Seeing the Signs

Introduction

After John 1, the rest of the gospel can be divided into two parts:

John 2-12 is the teachings and miracles of Jesus, often called the book of signs
John 13-21 are all about the last week of Jesus’ life, his death, and resurrection

So as we start John 2 we start seeing these signs that Jesus performs.

He turns water to wine
He heals a man’s son with a word
He makes the blind see
He raises Lazarus from the dead
And some others

So we have to ask ourselves: What do these signs mean?

The Purpose of Signs

The fact that they’re called signs implies that they mean something. They signify some sort of message. Jesus didn’t go around like David Blaine doing street magic just to impress people. There was purpose and behind them. So we have to ask why Jesus performed certain actions in certain ways, and what they could mean.

On the one hand, they mean to communicate the divinity of Jesus.

John 20:30–31 ESV

³⁰ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; ³¹ but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

These signs are given so that we would recognize not only that that Jesus was divine, but that he is the Christ sent from the God of Israel. So they are also going communicate something about the character of God himself.

Jesus is one who reflects the glory of God:

John 1:14 ESV

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And so when we begin to see signs that reveal that glory:

John 2:11 ESV

¹¹ This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

We are getting a glimpse of that grace and truth.

The First Sign

So here’s the first sign:

John 2:1–12 ESV

¹ On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

² Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.

³ When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”

⁴ And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶ Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.

⁷ Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.

⁸ And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it.

⁹ When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom

¹⁰ and said to him, “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.”

¹¹ This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

¹² After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.

Jesus is invited to a wedding. These were huge deals.

They would last a full week
It was a giant feast
Community event – distant friends were invited and to refuse was an insult
To run out of wine is hugely embarrassing. One Jewish writing says that to pressure your friend into coming to your wedding and not feeding them was like theft.

Jesus’ mother comments on this and Jesus has a (to our ears) surprisingly gruff response:

John 2:3–4 ESV

³ When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” ⁴ And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

It’s not as bad as it sounds!

Calling someone “woman” in that culture was similar to calling her ma’am. It’s not rude – but at the same time it’s not what I call my mom. So Jesus is being polite, but distant, with his mother.

But if that’s polite, the rest of his response still sounds rude. If you translate it literally Jesus is saying “What to me and to you” which is an idiom that’s been understood in different ways:

John 2:4 NLT

⁴ “Dear woman, that’s not our problem,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”

John 2:4 LSB

⁴ And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come.”

These translations make it sound as if Jesus isn’t going to do anything about the problem, but Mary immediately tells the servants to do whatever he says. She understood this as Jesus agreeing to help.

And then he says: “My hour has not yet come.”

Jesus talks a lot about a coming hour. Throughout the gospel it’s like minutes to midnight, and the all-important hour is coming – the hour of Jesus’ death.

So rather than saying “I’ve got bigger problems to deal with” I assume Jesus is essentially telling his mother: “My hour hasn’t come yet, so I’ve got plenty of time and opportunity to do something right now. What’s a little wine shortage to the Son of God?”

Jesus says later on:

John 9:4 ESV

⁴ We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.

So let’s get to work at this wedding! And Jesus takes advantage of this situation to reveal the glory of God.

Stone Jars

He tells the servants to fill some jars with water, up to the brim, and then take some to the master of the feast. But these aren’t just normal jars for holding just anything,

John 2:6 ESV

⁶ Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.

The Old Testament required that a person be clean, quite literally, to live in the community of God’s people and to be near God in his temple. Things like blood, touching dead bodies, eating certain animals, or having mold in your house would make a person unclean for a period of time where they had to remain outside the community.

In the days of Jesus there was a very strong desire to remain clean, and so there were large containers of water to wash the uncleanness away and leave the person purified.

So the jars themselves are a sort of symbol. Through the cleansing that they provide you could hang out with God.

Wine

But Jesus doesn’t leave water in them. He turns them into wine – which is also a symbol. One for the new age to come. In general, it is a sign of the time when God would reverse the exile, be present with his people, and bring in an era of unprecedented prosperity – full of food and wine!

