(On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” ~John 2:1-5)
Today we begin chapter 2 of “The Gospel According to John” and we begin with the setting of the first recorded miracle of Jesus Christ, at the wedding in Cana. Now it is recorded here that it was on the third day, I have to assume that the writer John was referring to the third day of the week, the first day being after the Sabbath (the Sabbath is Saturday) the first day of the week is Sunday so the third day would be Tuesday, but he could also be referring to the third day since Nathanael came to the Lord. The scripture tells us that “there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee.” Cana is a neighboring township near Nazareth, which is the place of Jesus’ boyhood home. Cana is mentioned three times in “The Gospel of According to John”, here verse 2:1, verse 4:46, and again in verse 21:2 after His resurrection, the scene is this; Jesus showed Himself at the sea of Tiberias and 21:2 tells us who was there. (Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of His disciples were together ~John 21:2). So Nathanael who we just talked about last week in coming to the Lord and believing, becoming a disciple, he was from Cana of Galilee, so it is not inconceivable that the wedding party was either friends or family of Nathanael’s and that Jesus, His mother, and disciples were invited to the wedding by him or through him. Can you just see Nathanael excited by his Lord and meeting Jesus, he wanted all his family and friends to meet Him and what better place than at a party. Also being a neighboring township to Nazareth Jesus’ mother and Jesus Himself may have already been acquainted with these people. In either case there were more people at the wedding feast than had been planned for, because they ran out of wine. It would have been an incredible embarrassment at a Jewish wedding party for the groom to have run out of either food or wine, in fact he may have even lost respect in his community. So when the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” What she was saying was, how awful for them and she went to the person that she knew could do something about it, she had not yet revealed to the world who Jesus was, but she knew who Jesus was.
(Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” ~John 2:4) Jesus’ mother knew that he could take care of the problem, and was hoping for the sake of the wedding party that He would, and as a mother I suspect that she wanted the world to see what her Son was capable of doing. In saying this, Jesus was letting her know that he was no longer under her authority as parent, but was under the authority of His heavenly Father God, but also as a good Son He would honor His mother. (His mother said to the Servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” ~John 2:5) She put the problem in the hands of Jesus, there was a problem that only God could fix, and she made a request, and then put it in His hands. She didn’t make her request and then run out and try to buy wine, she did what we all should do in prayer, bring our request to God and put them in His capable hands. Next week the actual miracle of turning water into wine.
Mike Peek
