The Gospel of John 2:1-12
John 2:1-12 · Vern Peterman · Feb 10, 2013
Gospel of John (2013), No. 06
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926343262010

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We have John chapter 2 verses 1 through 12. This is the account of the wedding at Cana, turning the water into wine. And I think as we go through this you might find that there, even though a lot of people are familiar with the account, might be a few things we point out that could be a surprise to you. You're not hearing it? Okay. Hopefully I'll catch up with that. The account here is from the Gospel of John, chapter 2, verses 1 through 12. And this takes us to Cana of Galilee.

The exact location is not nailed down certain, although most people see it as located as you see on the map, on the handout. There are some, let's see, there's another map here. This kind of points out prominent definition to Cayman. One of the reasons why there's some debate is it was at best a village. So it's like there's not a lot of remains to work with. But nonetheless, that's where the account takes place. Most scholars believe it's where it's shown on the map here. It's about 8.5 miles north of Nazareth and about 16 miles, what's called west-southwest, that is not directly southwest but inclined towards the west. So west-southwest of Capernaum.

So what we find here, it's going to be helpful to point out as we go into this, The cultural background of the times are going to dictate certain things about what's expected at a wedding ceremony, and even some things that have legal import, as we'll soon see.

The hosts were to provide wine for the guests sufficient to last for all seven days. It was possible with a poorer family to get by with fewer days, but if you said we were going to have a seven-day feast, you were both socially and actually legally required. to provide wine and food for the entire time.

And as we'll soon see here, if you did not, if you fell short, two things would happen. One is it would be a failure that would be held over your head the rest of your life. You would not be forgiven it. That's part one. Part two is there is actually a financial penalty The guests who were shorted wine and or food could take back up to half the value of the gifts given. Half the value of what? The gifts given. Right? So anyway, that as a backdrop, so this is a serious event both in terms of social acceptance as well as having financial impact. Okay, so John 2, 1 through 5 there goes like this.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come. And his mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it.

Okay, let's step our way through it. One thing is on the third day. What's that mean on the third day? Hmm. I have a note here from Thomas Constable and I think he's got what's likely a good assessment of that because what we've been seeing in the first chapter is, you know, the first day, the second day and things of that sort. So he writes like this, fulfilling, excuse me, Fulfilling John's pattern of writing in sevens, John's specific reference to days in chapter 1 and here is unusual for him. John doesn't usually do that.

But on the first day, John the Baptist gave his veiled witness to Jesus. The second day, he gave his open witness to Jesus. The third day, John's two disciples followed Jesus. And the fourth day, Philip and Nathanael met Jesus. On the third day after that, is the way Thomas Constable counts it, the seventh day, Jesus did his miracle at Cana.

If Constable is right, and I think he's got a good case here, then it would fit John's pattern of writing with sevenths. John wrote with sevens, seven miracles, seven I am statements in the Gospel of John, sevens throughout the book of Revelation. So if that's the case, and I think he's on to something here, that would fit with his pattern of sevens. Now, about 16 miles southwest of Capernaum is the likely location of the city of Cana.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was at the wedding, and Jesus and his disciples had been invited as well. Mary may have had some assignment of responsibility for the wedding as a friend of the family or possibly even a relative. She seems to continue to have some connection there more than just, I'm attending too. Mary seems to have been aware of the shortage of wine very soon after it was apparent, even before others there knew about it. This major embarrassment of running out of wine had come about in a place and in a time when one could not simply run down to the store and get more. So this is the problem. There is no Kena 7-Eleven or something where you just grab something.

This shortage of wine in that culture would have been an embarrassment and shame that would be held over the family for the rest of their lives. That was the character of the Jewish culture of the time. According to the laws of that time and place, the bridegroom and bride could lose up to half the value of the gifts given to them for having the shortage of wine. So it was an embarrassment, a family shame, and a financial loss.

All those things. If you were married and cared about the family that was hosting the wedding, either because you're a friend of the family or a relative, and held a responsibility of some kind, which it seems that she does, And if you knew Jesus' compassionate character, wouldn't you be inclined to tell Jesus about the wine shortfall? If you were Mary, given all those, I mean, wouldn't you at least say, oh boy, what are we going to do? So to have her come up and present, hey, they've run out of wine, would be, I realize our options aren't great here, but I just thought I'd let you know.