For example, in the book of Joel, God is punishing his people for sin by sending locusts to eat everything:

Joel 1:4 ESV

⁴ What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.

So all the food is eaten up by bugs, and then they can’t grow anymore because God also strikes the fields:

Joel 1:16–17 ESV

¹⁶ Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? ¹⁷ The seed shrivels under the clods; the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are torn down because the grain has dried up.

But God promises his people that if they would have a true and heart-felt repentance, not just a show of being sorry but actually feeling it, then he would turn back to them and restore everything that’s been lost and be with his people in a much closer and intimate way via the Holy Spirit:

Joel 2:28–29 ESV

²⁸ “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. ²⁹ Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

The Spirit of God is all about life:

It creates life
It sustains life
It transforms lives
It fills life up!

Joel 3:18 ESV

¹⁸ “And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Shittim.

In the days of Jesus people were looking for hope. They were looking for the sign that God heard their prayers, that he was going to help them, that he hadn’t abandoned them. And then Jesus shows up with the wine!

The old way of dwelling with God by purifying yourself with water is done. Jesus will cleanse you with the Holy Spirit – transforming your life into something so much more than what it was before.

Connect

When Mary says “They have no wine” she meant the wedding party, but she could have just as easily been speaking about any one of us.

As we noticed in Joel, one of the signs of God’s absence was the lack of wine and abundance in general. Take away your relationship with God, and both life and land suffer as a result.

Israel suffered – wondering how long they had to wait before God showed up with the wine. How many people without God are waiting for something similar?

How many people wait around wondering when they will finally “make it”? When they will finally have achieved not just life satisfaction, but an abundance of it?

When I get out of school, I’ll be satisfied with my job
When I get married, I’ll be satisfied in my relationships
When I buy a house, I’ll be satisfied with my security
When I have kids, I’ll be satisfied with my life’s purpose

And you will be satisfied! For a little bit!

Psychologists have studied the effect called the Hedonic Treadmill.

We’re convinced that we will be happier and more fulfilled with more things. Money, toys, family, relationships, whatever. But studies have shown that after that initial high and excitement – you quickly go back to your base level of happiness. Nothing’s changed.

– You get excited about that job, and then it becomes a soul sucking drain for 40+ hours a week

– Your wedding day is the happiest day of your life, and then you settle into the same routine

It’s why billionaires don’t retire, and why people who seem to have everything throw it all away for an affair or a chance to strike it rich. No matter how happy you expect to be now – the wine runs out and you start looking for more.

Part of the motivation we have to bring people to come and see Jesus is so that they could see how much fuller life could be.

A fuller family with countless brothers and sisters
A fuller love as we learn to forgive and be forgiven
A fuller purpose as we live for eternity instead of just the short life we have

And as the master of the feast says, the stuff Jesus brings is way better than anything else we’ve had!

The Temple Cleansing

So Jesus transforms the old into something new – John doesn’t want us to read this sign in isolation. In verses 13-22 we have Jesus cleansing the temple:

John 2:13–22 ESV

¹³ The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

¹⁴ In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there.

¹⁵ And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.

¹⁶ And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”

¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

¹⁸ So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”

¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

²⁰ The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”

²¹ But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

²² When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

How Many Cleansings?

There are at least three hints that tell us that we should be reading this story with the wine in mind.

First, both passages reference the death of Jesus – in his coming hour, and the temple of his body being destroyed and raised up.

Second, go back to John 2:1 – the wedding happened on the third day. Now some have linked that back to the sequence of days in John 1 and suggested that John is retelling events in a way similar to the six days of creation in Genesis 1. But John isn’t interested in saying that the wedding happened on the sixth day. He wants us to see it happening on the third day.

The third day is the day of resurrection! In verse 19:

John 2:19 ESV

¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Our third hint is that the temple cleansing was something that Jesus did at the end of his ministry, but John feels the need to write about it in chapter 2!

