John 2 - Preacher's Commentary

Bringing in New Wine and Driving Out the Old

John 2:1–25

Out of the vast amount of material available to the Evangelist John, he has carefully chosen his material as an eyewitness of all Jesus did and said. In his writing he has a clear, guiding purpose, “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31). Then which earthly, daily incidents will best reveal who Jesus is and quicken a living faith among His readers?

At the outset John presents two contrasting events which make known both the rich fullness and the cleansing power of the new life that has come. One is a wedding—intimate and domestic, a joyful celebration in a small town. The other is a decisive, courageous act of cleansing at the center of a major national festival. Here we catch the sweep and intensity, as well as the personal, human concern of Jesus’ ministry. That ministry is total, all encompassing, touching all of life, both private and public.

Neither of these incidents is recorded in the synoptic Gospels. As a matter of fact, hardly any of the material shared in the first five chapters of this Gospel is included in the synoptics. Much of what John tells us about Jesus took place in and around Jerusalem, while the synoptics present Jesus’ Galilean ministry, particularly centered in Capernaum. It is false to say these accounts are inconsistent or incompatible, assuming that the synoptics are giving us history while John is not too concerned about whether the stories he tells really happened. It has been held that John is concerned more with the “truth” that might be contained in these stories, not in their historical accuracy. John’s emphasis is different. These stories are like husks which can be stripped away leaving the kernel of truth.

To say this is to once again proclaim a docetic Gospel, which boasts a non-fleshly Jesus, leading to a historical agnosticism in the end. This is a denial of the basic premise, the cutting edge of John’s whole Gospel, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”—at a wedding in Cana; at Jacob’s well, thirsty and weary; at the tomb of Lazarus, weeping—a particular Man of flesh and blood doing specific things at specific times and places.

No, John’s Gospel is through and through a historical account, the careful writing of an eyewitness. Those personal, specific details, which are included so naturally in every recorded event, could not have been ingeniously fabricated. John is too honest, too conscientious for that.

However, he uses particular, unique experiences which make the identity of Jesus stand out sharp and clear. This is his central purpose! When men know who He is they must decide. The house always becomes divided between belief and rejection, light and darkness, life and death, whenever Jesus makes Himself known.

And it is in Jerusalem where His identity and authority are most savagely challenged, and it is there, finally, that His whole ministry is bitterly rejected. John makes these issues clear by focusing on the “Jerusalem story” rather than the Galilean ministry.

2:1-12

Water into Wine

The Wedding at Cana (vv. 1–2). The wedding took place not far from Nazareth in the small village where Nathanael lived, Cana of Galilee. Notice again the specifics. It must have been something of a family affair. The mother of Jesus, whose name is not given, but who is very specifically identified, seems to be at the center of arranging things. And “Jesus and His disciples” are invited. This is the first time Jesus is identified in an intimate way with His disciples, and they would surely not have been invited as a group had they been total strangers.

A wedding in those days was a great celebration, no little twenty-minute affair. The ceremony usually took place late in the evening—Wednesday if the girl was a virgin and Thursday if she was a widow—after a feast. Then there was a procession to the home of the groom, a joyous, noisy parade, with an open house and entertainment that went on for at least a week.

Surely the rich, deep meaning of marriage in Jewish religious life was in John’s mind as he shared the account of this simple, shining event in Cana. That intimate relation between Yahweh and Israel is portrayed over and over again through the image of the marriage covenant (Hos. 2:7). The fullness of the messianic age was prophesied in Isaiah and spoken of so beautifully through the symbol of marriage (Is. 62:5), and the vision of the consummation of all history will be celebrated in the marriage of the “Lamb and His wife” when glory is given the Lord God Omnipotent (Rev. 19:7). How highly suggestive then that Jesus’ first miracle, inaugurating the messianic age, should be the sign given at a wedding.

And if the Word has truly become flesh, so that heaven and earth, salvation and creation, are joined in Him, then all human experiences—however lowly or lofty—become occasions when His glory can break forth. The possibilities are unlimited! While Jesus was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, He was also a Man who went to parties and enjoyed hearty conversation, laughter, and good food. His showing up at Cana is an invitation for the rest of us to join Him at His party and to enter into His joy.

