What Has This Concern Of Yours To Do With Me? Series

May 14 What Has This Concern of Yours to do with Me? John 2:1-12

Jesus is here to care about our smallest concerns.

Jesus always keeps the priority of eternal over temporary.

Jesus does what He does, when He does it and how He does it, so that the Father will be glorified and so that we are compelled to trust Him.

Parents, make sure that:

1. Keep looking to Jesus to relieve your stress

2. In all things, help your children to see the prominence of Jesus in all things

3. Prepare them for a life spent on mission with Jesus

Story

Turn with me to John 2:1-12

We all know the Christmas story: Jesus born in a stable in Bethlehem. Angels and wise men and shepherds came to see Him. We call it the incarnation: God became one of us; God in the flesh; the incarnate God: Jesus.

Except for a brief mention of Jesus in the temple at the age of 12, He spent 30 years in relative obscurity. Apparently He was biding His time, learning carpentry from His earthly father, Joseph, and most importantly, preparing Himself spiritually for the colossal test that would be coming when He began His earthly ministry.

When the time came for Him to begin His ministry, things began to happen quickly. On day 1 of His public ministry, Jesus is down in area where John the Baptist had been preaching and prophesying that coming of the Messiah was imminent. John sees Jesus and declares: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29

On day 2 Jesus begins to assemble His team and calls Andrew, Peter, Phillip and Nathaniel to follow Him.

On day 3 Jesus shows up at a wedding with these 4 disciples and gets into it a bit with His mom. In the process Jesus performs the 1st of His miracles, or as John the writer of this gospel—a different John than John the Baptist—John calls the miracles that Jesus performed ‘signs’. As an aside, the gospel of John was also known by the early church as the Book of Signs because John tells his story of Jesus around 7 critical miracles, 7 signs that Jesus performed confirming His Messiahship.

So let’s read the passage: John 2:1-12 (on screen)

**comments

v.1 “on the 3rd day” Day 1 He’s declared the Lamb of God. Day 2 He begins to assemble His team. Day 3 He’s with His mom at a wedding.

v.3 “wine ran out…they don’t have any wine.” Like many good parties and weddings, the host or hostess provided wine to add to the merriment. Apparently His mom was one of the hostesses so she calls on her son, as many moms do, to fix the situation.

v.4 “woman” The Greek word for woman is gunee; it’s not a derogoatory term, nor should we assume that Jesus meant it as such. You might recall it’s the same term that Jesus used when He was on the cross when He was placing His mom in the care of John. He said, “Woman, behold your son”.

“my hour has not come yet” John uses this phrase 5 times in His gospel. We’ll talk more about it in a moment, but suffice to say we have our time-table but God has His own timetable.

v.5 “Do whatever He tells you” Now you can take her response one of 2 ways. It could be she heard His response to her and she kinda ignored it and said to the servants: “Do what He says”; like, I don’t care what you say, you’re going to do it and they’re going to help you. Or—it could be that Mary put the issue before Him and decided to trust Him and leave it there. I suspect that was the case.

v.6 “Now six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification” When we get ready to sit down to eat, we go wash our hands to remove germs, right? Or we’ll squirt some of that hand sanitizer. But the Jews had something deeper in mind. They were not just washing dirt off; it was that they were seeking a spiritual cleansing. By ceremonially washing their hands, they would be saying they were separating themselves from the world and dedicating themselves to God.

v.7 “Fill the jars with water” Apparently the purification rite had already been observed and the pots were empty. There was no water hose—didn’t run a green hose to them and say, “Hey Jesus-would turn the water on?” Where did they get the water? We’ll come back to it in a minute.

v.10 “Everyone sets out the fine wine first, then, after people have drunk freely, the inferior. But you have kept the fine wine until now.” You get the picture right? If you had to provide wine for a huge crowd, you’d bring out the good stuff early, the Napa Valley 2008, but after awhile, after folks have sucked down a few glasses, you’d be tempted to bring out the Boones Farm cause they’d probably not notice the difference at that point.