’ disciples would believe and trust more deeply in Him, note also in John 1:12:

¹²But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,

We need to keep verse 11 in mind as we read this story.

 

John 2:1-5

¹On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there;

²and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.

³When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”

⁴And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.”

⁵His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

In these opening verses, the scene is set. Jesus and His disciples and His mother Mary are at a wedding. These were very special occasions in Israel. They could continue on for days, even a week. The bride and groom were treated like royalty. Also (and very important to this story) is that the wine should flow throughout the entire wedding feast, meaning there should be enough wine to last days. Even with a smaller wedding party the amount of wine necessary would be fairly significant. But if the wine were to run out it would be a catastrophe. The bride and groom as well as their families would be humiliated (not a great way to start their lives together) and there could be legal or financial ramifications. So running out of wine at a wedding was no small matter.

The very first dialog we see is Mary (probably frantic) telling Jesus that they have no more wine left. Note that she doesn’t directly ask Jesus to fix the problem; rather, she informs Him of the situation in no uncertain terms. This is important as she could have informed the wedding party or the parents of the groom or even the head waiter. Instead, she turns to Jesus.

We shouldn’t fail to remember that Mary is Jesus’ earthly mother and has raised Him and been with Him all this time, not only having heard the angel’s message to her about the Messiah she bore but also storing up memories for herself about Jesus growing up. Certainly she of all people would have a deeper understanding of her Son and who He really was. Certainly her faith would have spurred her on to simply tell her Son the calamity that was occurring as opposed to commanding Him to do something about it.

What was Jesus’ response to His mother? He said, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” As an English translation in today’s American culture, this sounds very harsh and maybe a little aloof. Hardly…you see, in the cultural and historic context in which these actual words were uttered, it was a respectful way of answering. It might have sounded more like, “Ma’am, why tell me this?”

These words were also a way for Jesus to distance Himself from the issue at hand. Jesus knew what was going on (obviously). But He also knew what was in Mary’s heart. Certainly she wanted Him to help out and fix this problem. But Jesus didn’t want to fully reveal Himself to the world just yet (remember that He said, “My hour has not yet come.”).

Notice Mary’s response to Jesus. She turns to the servants (who were probably in even more of a panic than Mary) and says, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” This statement is posed as a command to the servants. Perhaps Mary had some overseeing duties at this wedding feast and could take charge of the servants at this moment of crisis. Her command was that they do anything that Jesus tells them. This is a very telling example of Mary’s faith in Jesus. She is putting the entire problem in Jesus’ hands not knowing what the outcome will be (as we can infer from her words, “Whatever He says to you, do it”).

Mary’s implied faith in Jesus to take care of the problem is even more poignant after Jesus’ reply to her first statement about the wine running out. Not only is Mary trusting that Jesus can take care of the problem but she also trusts in Jesus’ method of taking care of the problem. To put it another way, she isn’t telling Jesus how to take care of the problem. She simply leaves everything in Jesus’ hands. This is the trust that is brought about through faith.

Did you see the other thing that Mary does? She points everyone to Jesus. Rather than trying to do things herself she points others, namely the servants, to Jesus Himself. She tells the servants to do what He says and that is that. Mary has pointed others to Jesus and left the results up to Him. With one small statement (or technically a command) she has borne witness that Jesus can deal with this calamitous situation in any way He chooses. And Mary did this all without knowing absolutely whether Jesus would in fact fix this situation or not (based on Jesus’ previous answer to Mary I don’t think anyone was certain). Mary’s faith in action bore witness to Jesus. May our faith in action make our desire to place the outcome fully in Jesus’ hands so that He may be glorified.

John 2:5–11

⁶Now there were six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each.

⁷Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” So they filled them up to the brim.

⁸And He said to them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it to him.

⁹When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom,

¹⁰and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.”

¹¹This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.

Verses 5-10 seem to be about Jesus saving the day for the wedding party. While this is a good and gracious thing that Jesus did, it was not the point of this story (remember the point is found in verse 11). There’s more to this story than just turning water into wine and saving the wedding.

John points out that there were 6 stone waterpots for a purification custom. The number 6 in Jewish culture usually meant something was imperfect or incomplete. This is meaningful as the Jewish purification customs were only an incomplete and imperfect forerunner to Jesus’ perfect and complete purification for all sin.

Jesus had the servants fill all 6 jars to the top with water. I’m sure the servants were thinking how could filling these pots with water help solve the immediate problem? Nevertheless, the servants obeyed and filled the pots exactly as Jesus had asked. Even filled to the very brim with water, these waterpots had no real power in and of themselves to solve the need for more wine much less remove sin permanently from a person when used in the purification ceremony.

Then Jesus told the servants to draw out some of the water and take it to the headwaiter to be tasted. Surely the servants must have thought this was a crazy idea. Taking some water to the headwaiter to be tasted wasn’t going to even remotely fix the situation. Yet, they obeyed.

Much to everyone’s surprise the water had turned into wine. In fact, the verbal phrase “had become” is in the perfective, meaning that at some point in the past the water had turned into wine. We’re not told if the water in the pots was all completely turned to wine or if it was turned to wine as the servants drew out the water from the pots (although, from the story’s wording, it seems that the servants might not have seen all 6 pots of water turn to wine but just what was drawn out). Regardless, the result was that a miracle had happened and the wedding had been saved.

Underneath this story is the idea that purification customs were not sufficient to permanently save a person; however, Jesus’ grace, which flows as freely as the wine flowed freely from the pots of water, is perfectly sufficient to save. Jesus was about to remove the old ways of purification (signified by the 6 pots) and usher in a new and perfect way of purification. This was God the Father’s plan for His Messiah.

This brings us back to Jesus’ mild rebuke to Mary: “What does this have to do with us?” and “My hour has not yet come.” Jesus was not put on the earth to do the will of people but to do the will of the Father. We can hear this in the first question: “What does this have to do with us?” So He was stating that He was not there to act like a wish granter but that He had a more important mission.

There is also the problem of the statement “My hour has not yet come.” This typically can mean one of two things: the time at which the Father would reveal the Son as the true Messiah or the time at which the revealed Messiah would die for the sin of the world. In this context, it couldn’t mean the latter as the former has not even happened yet. So we can understand this statement as Jesus not wanting to reveal that He is the Messiah at this point in time.

In this story, Jesus performs His first miracle, saves the wedding, and revealed His glory so that His disciples would have an even deeper trust in Him. All of this was done without revealing Himself as Messiah to the world. Notice that only His disciples, Mary, and the servants knew of the commands that Jesus gave leading to the water turning into wine. The headwaiter and the rest of the wedding party had no clue as to where the wine came from. This was all choreographed by Jesus who did not reveal Himself as the Messiah. Therefore, Jesus revealed (manifest) His glory only to the disciples, who, in turn, believed more deeply in Him. This was the true underlying meaning of this story.