For Jesus to address his mother as woman is not impersonal or inappropriate. As a matter of fact, what we see here in John 19, quoted below there, the next time he calls her woman is when he's on the cross assigning responsibility to John to take care of her. And so you see John 19, 25-27, but standing by the cross of Jesus where his mother and his mother's sister Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. And of course the mother is Mary too, right?

But he never calls in the entire Gospel of John, he never calls her Mary. Never does. Why? I think one of the reasons is one in every five women in Israel at the time was named Mary. There's just lots of Marys. So if he says specifically that Jesus' mother makes it a whole lot clearer than saying Mary, or the other Mary, or the other other Mary.

So, she seems to have some place of responsibility. She knows about the shortage of wine first. She additionally talks to the servants at the end, verse 5 there, and says whatever he says to do, you do it. So there seems to be an assumption that she has the right to say that and the right to bring out this information.

So then, what's interesting is Jesus responds with, my time has not yet come. Now what we have here, starting with John 2.4, is a series of quotes from the Gospel of John that deal with this time or hour not having come yet.

In John 2.4, Jesus said to her, Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.

And then John 7.6, so Jesus said to them, My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune. 7.8, Go up to the feast yourselves. I do not go up to this feast because my time has not yet fully come. And he goes on with 7.30, 8.20, with a similar kind of statement. Let's take a look at the top of page 3 here. So why state that Jesus' hour of time had not yet come, or similar kinds of verbiage, several times, again and again?

We find our answer here at John 12, 23. Jesus answered them, saying, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. And even more specific, John 13, 1, now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that his hour had come, that he would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And then even in Christ's prayer to the Father in John 17, Jesus spoke these things in lifting up his eyes to heaven. He said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. What does the hour coming mean based on these verses that you see here?

What does it mean? He dies on the cross. I think you're correct. Is that all that it means? And his death and resurrection his ascension, and when he ascends, he's just going to kind of show up in heaven, and everybody's going to cheer and say, hey, he's here. Is that the end of it? Or what else is going to happen?

When he gets to heaven? Seated. So what you find is, all this here about my hour has not yet come, and then when the hour comes, those are all the things that you've been identified with Christ in. His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating.

It's interesting. in the eternity past. He wanted this hour. Yeah, this was an hour planned from the very beginning. What's fascinating is it is an hour about which God's knowledge of you and your future is included. Because after all, you were identified with Christ and He has to know who's going to believe and who isn't, right? In advance. So this hour has not yet come, and when it finally comes, He's thinking of you in it.

As a matter of fact, in John 17, He prays for us. So this is an amazing kind of statement. Jesus, here at His very first miracle, and that's something we'll see in verse 11, His very first miracle, the issue of, okay, I'm here and we're having a wedding and they've run out of wine and all that, but I'm still focusing on this time when my hour will come. Yeah? Yeah, let's talk about that.

The glorification is ultimately when he is seated, right? But it actually begins at the cross. Because if he had just said, well, you know, I'm just going to skip this stuff. I'm just going to go back to heaven. He would not have done the things that he was sent to do.

So Jesus, even though He's here at this wedding, everybody's thinking about, isn't this a wonderful time, and the food's great, and it's great having free food for days on end, and having wine supplied and all that. And we're all having a wonderful time, and Jesus is certainly there with them, and He's been invited, and He and His disciples have come. But you can tell from this, He still has His mind on that time when His hour comes, beginning with His crucifixion, but ending with is being seated in the heavenlies.

Why did He say it here at the wedding? Yeah, let's ask that question. Why would He say it here at the wedding? Why didn't He just kind of wait? Let's ask that question. This verse 11 says it's His first miracle. So did she assume that He would perform a miracle? Not necessarily, right? She didn't have a pattern of evidence that she hadn't seen anything. She didn't necessarily know that he would just do something and fix the situation. Yeah, she was not ignorant.

