Dear God, As we begin to study John 2 this evening, we invite you into our study and our lives. We ask that you meet us where we are, whether that is in thanksgiving, or in the midst of struggle. We ask that you reveal yourself to us and allow your word to be living and active. Let John 1 be life-changing and your Spirit to be life-giving. Amen
Intro: The thing you should know about John 2 is this- it is the first sign (or miracle) that Jesus does. John makes it clear that Jesus lived a fairly ordinary life until this point in time. This is the first time that Jesus shows himself to be supernatural. He does this sign at a typical cultural event in the place that he lives. He goes to a wedding with his family and friends. In the second part of this chapter Jesus is again participating in a cultural event, the Passover.
Why did Jesus choose a common celebration to preform his first sign? What does it mean that Jesus participated in these kind of events at all? What do these chapters show us about Jesus’ character?
The Wedding at Cana (Verses 1-12): Basic overview- Jesus, his disciples, and his family go to a wedding and the wine runs out. When Jesus’ mother asks him to solve the problem, he says “My hour has not yet come,” but he still turns gallons and gallons of water to wine. The servants bring the master of the feast (think wedding planner or party host) some of the wine, the master of the feast calls the bridegroom and says “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” It is important to know here that weddings in Jesus’ were huge events involving the entire village, and lasting for several days. The presence of wine at these weddings symbolized joy and blessing. If the wedding ran out of wine, it was a great embarrassment to the family as it represented a lack of resources, so when Mary says “They’ve run out of wine!” it’s actually a concerning situation. But look at the deeper level here. What if we look at the wedding as the state of Israel and God’s chosen people? The Israelites were without wine (i.e. the joy and blessings of God). They had become spiritually barren, and Jesus was there to supernaturally change the fundamentals of what they believed, just as he changed water to a completely new substance. Furthermore, Jesus shows himself to be God in that he was both creator and provider. He created wine to provide for his beloved people’s needs.
Is your life spiritually barren? What about our society? What does the changing of water to wine symbolize? How does this sign point to Jesus as Messiah? How does Jesus show himself to be creator and provider in your everyday life?
Jesus Cleanses the Temple (Verses 13-22): Brief Overview: During the passover time, merchants would sell animals for sacrifices so that people who traveled a long distance would not have to bring animals with them on the journey. When Jesus sees them in the Temple, he is filled with a righteous anger (or zeal as the disciples remember it called in the OT) and drives them out of the Temple. The Jews question his authority to do so, and Jesus tells them “Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it in 3 days.” The Jews think he is speaking of the Temple building, and do not understand that he is pointing to himself as the Temple of God and foreshadowing his crucifixion/resurrection. So at first I was confused as to why it was so bad that the merchants were being helpful, but I think it points to a deep spiritual truth about sin. They may have started selling animals to be helpful, but it became something that was defiling the Temple and turning a place of God into a commercial business. That’s the way sin gets us. It starts with something small, and slowly takes over our entire lives. Yet Jesus comes in and overturns it. He is victorious over our misguided intentions. He has a righteous anger towards that is not out of hate or condemnation, but out of intense love and protectiveness for us as God’s temples now that we have the Holy Spirit living within us. The Temple was a place of worship that connected God and humans before the ultimate sacrifice of Christ. Once Christ gave us his grace, he tore down the wall between God and humans forever. In that moment, we had a direct connection to God. We became the Temples.
What sin in your life has corrupted your ability to worship God well? How does the act of overturning tables in the Temple relate to the process of dealing with sin in our hearts? How does Jesus show himself as Messiah in these verses? What does it mean that we are Temples? How does it change the way we see ourselves and the world?
Why did he do all this? (Verses 11, 22, and 23-25): Let’s take a step back and evaluate- in all of these sections, Jesus never tells the common person who he is. He speaks in metaphors and doesn’t even tell the bridegroom of the wedding feast that he created the wine. Why? Read the verses- “And his disciples believed in him.” “his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture.” Jesus didn’t do these things to show himself as Messiah to the whole wide world, he was doing it for the growth in faith of those close to him. Peter wasn’t always courageous, and John wasn’t always wise. These were the early days where they barely know who Jesus was and didn’t have any idea what was to come. There were just following a stranger around. Jesus was building their faith and preparing them for the work they were to do. The rest of the people believed in what he was doing based on his signs, but Jesus needed his disciples to believe in who he was. When we study the scriptures, we are not building a good Christian vocabulary or looking for empty feelings of comfort, we read the Bible to discover who God is.
What does it mean to not just know what Jesus did, but who he is? How does Jesus reveal himself as Messiah to his disciples? How do we apply his words to our lives knowing that we are Jesus’ disciples now too?