The Gospel of JohnНамуна

Sometimes something happens that evokes another world or signifies far more than the simplicity of what happened. It's similar to how Kent State in my generation or 9/11 for a more recent generation were iconic moments in American history. A story unfolds—resistance to war, an attack of the USA—into an event that portrays and portends and prophesies all at once (and more). John captures stories and events that way with the term “sign.”

There’s a wedding in Cana, a city not far from Nazareth, but at least one resident thinks Nazareth is for yokels (1:46). For him Cana was a long way from Nazareth. Mary, the mother of Jesus, seems to be in charge of the wedding. Jesus and his disciples are present. And they run out of a wedding’s major fluid: wine. Mary approaches Jesus to do something about it, Jesus rebuffs her attempt by saying “my hour has not yet come,” and that “hour” is the glorification-by crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension (12:23, 27; 13:1; 17:1). Mary turns to the servants and orders them to do whatever Jesus says. Seemingly, Jesus either shifts his mind or perceives Mary’s surrender to him as sufficient for him to do exactly what she asked in exactly a surprising manner. He speaks something into reality and turns the water in some large purification stone vessels into an abundance of wine. I once calculated it to be an equivalent of 907 bottles of wine.

The “master of the banquet” tastes it and realizes this wine is superior to the wedding’s table wine (2:9–10). It is worth pondering whether the water in the purification vessels has not been fulfilled and swallowed up in the wine Jesus creates. Wine is better than that water.

And the story ends.

Except for those lingering in order to understand what just happened. The most important term in this passage is not found until verse eleven, and the word is “signs.” The water into wine miracle is the “first [or “beginning”] of his signs.” In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus does miracles but John deepens those miracles by labeling them “signs.” Most think there are seven signs in John’s Gospel, with the explicit mention of “sign” in brackets and two others often mentioned as signs in numbers 8 and 9.

1. Water into wine: [2:11]
2. Healing the official’s son: [4:54]
3. Feeding thousands: 6:14 [6:2]
4. Raising Lazarus: [12:18]
5. Lame man healed: 5:1–15 [6:2]
6. Healing blind man: 9:1–41 [9:16]
7. The resurrection of Jesus: 20:6–7; [2:18–19]
8. Perhaps also walking on the water: 6:16–22
9. Perhaps the miraculous fish catch: 21:4–11

To make it a little more complex, John tells us Jesus did many signs, which is his favorite term for a miracle. To concentrate the signs on the first four is wise, to add a few more seems reasonable, but then to realize all of Jesus’ miracles are potential signs may be the best of all.

We want to clear the air with this definition:

A sign is a public deed performed by Jesus that reveals who he is but requires faith in order to perceive its truthfulness.

As such, then, a sign is an act that, upon pondering and imagining, continues to reveal the true identity of Jesus, but only for those with faith. As God became the embodied Logos in Jesus (1:14), so God can reveal the depths of God-ness in wine. Signs are then iconic moments. The act of turning water into more than an abundance of wine in an iconic way reveals the identity of Jesus and his abounding sufficiency, but only to those with eyes to see. Think of how the world’s finest of novels and stories have been told: they tell us a story about someone or something, and we see in that telling something more than that someone or something. Good stories, whether they are Tolkien’s fictions or those of Willa Cather, tap on a door that opens into deep realities. They, too, function as signs of something real-er than the story’s plain telling.

The wine reveals Jesus to be the source of uber-abundant joy. Drinking is a bodily experience of slaking thirst, and drinking wine evokes sweetness and celebration. All of this, and more, forms in the minds of those who ponder the sign itself. They are the ones who “believe” like the disciples, so fulfilling the purpose of the Gospel (20:30–31). As the children of Israel saw God’s glory (Exodus 13:21–22; 16:10–11; 24:15–17), so Jesus’ disciples are the ones who see the “glory” of Jesus (John 2:11). The sign then is a tactile, palpable experience of the presence of God. It asks you and me to answer the question of questions: Who is Jesus?

Respond

• Why do you think John chooses a wedding to open the public ministry of Jesus?
• How do you think John’s use of “sign” is different from the other Gospel writers’ use of “miracle”?
• In what ways do you need Jesus to bring uber-abundant joy into your life? How does this wedding sign encourage you that Jesus can do this for you?