John is a story teller… He likes to be dramatic!
He includes little details like the time something took place (”it was about four in the afternoon”) but then leaves out big things that he assumes is common knowledge.
Take the first miracle Jesus performed. We know the basics of the story:
There was a wedding
They ran out of wine
Mary, Jesus’ mother asked him to intervene
Jesus turns water into wine.
The end.
“When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
(John 2:3 NIV)
But hang on… I have questions!
Who was getting married, and why was Jesus AND His disciples invited? Why did they run out of wine, and…what on earth was Jesus up to at home as a young lad so that Mary was convinced that Jesus could solve this wine issue?
I mean… if I have to, let’s say, move a Piano…
I call a friend that drives a bakkie, a pick-up truck… not the one that cycles to work… otherwise we will simply be two people staring at the same problem, still looking for a solution.
So I have a sneaky suspicion that Mary was familiar with the works of Jesus, before they were commonly known. Interestingly, the size of the problem also didn’t seem like an obstacle to her. But she displays something else that echoes later in the gospels when the friends brought their lame friend to Jesus and lowered him through the roof:
Get to Jesus… the answer starts there.
But back to the story.
“His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.”
(John 2:5–7 NIV)
Now it’s easy to miss this in the story, but this was an instantaneous miracle that took a long time to perform.
We don’t know the actual size of those water containers, but they typically ranged between 20-30 gallons. (Or 75-120liters each… depending on which commentary you read)
The servants had to go to a water source, probably a well or a cistern, and pull up a chunk of water, fill up a container, and carry it over to the large stone jars and fill those up in turn. This wasn’t quick or simple.
(I can imagine the servants discussing this afterwards and asking why Jesus’s first miracle couldn’t be filling up the jars, and the second miracle turning it into wine!?)
Just like the friends made a plan with their lame friend… they carried him, got stuck, made a new plan, got rope, broke a guy’s house, and lowered him to the feet of Jesus (Isn’t that a beautiful picture of prayer warriors and modern intercession?)
If we think about the ministry of Paul… he taught here, debated there, did miracles over this way… but we rarely think that in between were days of walking or weeks of recovering
“Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.”( 2 Corinthians 11:24 NIV)
The last thing that comes to mind is that Jesus was asked to solve the problem… abundantly and completely….
(For reference, A standard bathtub is about 150-200liters of water, so three or four of those… or 600-800 bottles of wine or 8 to 10 pallets of wine)
So why do we ask Jesus for “…a bit of help with…”? Why do we expect just a small part of the solution, and somehow we must pull the rest together?
Have you thought about that?
How can we build our Faith to not only live fully for God, but ask fully from God. For our lives, our families, our businesses, and especially the people we are placed in authority over?
How do we Abide in Christ so deeply that Jesus’s instruction to “Heal the Sick” is just a simple as “pass me the salt”! Can I commit to ask Jesus: “Give me my spouse back” with the same Faith as Mary walked up to Jesus and asked to save the family from shame?
One last question remains unanswered in John.
The water containers were meant for the ceremonial cleansing … what did they use to clean with, seeing that the water was now gone?