What's interesting is you read the gospel accounts before Jesus was born. She was told of the gospel of the kingdom regarding him. Joseph was the one told about the gospel of substitution. That he would save his people from sin. It's interesting who was told what. But I'm sure between the two of them it was put together. This has got both gospels are going to be answered in this son of ours. Yes.

She seemed to ignore his response though and just told them do what he said. He hadn't said anything. He just assumed that. Yeah, and he hadn't said what he was going to do. I guess her statement was, well, I'm not sure what he's going to do, but whatever he does, you guys get ready to do something.

Whatever this is going to be. And so there is a sense, pardon? Yeah, it's nothing, but if he tells you to do something, do it. But you still come back to Roy's question, why say at the wedding, if his hour has not yet come? leave with only me on September 1st. So, he's thinking in a spiritual sense, of course.

In other words, when you see and believe what I'm doing, as you said, the death, the burial, the resurrection, Your thirst is going to be satisfied by believing. Let's ask this question. Let's say that Christ had come, but he wasn't going to die on the cross, and he wasn't going to ascend, and he just wasn't going to do that.

Would this event here at Cana have had as much significance, or any significance? If Christ wasn't going to die on the cross, if Christ wasn't going to be buried and resurrected, ascended, and seated in the heavenlies, but He was just going to do some miracles here and there, and say some things, and say hi to His cousin John, and then just go to heaven. And say, I'm out of here, that's enough of this. Would the wedding at Cana mean much? No. It wouldn't matter. If He did a miracle there even, it would be just okay.

But a part of what Jesus is doing, and we see him doing it repeatedly, especially as recorded in the Gospel of John, is everything he does looks ahead to that hour. Everything he does. And even what he's about to do here at this wedding looks ahead to that hour that's to come.

Do you think maybe Jesus, since in his mind at that point in time. So do you think maybe at this point in time he was thinking that his time had not yet come, his ministry had not begun, so if he could forestall it just a little bit longer. It just seems like, and the fact that his brothers didn't have any idea or didn't seem to believe in him. So that makes you think that the childhood really wasn't anything different than a normal childhood. So is he trying to stay in that mode and not be singled out and say, you're going to have to go through all these trials? Yeah.

Well, if we look at that list of my time has not yet come passages there in John, one of the things that we'll note about some of those is that Jesus is looking ahead to my time has not yet come, meaning he is avoiding getting away from circumstances that might be the end of his life. It's because the time to do that is not yet. Here, we're going to find he's going to do something in this wedding at Cana that is going to be the beginning of offenses against the Jewish leaders. It's often not pointed out, but we'll be taking a look at it here.

Okay. Do you think it's also symbolic of this poured out line? You know, you could look at that. I don't know from the context if it's real clearly that, but certainly it's compatible with that. Let's look at the middle paragraph there. Jesus' mother tells the servants to do whatever he says. This seems to imply that Mary has some responsibility for the feast, or at least the servants know that she is someone whose word ought to be followed at this event and or in this household. Her words also seem to assume that Jesus would or could say something to the servants. But since this seems to be Jesus' first miracle, it's not likely that Mary is just expecting Jesus to do another miracle.

So it isn't necessarily the expectation of, you know, he's done miracles before and I sure hope he pulls one off here because otherwise we're in a world of hurt, right? The whole household is going to be in trouble. So we observe that there are servants, plural, plural servants. Now we don't know what that means. Are there two? Are there six? We don't know.

It would imply, since most households had no servants, It would imply that these people here in Canaan are either fairly well off or really well off, somewhere on the upper end of the economic scale. They're enough servants that they could carry out the rather substantial task Jesus is about to give them.

You go to the little village well with the smaller pot and then you go, you know, get the water and then dump that into this larger pot. So, here's what happened, John 2, 6 and 7. Now there were six stone water pots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing 20 or 30 gallons each. Jesus said to them, fill the water pots with water, so they filled them up to the brim. Now, so the Jews had traditions of purification, and were those traditions of purification a part of the Law of Moses, or were they added? They were added. And that's something we look at here, at the top of the next page there, from Mark 7, 1 through 5, and Matthew 15, 15 through 20. These are instances where it reveals that the traditions of washing, it's washing of hands and the washing of the cups and plates.

