JOHN: HEARING IS BELIEVING
Gospel of John, Chapter 2
The Word began to be heard.
John the Baptist began the conversation. His icebreaker was, “Look, the one who takes away the sin of the world” (chapter 1, verse 29). He identified Jesus as “the Son of God” (verse 34) and “the Lamb of God” (verses 29 and 36). Others who became Jesus’ disciples eagerly picked up the conversation and called him “the Messiah” (verse 41) and “the king of Israel” (verse 49). They were ready for the Messiah – the one God promised to send for Israel’s rescue and restoration. I do not think they really knew, at that time, what he would actually do. Also, they were ready for a new King, a ruler who would be more like King David, to lead the nation to greatness. I do not believe they understood what that really meant. They probably were not even wanting what the Son of God was going to do now that he was in the world in the flesh.
It is dangerously easy to presume what God has in mind. We evaluate God’s will with a devastating bias. We naturally tend to pick up on a Scripture verse or two and go with it, thinking and feeling it sums up pretty much everything God is doing, or at least what we want him to be doing…for us. That leads to a distorted understanding of his message every time. With this method of hearing the Word we can become very fearful and condemning or we can become overly confident and indulgent. We can believe God is out to get us or that he likes everything we do. We need to hear more – all – of the message. Something that has helped me with this issue is reading longer chunks of Scripture, especially in the four Gospels, while basically ignoring the chapter and verse divisions (which were not used in the original writings) and looking for themes and connections through the texts. It is surprising how much more there is to hear when you stop thinking the Gospels are made up of a series of mere biographical events or inspirational anecdotes or motivational life lessons.
I imagine those first disciples thought they were hearing all of the message – Son of God, Messiah, King. To be sure, just that is extremely dynamic. Astonishing and astounding! Yet it was not enough. In a way, those are only labels which do not explain with precision who Jesus is and what he does. They are only words. Their full meanings had not been disclosed. So, the Word began to sound.
Two men who had been following John the Baptist reached the point in their spiritual trek that they wanted to know this Jesus. They asked him, “Where are you staying?” He answered, “Come and you will see” (verse 39). He was not talking merely about the house or tent or van parked under a bridge or whatever he was living in at the time. The next day Jesus invited a third man to join him. His name was Philip. After awhile with Jesus, Philip went after another guy named Nathanael and told him they had found the man the whole Bible (Old Testament) was about, and he was from Nazareth. Nathanael did not believe anything good could come from Nazareth, so Philip said, “Come and see” (verse 46). Jesus brought all this talk about coming and seeing to the crux of the matter by telling all those men, “You will see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (verse 51).
What a strange thing for the Word to say. You got any idea what it means? This is one of those many times when you cannot just look at the verse and understand what it is talking about. It is rooted all the way back in the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis 28:10-14. Jacob, son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, dreamed about a stairway to heaven with angels going up and down. God himself stood at the top and spoke to Jacob, telling him that all peoples on earth will be blessed through him and his descendants. God had first said that to Abraham then to Isaac. When Jacob woke up he thought he was in the dwelling (house, temple) of God and that exact location was the gate to heaven.
That is what Jesus was talking about and applied to himself. The Son of God became flesh and made his dwelling on earth. Later, he calls himself the gate (John 10:9). He is the connection between heaven and earth, the means for God and humans to become linked. I think Jesus was also picking up on God’s promise to Jacob that the entire world will be blessed – God’s “grace and truth” are going to be available for all people all over the planet in all times. 
So he told those first four followers, “You will see this.” They were going to see that the Word is God speaking. They were going to see that the Son of God has come to humanity and will make the connection from God to us. They were going to see how all people in every nation at every time can be blessed by God. At that point in time, at that moment in the histories of those men, it was about to happen! They were facing the opportunity to witness the fulfillment of the Creator’s planning and promising to bring his unconditional favor into the affairs of humanity. In fact, they were being invited by Jesus to participate with him in his mission. So much for life being the same as it ever was.
Jesus was not just a talking head. He acted. Two events reported by John in chapter 2 begin the action. These two events set the table for everything Jesus was going to do. It is important to comprehend the meaning of these two incidents. If we do not get the message the Word was communicating through them then we may misunderstand everything else he revealed.
The first event is at a wedding in a small town (verses 1-11). The town is Cana, located in the northern part of Israel in a region called Galilee and a few miles from Nazareth where Jesus grew up. Mary, Jesus’ mother, attends the wedding and so do Jesus and his men. Sometime during the seven-day celebration the wine runs out. Mary seems to take the lead by telling Jesus about the wine and telling the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them. (Maybe she had some responsibility and authority for the wedding.) There were six stone 20-30 gallon water jars standing in the house. Jesus tells the servants to fill them with water then take some of the water to the banquet host. By the time the host gets it the water has become wine. 
He tastes it then compliments the bridegroom for serving such good booze.