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all place the temple cleansing to just before Jesus is arrested – it was one of the primary factors that lead to his arrest and crucifixion. Some have proposed that Jesus cleared out the temple twice, once at the beginning and again at the end of his ministry. But Matthew, Mark, and Luke have no mention of a different cleansing early in the his ministry, and John has no indication of a second one later on. Each gospel only writes of one temple action.

What I’ll suggest is that John isn’t interested in a chronological retelling of Jesus’ life. All of the gospel writers shuffle the events of Jesus’ life around in order to draw out differing or nuanced meanings to the event.

For example:

In Matthew 8, after Jesus preaches the Sermon on the Mount we’re told he cleanses a leper, heals a centurion’s servant, and then Peter’s mother-in-law, back-to-back-to-back.
In Mark, Jesus first heals Peter’s mother-in-law, travels around Galilee for awhile, then heals the leper, and never mentions the centurion or his servant.
In Luke, Peter’s mother-in-law is healed in chapter 4, the leper in chapter 5, and the centurion’s servant isn’t healed until chapter 7

Three miracle stories all told in a different order and with different contexts, all to draw out different points from the same event. That’s why we have four gospel stories – one telling wouldn’t be able to communicate the full meaning of Jesus.

So if the gospel writers can move miracles around, why can’t John move the temple cleansing?

John wanted us to pair the sign at the wedding with the greatest sign of all: the resurrection.

Zeal for His Father’s House

The temple would have had some sort of marketplace where you could buy and sell sacrificial animals and exchange foreign currency for money that was acceptable for the temple tax.

Jesus isn’t having any of it. He doesn’t condemn them for any corrupt or unethical dealings, he’s just enraged by their very presence! This is the place where one was supposed to come and encounter God and they’ve turned the whole operation into a business arrangement.

Jesus is so passionate about the sanctity of the temple that his disciples remember an Old Testament passage:

John 2:17 ESV

¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

It’s from Psalm 69:9

Psalm 69:9 ESV

⁹ For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.

If they remembered that passage right there and then, they were likely only seeing a superficial connection: “Hey! Jesus is really passionate just like this old song talks about!”

But they remember even more later on.

Jesus said “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

John 2:21–22 ESV

²¹ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. ²² When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Jesus is consumed by his zeal for the temple, meaning that he has an overwhelming surge of emotions about this, but he’s also consumed in the sense that this zeal will literally consume his life.

Jesus isn’t talking about rebuilding the temple brick by brick in three days – something that’s taken 46 years up to that point – but his own body. Tear that apart and Jesus will raise from the grave in three days.

This is the kind of life Jesus gives. A life so full to the brim that even when someone kills you, you get back up.

Connect

But here’s the catch to it all. If we want the life that Jesus offers, we have to let our zeal for God consume us.

That doesn’t mean we need to be at an emotional 10 at all times, shouting at people on street corners or breaking down in tears every time we see a cross.

It means we have to turn everything over to Jesus and put ourselves to death – just as Jesus offered himself on the cross and was raised by God.

Can you imagine what the disciples were thinking before Jesus went into the temple with his whip? We’re told that Jesus made the whip. “Jesus? What are you doing?”

And then he goes into the most sacred place in Israel, during one of the most sacred holidays (Passover), run by the people who can legally kill him for what he’s about to do, stops the whole show and drives everyone out, and says “This is my Father’s house!”

Jesus knew that his zeal would consume his life. And he went in anyways.

Jesus speaks often of his impending hour – when his life would come to an end on the cross. He invites us to that same crucial decision.

John 12:25 ESV

²⁵ Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Jesus is offering us more than we could ever imagine. But you need to die for it.

So much of what stops us in this life is a love of this life. We’re so afraid of losing the crumbs on our table that we miss out on the feast that Jesus wants us to have!

We love the superficial relationships we have so much that we never step out and invite them into a real family
We love the little comforts at home so we see no need to go out into the world to make it better
We love our bad habits so we never get the new life Jesus offers

Conclusion

Jesus is inviting you to hand over your life, let it be consumed, so that he can give you so much more. Life could be everything God intended it to be for you.

Will you hand over the crumbs your living for now in exchange for the abundance God offers? Or will you die for nothing?