Believe me, it's a good idea from a hygiene standpoint, but they looked at it as not a hygienic thing, but a ritual thing that somehow God was pleased if you did it and displeased if you didn't. So it was in addition to the Jewish law. So to fill those things up to the brim with water was to initially allow people to use that water to do the ritual cleansing.

Once it gets turned into wine, you don't have any water to gouache and do the ritual cleansing. So what's going to happen is these containers that are full of water are going to get turned to wine and no longer be qualified for the ritual cleansing. You just set aside the ability of all these Jews at the wedding to carry out the ritual cleansing. They can't do it. Jesus just set it aside.

Now, let's ask this. Having the wine there, and having everybody served wine, and doing the ritual cleansing, was either of them more important than the other? Was either of them a part of the Law of Moses? No. In fact, it's a matter of this tradition versus that one. We have this tradition and instead we're going to set aside this. So what Jesus did in turning the water to wine, he set aside one tradition, the purification tradition, that he repeatedly got in conflict with the Jewish leaders on in order to satisfy this other tradition. Yes. So if you would have wanted to be politically correct, he could have changed a couple of barrels and leave some to keep the Jews satisfied that they could go ahead and do their ritual cleansing. But he did it all.

Between the water and the stone pot, you got something probably upwards of 200 pounds each. That's a lot of people. Well, you also got something that the servants are not going to be carrying that back and forth from the well either. Once you get that thing full, it's sitting there. So that would be quite a deal. Looking at that, as I have looked through different commentaries, this is a point that I can't find very many pointing out.

And that is, as soon as Jesus had the water turned to wine, this was no longer something that was going to satisfy the ritual of purification. It was going to set that aside, but it wasn't a part of the Law of Moses anyway, as Jesus went back and forth with the Jewish leaders on. after the beginning of the feast? Oh, yes. Wouldn't they have purified themselves early on in the feast?

Except, what they would do is, because this thing was multiple days, they would have to do it again and again and again, and the various objects that were used, so it's plates and cups and all that kind of washing, plus washing of the hands and all that, and okay, now the next day we've got to go do it again, and so as long as you still need wine, you still need the purification. process, at least according to their traditions. So it isn't just one purification, it's repeated. You'd have to do it again and again. So between the water and the pots, you're talking upwards of 200 pounds weight per water pot here.

John 2, 8-10, reads like this, and he said to them, draw some out now and take it to the head waiter. So they took it to him. When the head waiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, The head waiter called the bridegroom and said to him, Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now."

Now, this Greek word for head waiter here from the New American Standard, as footnote is meaning steward, literally means ruler of the table. And of course, it's not tables like you and I think of that are high with chairs. It's lower tables. But nonetheless, the ruler of the table is literally what this calls for. This man doesn't seem to have been in the loop about the shortage. It's interesting. He's the guy who's in charge of this feast. But interesting, Mary told Jesus, but not this guy.

So this guy is the first clue about, OK, I'm having some wine brought to me for tasting. I got a question for you. When did the water get turned into wine? Did it happen when they poured the water in? Did it happen... Let's see. That'd be an example of the pot. Here's an artist rendering, you know, for whatever it's worth.

Did it happen when they were pouring the water in? Did he wait until they were all filled to the brim, or did he wait until it was ladled out, taken out for the head waiter. Fill it with water. Now, the servants knew that they were offering this guy wine. So we're not given details of it. Okay, it happened here, but we know from one end the servants brought in water and we know that the waiter tasted wine. We don't know exactly how Jesus did it from one part to the next. What was the timing? We're not told. Okay. By the way, the wine served would be actual wine, not just grape juice.

It's possible by rabbinical custom that the wine was diluted four parts of water to one part of wine. So in that case, it would have been dilute. And also this word translated drunk freely. In other places, it actually means drunk. inebriated drunk. It doesn't necessarily mean that everybody there was all plastered, but because drunkenness was looked down upon. The point being though, that everybody had had plenty. Everybody had had plenty. And now we got this parenthetical statement about the servants. So the servants who had drawn the water knew that this water had been turned into wine.