Rapid City, South Dakota, may not be Cana of Galilee, but Ruth and I have just come home from a glorious wedding in that Black Hills city. Our oldest son, Randy, now thirty-six, having had at least a dozen fairly serious girl friends, and now full of gratitude and joy that the right one had come along, was being married to Elaine, a lovely, gifted, outgoing young woman. It was worth the wait!

The rehearsal dinner was a steak cookout, entirely in keeping with the western country. It was complete with all kinds of warm greetings and friendly banter—two families and close friends getting to know one another.

And then the wedding the next day! A chuckle ran through the congregation when the friendly host pastor of First United Methodist Church welcomed us all and said this might be a longer service because there had been “an invasion of the Baptists.” What a joy as we shared in the hymn, “Be Thou My Vision”—native Americans, ranchers, church people, politicians, and families all singing together. It was a time of holy worship—the intermingling of beautiful music and prayer, the hushed sharing of the great old promises, of tears and soft laughter! The One who had visited Cana had come to this wedding, and that made it a celebration.

Freedom from His Mother: His Time (vv. 3–5). But in the midst of this joyous affair at Cana comes the possibility of great embarrassment. “They have no wine.” What a shocking thing for the bridegroom and his family, for it was their sacred duty to provide ample refreshments for all the guests. They might even be liable to a lawsuit if the wine failed. “No wine.” Here is the impoverishment of the Old Covenant, the cry of spiritual need, the yearning for the messianic wine, the bankruptcy of all our ingenious human ways and resources.

It is the mother of Jesus who calls this failure to His attention. Surely He can help out. Deep within she carries the mystery of His birth and is aware of His unique identity, although she cannot fully grasp all of its meaning. One can almost sense the subtle parental pressure in her announcement of the wine giving out.

But Jesus is no longer under her roof. The time of her authority has passed, so her concern has no final claim on Him. Jesus has moved out in obedience to His Father, and all His times are set by the higher Authority. He must await the hour fixed by His Father.

How often we parents have smothered and pressured our children, even in college years and beyond, and tried to live our lives through them. We have failed to let them go! We have crippled them because we have been afraid to set them free for a larger purpose than our little plans, never understanding there is Another who has a far greater will for them. And we can trust Him!

When Jesus addresses His mother, “Woman,” He is not being aloof or distant, but is speaking with tenderness and respect. It is the same way in which He lovingly commits her to John’s care from the Cross. “Woman, behold your son!” (John 19:26). “My hour has not yet come,” He says to her. This is a phrase He will utter over and over again until He finally comes to the Cross. Then, and only then, has His hour come. His time is always in His Father’s hands.

And His mother now seems to submit to the mystery of that timing. There seems to be a quiet release, a letting go, in her statement to the servants. “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

The Best at the End: Grace after Law (vv. 6–10). Now Jesus in His own time turns to six great stone pots that were used for purification. Whenever guests arrived, the water from these pots was poured over their hands in a ritual of cleansing. To eat with unwashed hands was an act of defilement. This purification rite was an external act that did not make anything new or bring any fresh power. These waterpots represent the whole ritual of Jewish law, the Old Covenant, which really has become meaningless in the presence of Jesus who will pour out an abundance of the wine of the new age. The time of Judaism is over. Its major institutions and figures are replaced by Jesus Himself. The old wineskins cannot contain the new wine.

At the command of Jesus the servants obey. The waterpots are filled with water “up to the brim.” There is a completeness in this simple act with room for nothing else, no cheating or magic. Then out of that provision Jesus asks them to “draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” It is like taking water from a well, as in the Samaritan woman’s discussion later about living water (4:11–15).

The “master,” who is the headwaiter or master of ceremonies in charge of seating and other arrangements, has undoubtedly been wondering about the “wine situation.”

How quietly it happened. The master tasted “the water that was made wine.” There is no way we can know when or how the water became wine. Jesus simply moves in His own mysterious way with no fanfare His wonders to perform. He slips in the back door and does His thing—this God of surprises—and it isn’t until we have tasted the wine that we know something unusual has taken place. Then, like the master at the wedding feast we ask the bridegroom, what has been the source of this new wine?

