John 2:1-11
in these verses, the story is told of jesus turning water into wine. i think it is interesting the way jesus' mom approaches him. it is almost as if she is expecting him to do something or wants him to do something. even though jesus is reluctant to get involved, she even readies the servants by telling them, "do whatever (jesus) tells you" as though she knows something cool could happen at any time. my question is, how does she know this? granted, she has lived with jesus or known him like a mother for the past 30 years, but the bible tells us that jesus had never performed any miraculous signs before this event. a couple of ideas come to mind: perhaps jesus had done some small supernatural things around the house while growing up, or maybe his mom was very aware of his potential given her experience with a virgin birth and knew that he had it in him. or, maybe she hassled him all the time to perform a miracle and this is just the first time it is recorded. i sometimes wonder if mary had been growing impatient waiting for jesus to start living up to his miraculous birth and justifying all the trouble and ridicule she had undertaken in order to participate in his birth. now that i think about it, the three situations that come to mind involving mary and jesus up to this point (the virgin birth, his getting lost in the temple, and this water-into-wine miracle) all seem to place some real stress on mary. maybe this miracle is a real lesson about mary and her position. anyway, this is all speculation, but i suppose it's worth at least a brief chat.
what i really enjoy is the insight of dave/the apostle john (usefulbreath). john concludes the testimony by saying that, in doing this miracle, jesus revealed his glory and his disciples put their faith in him. nobody knew that a miracle had occurred except for jesus, mary, the servants, and jesus' disciples. this was an important step to jesus' ministry. it also serves as a good guideline for following other miracles. when reading and thinking on them, i can ask myself, "what does this miracle reveal to me about jesus' glory?" and "what is this miracle causing me to believe about jesus?" hmmmm, it is tough to find answers to these questions on the spot, so i asked my wife, and now i agree with her. she says that this story emphasizes jesus' love for people. they were participating in a big celebration and the lack of wine meant imminent doom for the party host. in turning water into wine, jesus let the good times roll. very few people knew that a miracle had occurred, but everyone knew they were still having a good time and drinking very good wine.
finally, one slightly off-topic question. the gospel of john records jesus' recruitment of the disciples a bit differently than do the other three gospels. specifically, i suppose i am referring to peter. in john, we are told that andrew meets jesus and then introduces peter to jesus, but in the other three gospels we are told that jesus calls out to peter in the fishing boat and peter drops what he is doing to follow jesus. this variation of meetings confuses me with regard to the timeline of jesus' miracles. if there were disciples present at the wedding where jesus turned water into wine, then it doesn't seem like this could have been his first miracle, because the book of luke tells of situations where jesus performs miracles prior to the calling of his first disciples. what is the straight story here?
later.