They were in the know, while the man in charge of the feast is surprised. Here's what's interesting. As we go through the Gospel of John, one of the things that's curious about the way the Lord does things, the Lord often reveals great things to those that are considered lowly. And here, it's the lowest in rank in the whole household. that gets to witness this miracle. Isn't that interesting? And they're in the know that, hey, I dumped water in there and we got wine coming out. And I think it's an interesting continuing pattern.

Who was the first to see Jesus resurrected? Mary Magdalene. And as we'll see in that map, Mary Magdalene, she was from Magdala, which is the town on the westernmost part of the Sea of Galilee. But here's a woman that God assigns to be the first one to see Jesus resurrected.

What did the Jews think of a woman's value in testimony in that culture? Yeah, a woman's testimony in a legal case was not permitted to have any weight. So what did God do? The first people to come to the empty grave are women. What did God do? The first one to see Jesus resurrected is a woman. The Lord does amazing things in terms of, all the people at the higher echelon, those aren't the ones that get in the know, it's the ones at the lower end here, and in this case, that's a part of the larger pattern.

So now, on page 5, The beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him. And so let's take a look at that. First of all, this is the beginning of His signs. So this is the first miracle apparently. And so that's why we say Mary wouldn't necessarily expect that Jesus would do a miracle. So that's part of it. Why would this be the beginning of signs? Why hadn't Jesus just been doing miracles all during His childhood?

You know, just all the way along. He didn't come to the earth to do miracles for the sake of miracles. Okay. Let's talk about that. Did He do a lot of miracles? Yeah. He did a lot of things we would consider miracles. But you say He didn't come to just do a bunch of miracles. Right? And they were to verify that He was who He said He was. Okay. Yeah, it appears that He, first of all, waited until He was beginning His ministry because He had just called disciples, right?

So in doing the miracles, they were for a particular purpose, not just to show off or say, see what I can do, but to validate and verify who he said he was. It sort of goes along with what you said, that this is the beginning of his ministry, because he was announced to be by John. Here's John doing the announcing, only a matter of days go by and then he does the miracles. And he does the miracles as a verification, as a validation of what John had pronounced. In this first verse, it says that it manifested his glory.

He hadn't been glorified yet. He hadn't been glorified. How did this manifest his glory and what does that mean? Okay, his glory is his essential essence. Now let me ask this question. Was that his essential essence as a man, because he was in fact fully human, or was that his essential essence as deity? As his deity, yeah?

I think it shows his anointing and you know when you John had to point him out when he was walking along with his disciple and he said, the Lamb of God. You don't see anywhere in scripture where Jesus tries to bring attention to himself that I can recall anywhere.

Yeah, he does in fact, but he doesn't do so from the idea of, I'm going to show off here. Sure, I can do this. So he knew that he could do this. He also, I think, knew that once he did that, then he was going to get the attention again, which is really not something that a humble person would do. He's not looking just for attention and acclaim and fame, right? He actually turned away from those opportunities. Now, let's talk about the manifesting as glory. We say in here that glory is the radiant essence of who God is. Radiant essence of who God is. So that is revealed here at this event.

So, who are the people that knew for sure that the water was turned to wine? The servants was the first one. There may have been two, there may have been six, but whatever the number is, they are the first to know. Who else? Probably Mary is watching this whole thing because it's like, okay, she's the first one to say, hey, we got a problem. And she tells Jesus and, you know, she's paying attention to what's going on. So no doubt she knows what's happening. Who else?

The disciples, because it says disciples believed in Him. What do you think that means? Did they not believe in Him before? What was this saying? Does it mean that they believed He was Messiah? So you're asking the question, does it mean that He was Messiah? And so did they not believe that before? You actually have a proclamation from Nathaniel that you are the Christ.

I think the word believe has to do with maturation and substance and in time it grows deeper. I'm not sure if that's what Paul means from face to face, Yeah, let's think about this. Could he have put believed in the perfect tense? A completed past action with ongoing results in the future? Could he have written it that way? Hypothetically, he could have done that using Greek grammar. He could have said believed as a completed past action with ongoing results into the future. He could have said that.

