Wisdom 42 Back to Basics

[HKHaugan]

Wisdom 42 Back to Basics

 Jesus and His disciples arrive at the wedding on the third day. Mary turned to Jesus and told Him the wine had run dry. He questioned her, “Why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.” Everyone usually asks why this reply. I believe it is an obvious question to make both her and His disciples aware of the circumstance, what it means and how He will react. Look at the context. As we have already mentioned, this is a wedding, a man and a woman are being united. This is right after His baptism. John the Baptizer has seen the Holy Spirit like a dove descend upon Him and declared He is the Messiah, the Son of God and the Lamb of God. This is a sterling moment. Actually, the hour has come, the-every-next moment Jesus is baptizing with His Spirit.

 When Mary says to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you,” she is making them aware of His presence. She has no idea what He will do nor does anyone else. But this is a signal statement for all of us at any moment, “Do whatever He tells you.” Now watch carefully what happens. The action Jesus takes is one that shifts everything from religion to relationship, from the institutional to the spiritually personal and relational.

 There are six stone water jars standing nearby used for Jewish ceremonial washing. Jesus tells the servants to fill them with water. He has justified water baptism as a spiritual washing experience. It is the outward sign of an invisible spiritual cleansing taking place. But there’s more to it than that. Matthew tells us that the reason Jesus, who didn’t need baptism, was baptized was to fulfill all righteousness (Mt.3:15). The six stone jars show us that stone is heartless clay and they are empty. Paul uses clay jars as a synonym for our human body when he says, “We have this treasure [light of Christ, 2Cor.4:6] in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us (2Cor.4:7).” We all are empty clay jars until we have the Holy Spirit fill us. Second, the number 6. It’s the number of incompleteness and, if carried further to 666, is the devil’s number. 7 is the number of perfect goodness and completeness. 7 is God’s number. 7 days of Creation, 7 miracles in John’s Gospel show Jesus is the Messiah.

 Jesus tells the servants to fill the empty jars with water. He is about to spiritually fulfill the old cleansing rituals, the mikvahs, Jewish religious rituals. Then He tells the servants to draw some out and take it to the banquet master who didn’t know that the water had been turned to wine. The banquet master exclaims that what usually happens is that the choice wine comes first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink. But here the best has been saved till now. The Jewish practice had been to take new wine and cut it three/two, that is three parts wine and two parts water. Now the wine is undiluted and pure. Jesus is the 7^th jar. He is the completeness Who starts with water and makes us complete in Him.

 In essence, what Jesus had done was to baptize baptism, that is, He took water and turned it into pure wine. Baptism is a spiritual baptism. As John the Baptizer said, “I baptize with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” What Jesus had done was to fulfill the old water ritual by filling it with the Holy Spirit. This reinforces the reason why Jesus, who didn’t need baptism, was baptized. He said, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness (Mt.3:15).”

 Add to this that wine became a symbol of Jesus’ blood shed on the Cross. It would become the new ritual full of the Spirit guaranteeing that whenever we take bread and wine in His name He would be present. At the Last Supper Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood (Lk.22:20).” Accompanied by the bread signifying His broken body, it was done “in remembrance of me (Lk.22:19).” Remembrance here is not just recalling Jesus in some past casual imagery. It is the guarantee of His presence, “For wherever two of three are gathered together in my name, I am with them (Mt.18:20).”   In the first century church these words led to copying His last Passover meal to become the new Passover meal, the Lord’s Supper, as the way they worshiped whenever they got together in homes, caves or wherever it was possible to gather.

 Therefore, in the Lord’s Supper is the ‘now’ of Jesus’ presence, the remembrance of His sacrifice on the Cross and the experience of His Resurrection. The Lord’s Supper is the fulfilled experience of the whole Gospel caught in the imagery and practice He gave us to worship Him. Jesus is always in the ‘now’ as the Lord’s Supper reminds us.

 But a cautionary note must be given here. The Lord’s Supper was celebrated by the disciples of Jesus in a closed room. It was a time of intimacy with Him, a time of teaching and relational sharing as we see in John 13-17. It took place before He and they walked to Gethsemane, before He prayed (John 17), before the next day’s dreaded Cross. Jesus intended it be a time of intimacy between believers capped off by taking the bread and wine. They remember it was by His stripes (His faithful suffering; the unjust trial, the whipping, the nails and the crown of thorns, the six hours on the Cross) they were healed spiritually from their sin and its aloneness and made His brothers, members of His eternal family.

 The Lord’s Supper speaks volumes to us about the need to restore the intimacy of this precious experience and move it back into small groups of gathering Christians who have shared the meaning of Scripture and opened their hearts to one another the way the early Christians did. Remember the Cross. Its vertical beam is a reminder of Jesus’ intimacy with the Father to Whom He committed His Spirit in the midst of suffering. The horizontal beam is the reminder of His outstretched arms saying “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Here was His intimacy expressed for all of us and our need to share spiritual intimacy with one another.

 Jesus’ hour had in fact come. We are likely to say ‘My hour has not yet come’ when we are confronted with unpleasant situations or it is an inconvenient time, or we just don’t want to get involved, or what will people think if I say or do something that is out of the ordinary. That is our time and Jesus said that for us knowing we may hesitate when it is time to act. He didn’t.

 John finishes this section by saying, “This, the first of the miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed His glory, and His disciples put their faith in Him (John 2:11).” Mary’s reply was the introduction to Jesus emphasizing the importance of what was taking place; restoring relational intimacy with God and one another, the restoration of man and woman, the restoration of the meaning of marriage, the restoration of the most important roles men and women have, the restoration of the uniqueness of every individual, the restoration of the family as the basic function in human society, the reconciliation of intimacy between man and God and it being the ministry we have been given through marriage. It is climaxed by Mary’s words, “Do what He tells you.” Words that apply to all of us who believe, trust and are motivated by faith in Him.