The ones in authority, the master and the bridegroom, are ignorant. They do not know “where it came from.” All through the Gospel there are those who are in darkness, they “do not know”—Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the Jews, Pilate. It is the lowly ones, the servants who drew the water, who are like the disciples; they know. Others may be too caught up in their own importance, or their busyness, or even their guilt to understand.

So the wine is poured out, and all those present rejoice at its rich abundance. They have never tasted wine like this before! And the bridegroom wonders why the good wine has been kept back until now. Usually the best wine comes first with the inferior coming at the end when the guests “have well drunk” and they cannot tell the difference.

With us humans the best usually comes first. We dress up, put on our best manners, and hope others will not find out how empty and needy we really are. We clean up the front room of the house and hope we can keep the guests from getting into the back bedroom or the basement where we have hurriedly shoved all our messes when we learned the guests were coming.

This is not so with our Lord. With Him the best comes at the end!

The grace we tasted cautiously at the beginning we now drink freely knowing the rich wonder of forgiveness and life in the Spirit; the Jesus we came to know as Savior at the start we now worship as the triumphant, risen Lord of all creation; the Spirit has moved us from the halting phrases of a prayer of requests to the joy of constant communion, an intimate relationship that never ceases where we can say “Abba, Father”; and death at the end will open the door for us to our greatest adventure, unfettered life with the God of glory and all His saints and angels. Surely this will be wine at its best.

However, there is a deeper meaning here. The old wine of the law, without taste or strength, has given out. “But you have kept the good wine until now.” In God’s time, the new creation has come. The age of grace has broken in. There is One among us who now pours out the rich wine of the “end times” and there is enough for everyone!

The Glory Manifested: Believing Disciples (v. 11). This is the first sign. Here we see the authority of Jesus over the physical universe. But the happening points beyond itself. A door to spiritual reality has been opened. Our understanding of who this is that commands the servants to draw some water out is deepened and enlarged. He authenticates Himself by what He does. He is the “Word made flesh,” the “Christ who is the Son of God,” not simply the teacher of a few disciples who show up at a wedding.

Through this act, Jesus has opened the door to life in His age of Grace. Eternal life, a new quality of existence, is now possible through the One who has come to the wedding. Those present may only see dimly, but the reality is unmistakable! The reign of God has begun! That which is finally to be, the Eschaton, the fullness of the age of the Spirit, has been ushered in at Cana. In the pouring out of this new wine, the glory of Jesus is made known. “They are,” says a sensitive Roman Catholic writer, referring to the miracles, “epiphanies of the risen Lord, signs anticipating the ultimate truth about Jesus which will only be fully revealed when His hour has been achieved.”¹ And the faith of those who have begun to follow is deepened. They are “buying in” more deeply all the time. The underlying reason for all of Jesus’ mighty works is clearly stated in verse 11, “and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.”

Interlude (v. 12). Jesus does not minimize or despise His human family ties, even though He has moved out from His mother’s authority. He affirms His earthly family by joining them for a “gathering” and in so doing underlines the importance of every family.

2:13-25

Cleansing the Temple: The Old and the New

Jesus now moves into the center of Israel’s greatest festival. The Passover was anything but a quiet family wedding in a small town. It was a national gathering of God’s people in the sacred city to celebrate their deliverance from Egypt and their birth as a nation. No wonder it was a huge, noisy affair. Yet at the heart of it was the sacrifice, the spilling of blood and the offering of life, as God had commanded through Moses long before. Every adult male within a fifteen-mile radius of Jerusalem was required by law to come, and thousands of Jews scattered through the Roman empire made the sacred pilgrimage at great personal cost.