That's not what this is. So his disciples were believing in him. So what you have here, this believing thing is not a static thing. They didn't believe and now they do 100%. It's something in which they're going to grow. And it will take time, you're right. He keeps telling them, look, I'm going to be killed and I'm going to be resurrected, and they didn't get it. Even after they saw him resurrected, they were going, huh? They were stunned.

Yes? Now what Peter means when he says knowledge, and then he also talks about full knowledge, epaginosko. So in other words, as you grow in your knowledge, you get to knowledge, even though God has given that to us, like you say in the past, we're always catching up to what we've had. Yeah. And think about this too. I mean, if they were disciples, they're already following Him, right? But think of our own instances. As we have more content to believe and believe that, then that's a matter of growing in our faith, right? If we have more content to believe and we believe the content we've been given, then that's a growing in our faith.

Let's take a look at John 2.12 here. After this he went down to Capernaum. He and his mother and his brothers and his disciples and they stayed there a few days.

So it sounds like his brothers were at this wedding as well, but somehow weren't included or involved. Do you think there may have been shades of Joseph in this family? At this point on, when he changed the water to wine, and so all the things that Mary's probably been saying all along, it's kind of like, oh, hmm, maybe this is. And it was something special, and so I wonder if his relationship there really got a little bit strained from then on.

With the brothers and whatnot? Yeah, it's interesting. It doesn't say that the brothers believed in him. As a matter of fact, we're told in chapter 7 that his brothers in chapter 7 don't believe in him. But one of the things I want to take a look at, I have sort of a family tree in the middle of page 5 there.

So what it has there, His family tree shows Joseph and Mary as the parents, when obviously in the case of Jesus, Jesus was born of Mary, who was a virgin. That's stated clearly in both Matthew and Luke. Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, so he was as he was of the other siblings. So Jesus was properly a half-brother to all his siblings.

Now, you can imagine being, okay, I'm a brother of Jesus. What's that going to be like? Why don't you behave like your brother? Right? Here's his brother, he never does anything wrong. We always get spanked, but he never does. And how come he gets special treatment? You know? He happens to be God, but that's somebody they have a tough time catching up to, right? I've always wondered if Joseph and Mary told his half-brothers and sister about it. Let's ask this. As a parent, would you decide to tell them or not? What do you think you would do?

Well, they must have had to know he was quite unique after all. He was 12 years old in the temple. He was a rabbi. And apparently the others, if they were with him at all, and likely they were, the others saw this but didn't stay back to talk at the temple. You have to wonder what Mary really knew. After that incident when he was 12, I don't know anything about his childhood. What occurred in those years? Well, and what it says, he grew in wisdom and stature. That probably didn't quite fit with the rest of the kids, right? They just grew up, you know, but he grew in wisdom and stature. Yeah.

And isn't it interesting when you have your genealogy tree here, John 7, Yeah, well, and let's talk about that because I've got a couple of his sister's names there, but I need to point something out here. Jesus' brothers did not believe in him until after Christ was resurrected. John 7, 5 states they didn't believe. Later on in John were they actually encouraging Jesus to go to Jerusalem so that he would be killed. It's that negative report.

Acts 1.14, then we see all of a sudden the brothers are, after the resurrection, are quite impressed by this event. So that's where they turn spiritually. James and Jude actually, Jacob and Judas, right? were the authors of the New Testament books by those names. That's the books that they're studying there in the other elective here in the red carpet room.

The names James, Joseph, Jude, and Simon are given in Mark 6.3. And of course, I say James, it's actually Jacobus or Jacob. and Joseph and Jude, or Judas, and then Simon. Simon is probably an Anglicization, it would be probably named after the tribe, you know, Simeon, but nonetheless that's how it comes across.

