John 2

(2:1) On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee... Do you remember talking about details in the text? What day of the week is the third day? Why would someone want to get married on that day? (The answer is in the Text--way early in the Text. Do you remember?)

Anyway, here are Jesus and His disciples and His mother all at this wedding when the wine runs out. And here John tells us about Jesus' water into wine miracle. Actually, John calls Jesus' miracles "signs," using a Greek word different than the other Gospel writers. One commentator that I read thought that maybe John liked to use Jesus' miracles to remind his audience that this was the ushering in of the Messianic age. This one in particular might have reminded the people that in the Messianic age, among other things, wine would be abundant (see Amos 9). This is very possible.

Remember that John was writing to the church in general, but also specifically to believers in Asia Minor. In the culture of that day, there was a god of the Roman pantheon called Dionysus. He was also called Bacchus, as well as a few other names, but he was associated with (among other things) wine, drinking, and debauchery. In the stories about the Dionysus cult, there are all sorts of obscene practices, but one of the miraculous signs that supposedly happened at the center of the his cult was that the god Dionysus changed water into wine. I believe, then, that one of the purposes for John telling this story about Jesus is to make the argument that Dionysus is a fake and Jesus is the real deal. Think about that.

(2:12-19) John records two "clearings of the Temple" by Jesus. This is the first. I love verse 17 in this part. His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me." They remembered Psalm 69! Often times I catch myself reading the Gospels and saying or thinking ill of the disciples: C'mon guys! How do you not see Who Jesus is? But then I come across this verse and I realize that the disciples may not have been every rabbi's first pick, but they knew Psalm 69 from memory, so they're up on me in that category.