Why in the world would Jesus change water to wine? Certainly he helped those people in their embarrassing predicament. But there must be more to this, something deeper than salvaging a ruined party. John said this miracle was the “first of the signs through which he revealed his glory” (verse 11). This is a signpost pointing to something far more significant than resolving an awkward moment. This action directs us to who Jesus is and to his intentions and ability.
Now, instantly changing water to wine is an awesomely cool thing. I cannot do it as hard as I try. As far as I know, nobody else has ever done it. But if Jesus changed the whole Pacific Ocean to wine, it would not do what we need. Sure, some people would be tickled tipsy, but it would not make any real difference to most of us. Remember: changing the water to wine was a signpost giving directions to something else. It is more than the fact that Jesus had miraculous power.
Those pots that were in the house were not containers for drinking water. They were utilized to hold water for ceremonial hand-washing which the Jews practiced (verse 6). When they conducted the ritual they were not just washing dirt off their hands. It was a religious act that they thought made them clean in God’s eyes, acceptable to him and to their fellow Jews. Jesus changed that water into wine. He took water that was for outward purifying and made it wine that goes into the stomach and, as the Old Testament says, “gladdens the heart.” (Psalm 104:15)
The miracle is a signpost directing us to something beyond ritualistic religion, beyond living by legalities, beyond practices that do not make any difference in the kind of person we are. Jesus was showing that instead of merely making things look good on the outside, he goes inside. He works in our hearts and minds. Like the changing of water to wine, the Son of God makes changes within the deepest parts of our beings. That is how people become clean and acceptable.
You see, God cares about what is going on inside you. He is not concerned about what you look like or what you own. He is not only interested in your behaviors and actions. Those are really expressions and symptoms of something deeper. God cares about your wounded soul. He cares about the brokenness and pain you carry in your heart. He cares about the failure and guilt in your spirit. He cares that you are his intended image but you’re not able to know and interact with him. God cares about your dreams and desires and hopes and joys.
With the changing of water to wine, Jesus was showing that he has what we need within our souls. He has what it takes to heal and restore and renew our hearts. He has whatever we need to get our spirits out of the mess they are stuck in and start moving forward and keep growing until we are whole and alive from the inside out. God has the resources, and he will give them. “Full of grace and truth.” He will give you what you need in the most tender parts of your soul.
This inside work of Jesus is not merely psychological and/or intellectual and/or medical. The woundedness and brokenness and failure in our souls cannot be completely cared for by counseling and education and medicine. Those resources can be very helpful for dealing with specific issues, but they really do not go deep enough to bring about the changes needed in our souls. The inside work of Jesus is spiritual. And by spiritual I do not mean some kind of ethereal attempt to make us feel good about ourselves; that is so bland and shallow. The water-into-wine change produced by the Son of God means forgiving our guilt and replacing self-centered living with God-centered living. It means undoing the corruption of our rebellion against our Creator and restoring the image of God in us. It means taking away our fears of rejection and failure and giving us peace and security. It means healing our pains and scars and making us whole and joyful. It means leaving behind a meaningless existence and moving into glorious purpose. It means taking us on an adventure of faith and challenge and victory. Every one of us needs that kind of life-changing, and Jesus the Word who became flesh and teemed with grace and truth is the one to do it.
We do need to understand that this life-changing does not happen instantly like the water changed to wine. This miracle is a “sign” and not a project blueprint; it’s not an explanation of how the change takes place within us. For us to be the kind of people which God intends us to be, Jesus cannot change us instantly. That would be a forced change, it would not require anything from us, and it would not result in us being God’s true people. God intends for us to willingly relate to him and become his free, mature, strong children and partners. Force will not make that happen. So we must accept for ourselves the Word’s “grace and truth” with active faith, gaining understanding, making adjustments, and obediently following the Holy Spirit leading the way into new life.
At the wedding celebration in Cana, Jesus revealed that he intends to bring about change within people’s hearts.
People do not change in isolation. Lasting change does not happen just by thinking and deciding within themselves. Real differences come about by the influences of people and events around them and then their own responses and choices. In my work with at-risk youth and adolescent drug users it was clear how important this is for behavior change to last. Some kids needed to be placed temporarily in the treatment center environment, and almost always their home environment – the ways their families functioned – had to undergo some makeover in order for them to achieve lasting change. In recovery, a drug user has to avoid her old environment. Just seeing the house where she used to get high can trigger the urge to use again. She has to go different places and have different friends. Whatever significant change any of us make, the influence of people and events and places around us plays a powerful role.
The change that Jesus brings is the same. So he made a new environment. It was not enough to change jars of hand-washing water into wine. He replaced (actually, fulfilled) the whole system of which ceremonial hand-washing was a part. In the second half of John 2 (verses 13-22) we hear about where Jesus went and what he did after the wedding in Cana.
TO BE CONTINUED
Amen! Thank you!