As is the fact that Jesus had sisters, but it only says sisters, so we don't know explicitly from scripture how many there were, other than just the plural, sisters. What we have there, Salome and Mary, are the names of the two sisters, given not from scripture, but from records outside of scripture, written a little bit later. So they don't have the same reliability as scripture would. And so that's why we make note of that, though we put it on the chart that way. The possibility is that there were others. The possibility is that it's different than what we show here with two sisters and we know their names. Yep.

The Catholic Church doesn't believe Jesus had any brothers because Mary was a virgin. Yes. What you have is What you have is different teachings in the Catholic and the Orthodox churches. And so they say it wasn't Mary's children. They say it was by a previous marriage or another wife, since Judaism was allowing plurality of wives. So that's the claim that you get, that these are actually Jesus' cousins of some kind, that kind of thing, not actual siblings, born from Mary. So that's the teaching out of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches. I don't think it fits the facts, but nonetheless that's what you get, because they have to stick with the virgin eternally forever virgin. It seems to me that the siblings were probably aware that Joseph was not Jesus' father because certainly the extended family knew that Joseph wasn't and that she got pregnant while they were espoused. So something different is going on here. Probably extended family gossip and neighborhood gossip that goes back. And you can imagine the way things go, even some teasing. Teasing from other kids and families and whatnot. Yeah.

And I think it's also interesting that Scripture doesn't say much about Joseph, but obviously Joseph was around for a while. I mean, you've got quite a few kids here, so there's a period of time that he was there. I know he was a carpenter and he was trying to work for the family. And Jesus worked with Joseph. That's about all we know about him. And then his brother, wasn't it Cleopas?

Well, there is the possibility that the disciples on the road to Emmaus, that's the names you see there, were related. But all I could say is it's a possibility, it's not firmly established enough because it's like the name Mary, a real common name and is this the same one and those kinds of things could be debated. So possibility that the disciples on the road to Emmaus were actually relatives, but all we can do is say it's a possibility. So then we have the last one, of Jesus' brothers, James is the one about which the most is recorded, including, and we have several times more in the Gospel of John.

1 Corinthians 15.7 is likely James, Jesus' brother.

Galatians 1.19.2.12, James 1.1 and Jude 1, because Jude says that he is the brother of James. So we have those mentions there.

Also, James' death is written about in Josephus. Josephus recorded that. His death, I think it was early 60s AD, recorded by Josephus. Is there anything recorded about Josephus? I had the impression that he died young. Yeah, let's talk about Joseph. The last record we have is of that event when Jesus is 12 years old and he's left behind at the temple.

That's the last word that we have. Imagine the circumstance, and I think we can kind of bracket this, not have a definite piece of information. Look at the number of kids. How long would that take? Could they have had seven kids inside of the 12 years that he was around. It's possible. He may have been around a little bit longer, but that's the last record. Jesus is 12 years old.

But also think of it this way. A carpenter in those days was often a mason. And also, since there was no Nazareth lumberyard, if you want to get some trees or something like that turned into some kind of lumber, you got to do logging. And so there were dangers, physical dangers, just in the occupation.

That might, we don't know, that might explain why Joseph seems to fade from the scene. It may also explain why Jesus waited till about age 30 to begin ministry because he had to continue to support the family as the eldest son while the rest of them came up along the lines and were of age. So that may be a reasonable scenario as to what happened, that he died possibly in an accident related to his occupation. Jesus, as the eldest, would then have been responsible for keeping the family going and having been the oldest, trained by his father in carpentry. Isn't that kind of interesting because Mary is kind of saying to Jesus at the wedding, go ahead and do this. him to start his ministry. And he's no longer going to be able to hold that position. Right.

One other thing to bring out, and I talked about James, there's another piece of evidence that's cropped up, and that is the James ossuary. This ossuary, what they would do is they would bury someone in a tomb and they would have their ritual, you know, wrappings and myrrh and aloes and all those kinds of things. And then they'd seal it up so that no wild animals would get in and, you know, tear up the corpse. And then after a year, then you would roll away the stone, go in and get the bones out of the wrappings and put them in a box. That was the tradition in the middle first century and put them in a box and a great many of these are found on the Mount of Olives.