In the middle of this holy festival was a rigged business operation that was enmeshed in the whole ecclesiastical apparatus and controlled by the high priest. Every Jew over nineteen years of age had to pay his yearly temple tax of a half-shekel, the equivalent of two days’ wages. The Gentile coins from Rome, Greece, Egypt, and even Palestine were too unclean for this “sacred” tax, so they had to be exchanged for a half-shekel. The hidden cost of this exchange equaled another day’s wages. Then there was also the cost of purchasing a sheep, ox, or dove for the sacrifice, which must be without blemish. These came from the temple herds or flocks and were outrageously overpriced. Little wonder the temple coffers were full and overflowing. Barclay has pointed out that when Crassus captured Jerusalem and raided the temple treasury in 54 B.C. he made off with almost ten million dollars without anywhere near exhausting the treasury.²

This loud, raucous, competitive marketing had been brought into the outer court of the temple, the place of Gentile worship—another example of religious exclusiveness. How could anyone worship in this carnival-like setting?

Yet the temple was considered sacred, the heir of the tabernacle. “It was the house of God, an earthly counterpart of the heavenly sanctuary” (Ex. 25:40).³ Here the ark of the covenant, containing the tablets of the law, was housed. The temple was the place where God dwelt in the midst of His people. It was so sacred that its physical presence consecrated the city. Yet, as Westcott has pointed out, this “house” had become a market place, “no longer deriving its character from Him to whom it was dedicated, but from the business carried on in its courts.”⁴

The New: A Whip (vv. 15–17). Jesus did not come on this scene as an outsider. These were “His own” to use John’s earlier phrase. The whole glorious meaning of the Passover was deeply imbedded in His life. He had also been spiritually nurtured by the prophets. He understood the passion and fire of Jeremiah and Isaiah, of Malachi and Zechariah, and understood their cry for righteousness as they waited for the day of the Lord.

Jesus had come to this place to worship, and what He found was “moneychangers doing business,” this incredibly selfish, cynical moneymaking at the expense of the poor. One senses the shame and anger and sorrow welling up in Him as He strikes out at the whole wretched business—all of it—animals, tables, money, and men! “Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” One can feel the intimate, eternal passion between the Son and the Father.

The whip is a sign of both authority and force. Entrenched unrighteousness is not dealt with passively. The whole house must be cleansed if true worship is to be restored. The words in the passage are strong: He “drove them all out,” and “poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables.” Here is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi 3:2–3:

“But who can endure the day of His coming?

And who can stand when He appears?

For He is like a refiner’s fire

And like fuller’s soap.

He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver;

He will purify the sons of Levi,

And purge them as gold and silver,

That they may offer to the Lord

An offering in righteousness.”

But this act of cleansing, which occurs at the center of the place so laden with sacred meaning, is far more than the reform of a decadent system of worship. Jesus is bringing to an end a way of life and thought. Israel’s institutions are to be replaced. The normal business of sacrifice will be unnecessary now that He has come. Jesus is breaking open and deepening the whole reality of worship. He is the new “place,” the “house” in which the glory of God will break forth. With Jesus’ coming there is no earthly building where God lives that we can hang on to. Only Jesus! The new day has come.

When the disciples saw this dramatic event, they remembered Psalm 69:9 which speaks of righteous suffering, also quoted in Acts 1:30 and Romans 15:3: “Zeal for Your house has eaten me up.” Jesus’ holy jealousy for the sanctity of His Father’s house, His costly singleness of mind, brought Him finally to His death; and in that final redemptive act, He opened for us the way to the Father’s heart.

Destroy and I Will Raise It Up (vv. 18–22). The Jews now demand a sign. The cleansing has really been a messianic act! But there have been many false prophets, imposters claiming to be the Messiah. How is this One different? Can He give them some sign that will further authenticate the fact that He may be the Messiah? It is somewhat surprising that the Jews do not attack Jesus or drive Him out in the face of His bold, decisive act. Many of them may have felt there was a great need for a cleansing of the sacred precincts.

