IrContent

I think I figured something out the other day at Bible Study. I think that in many churches no matter how long you’ve been there you’re only allowed to learn three, maybe four things. Let me explain.

I was sitting in on a local church’s adult Bible study a few Sunday mornings ago and they were going through the Gospel of John (my favorite). They were on chapter 2 looking at the wedding at Cana (vss. 1-10). The teacher structured the class around the characters in the story and what we thought they were thinking. So for 40 minutes we went around the room discussing questions like “What do you think Mary was thinking when she said this?” or “What would you have thought if Jesus asked you to do this?” and so forth.The grand finale was when the lesson concluded with: “If we do what Jesus tells us to do, we will get a blessing.” Everyone smiled and nodded and off we went to church. I am pleased to announce that my tongue was not injured after 40 minutes of biting. Following this logic I wanted to ask, Are we to obey Mary too? Why not make this a story about how we need to listen to Mary so that when Jesus acts we receive a blessing?

We might have looked at the odd time phrase at the beginning of the chapter: “And the third day . . . ” Look at verses 1:29, 35, and 43. According to these verses it seems like it should have been the fourth day. But John wants us to know that it was the third day following these events - it was the sixth. Why, do you suppose, after listing all the other days one after another that he would point this out? Well, it may be that after presenting Jesus as God and pointing to the fact of creation (1:3) that this is a creation analogy. What happened on the 6th day of creation? A WEDDING! How cool! But . . . that’s not one of the four things. Or why, do you suppose Jesus answered Mary by saying, “Woman, what have I to do with you?” We know Jesus was not being rude, this is a Hebrew idiom more like “ma’am.” Nor, does it seem, was He not willing to do something about the wine since He immediately did it. But He let the WOMAN know that He would do nothing before its time. What else happened in creation history like this? “The WOMAN who You gave me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.” (Gen. 3:12). So the LAST ADAM did not heed the WOMAN.How cool! But . . . that’s not one of the four things.

What about the water being turned into wine? Was this just a handy parlor trick? Obviously Jesus did not need water to turn it into wine - He could have just created wine ex nihilo in the jars. But Jesus never did parlor tricks - He always had a larger reason. Note that John points out that these jars were used for Jewish cleansing ceremonies. It may be the case that the water they put in them was indeed the very water used to clean all the wedding guests - yuck! But more important, I think, is this - Jesus took a symbol of the Old Testament cleansing ceremony and turned it into the symbol of the New Covenant cleansing - wine! Not only that, but God made the water and the fruit on the third day (see above)! Not only that, but this is reminiscent of God turning the water to blood to set Israel free from Egypt! How cool! But . . . that’s not one of the four things.

There is so much here to ponder, and to reduce this amazing story down to a child’s Sunday School lesson (for adults) is to rob the church of the depths of God’s word. Yes, “Jesus cares about the little things,” and, “If we do what Jesus tells us to do, we will get a blessing [someday - and not necessarily in this life].” But don’t we know those things from passages specifically written to teach us those things? Are we to suppose that God set this whole wedding and miracle up, and that John recorded it in the way that he did, just to tell us that obedience brings blessings? (It often does not, by the way, at least not in this life).

The problem, I think, is that of Hebrews 5:12 - the church today lives on milk when it should have moved on to meat. It’s as if the church thinks that God needed a thousand pages to get a handful of messages across and anything beyond the “4 Spiritual Laws” is just too much information. So we boil every passage, no matter how rich, down to Sunday School platitiudes like “Jesus loves you,” “Be good,” “Share the Gospel,” etc., and in the process miss the treasures buried in the very words of God.

It is true the the main things are the plain things, but like the earth itself, God did not leave every gem on the surface. The world and the Bible would be a lot less interesting if He had. And it is those rare jewels, the ones we have to struggle to find, that we treasure all the more.