Why would that be a favorite burial site? This is where they would say this is where the Messiah is coming back. This is from Zachariah. This is where the Messiah is coming back. So I want to have a front row seat. When the Messiah comes back and resurrects the body. So that's one of the motivations behind that.

So anyway, they have an ossuary box like this. Put the bones in them. A Caiaphas ossuary box has been found. And it's marked Caiaphas and a lot of decoration which would be typical of having a lot of money. This is what's written on the side of it. And of course it goes from right to left there.

You know, James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. Now, is James a common name in Israel? Yep, lots of Jameses. Is Joseph a common name? Yep. And then there's James, actually, Yaakov. Is that common? Yes. So the names are common. Why are scholars inclined, in many cases, to believe that this is actually the James brother of Jesus?

A couple of reasons. One is you start narrowing it down when you say James, son of Joseph. So the names are common, but son of Joseph combined with James narrows it down some. But the next thing is very rarely did any of the ossuary boxes mention the brother relationship.

That's the one that really differentiates it. Even though Jesus' name would have been fairly common too, because it's Joshua, it's the fact that you mentioned the brother that really makes it stand out. So even though the names by themselves are common, when you put them together, they're all three the right names, and when you have the brother of Jesus, that makes it stand out.

And it was of such an event, Josephus wrote about it, the death of James. That James didn't die a natural death, he was killed, martyred. So at any rate, that's another mention of James that we have here. So this is the family, and aside from Jesus, among the various siblings, James is the one most often written of, recorded, etc. Yeah. John had a brother too named James, right?

Yes. And he was the one that was killed? Acts 12. Right. Yep. So there was, you know, James was... Yes, yeah. James, a real common name. And so that's why it's just the brother of Jesus distinction that sets this apart. Yeah? Is that really James Jacob? Is that really in the language of Jacob? Yeah, it's Yaakov, which we would carry across in English as Jacob. To me it's a little puzzling as to why it's been done, but very commonly it's been brought across as James, which is curious. So we say we're studying the book of James. Well, no, you're really studying the book of Yaakov. But at any rate, so that's the record there.

As we look at this wedding at Cana, I think about it, I was talking with Nancy about this, why did Jesus do this? Why did he do this? Can you think of what were the reasons why Jesus would turn the water into wine? His mother asked him to. He didn't seem to want to be just under orders from her. So he did kind of make a little bit of polite distancing. But his mother did at least say, oh no, we've got this horrible situation. So there was that. Why else?

The Jews would certainly seek for a sign and this would be the first sign. And what's interesting is the people that we know saw this, the servants, The brothers didn't seem to be impressed, if they even knew about it. Mary and the disciples, those seem to be the ones that we know of, were aware of what was somehow taking place. Was it also just in the tradition that the family would be affected if there wasn't wine? Yes. Alright, this is an expression of care for the family whether friends or relatives.

Okay, so it is that. Another reason? I read someone who wrote that it was a picture of conversion. He was converted to water and wine when he came to convert saints to saints. Okay, alright. It would certainly be a picture of that. Okay, yeah? I think it's obviously the beginning of his ministry that God had preordained. Okay. Yeah, this was not a historical accident, right? Yeah, not a historical accident. Anything else? The Master of Quality. The Master of Quality. This is not just average wine, right? This is the best. Anything else?

How about to deliberately set aside the purification rituals? Ritual purification. I'm going to deliberately do this in such a way that the purification ritual is not possible, or at least made more difficult. So, here are the jars where the water was kept for purification and you're just not doing that anymore, or at least not for a while. Not until one of the jars becomes available. So yeah, it would be to set aside that purification ritual would be another purpose.

Yeah. Which goes along with Jesus when he said that he would leave his father's house. Right. And he was so adamant to follow what God had said, not what man's tradition was. Yeah. So that would really make a lot of sense that he would do that. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, let's pray. Lord, we thank you. As we read this well-known event here, I just thank you that you revealed these things for us and to us because you love us and care for us. And as the disciples were grown in their faith and their belief through this event, we pray that you would grow us too. And we pray that you would use it as well to transform us into the image of your Son. And we thank you, Lord, just for the opportunity that you've set before us here this morning. We pray in Jesus' name.