Jesus responds with an answer that is hidden. He clothes the ultimate sign, His own death and Resurrection, in the imagery of the temple. In the phrase, “Destroy this temple,” the word for “destroy” in the Greek means “loose” or “untie” or “dissolve that which holds things together.” The Greek word here for temple is naos, meaning “shrine” or “dwelling place of deity,” referring to Jesus’ own body, which is the home of God in a very unique way. The Greek word Hieron, used earlier for temple, means “the sacred enclosure of buildings used for worship.” “And in three days I will raise it up.” None of us can plumb the mystery of what took place when the power of God called forth Jesus from the dead, any more than we understand His changing water into wine. “I will raise it up,” says Jesus. How does the Spirit of the Living Father touch the Son so that His response is resurrected life? We bow before the mystery of His sovereign grace.

In this act of destruction and raising we have a converging of meanings. His death is the one sacrifice that will expiate sin so that the physical temple will no longer be necessary for the offering of sacrifice. He is the One who will open the way so we can enter the presence of God knowing the constant grace of forgiveness. The resurrected, glorified Christ then becomes the new temple in whom God can dwell among His people. All of life can now become an act of worship, a living sacrifice.

These nonbelieving, questioning antagonists are baffled by this answer. So they can only mock Jesus. How can He, of all people, rebuild a temple which has been under construction forty-six years, begun in 20 B.C. by Herod the Great, who had a lust for putting up great buildings, and completed in A.D. 64? Apparently, it was now at a finished state in one phase of its construction. The Jews are so imprisoned in fleshly existence and understanding they cannot grasp the deeper spiritual reality. It is impossible for them to see beyond a magnificent complex of physical buildings. What a tragedy to assume they are in the light because they know every jot and tittle of the law, when actually they are bound in the darkness of ignorance.

The disciples later remembered and understood “when He had risen from the dead.” Then what had been hidden became clear. The word of Scripture then illuminated the word of Jesus. And the word of Jesus then opened up the Scripture. During His ministry, Jesus had spoken of His resurrection over and over again, both directly and in hidden ways. But His disciples had not understood. Then, when Jesus rose from the dead, they believed both the word of Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken. Really one and the same word! Here is the real authority of Scripture, the Living Christ speaking to us through the words in the book.

Just last Sunday after the morning worship, Larry Rapp, a young attorney and new believer whom I have spoken of earlier, paused for a moment or two at the door. He had been blessed by the teaching that morning and made some very discerning comments to me concerning the Scripture of the day. “How beautiful it is that the Lord is giving you fresh insights into His Word,” was all I could say. Gentle tears welled up as he responded, “Ever since Christ came into my life I have had a growing love for the Word of God, and at times it’s almost overwhelming.” Both of us quietly thanked God. When we meet and surrender to the Lord who is risen from the dead, He opens for us the wonder of the Scripture, and our belief is strengthened.

Belief Because of Signs (vv. 23–25). There is a life-and-death difference between believing in His name “when they saw the signs which He did,” and believing in Him because of who He is. Seeing signs arouses excitement all right, but it also creates a belief that is sometimes superficial. The dramatic cleansing of the temple is no small matter, nor are the signs which followed as Jesus moved about Jerusalem during the seven feast days after the Passover. Here is a wonder-working Messiah who seems to fit their shallow expectations. How prone we all are to put our trust in whatever will get us what we want.

We are surrounded by subtle pressures to settle for “our kind of Messiah.” This religious star system calls for agents and contracts and an amazing variety of advance publicity. This narcissistic gospel promises to solve all my hangups and problems; it’s almost like a cocaine fix. Spectacular religious TV specials make all our local church affairs seem drab by contrast. And the show must get bigger and more dazzling all the time. “Show me a sign,” we continue to cry, “and we will believe.”

Let us confess it. Many of us who belong to the evangelical community and believe we are born again know little of costly discipleship or the calling to be servants. This comes only when we submit to Jesus as Lord on His terms. Often we would rather settle for “cheap grace” than to follow Him and die as Dietrich Bonhoeffer did in his life.

It is only when we accept Jesus on His terms that He will commit Himself to us. “But Jesus did not commit Himself to them.” He knows, without anyone telling Him, what is in all of us. That kind of knowing is spoken of by the prophet in Jeremiah 17:9–10:

“The heart is deceitful above all things,

And desperately wicked;

Who can know it?

I, the Lord, search the heart,

I test the mind,

Even to give every man according to his ways,

And according to the fruit of his doings.”