John 02

Theme: Jesus's 1st miracle- done by his words

5 His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you.

7 Jesus said to the servants, Fill the jars with water; so they filled them to the brim. 

8 Then he told them, Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. They did so, 

It's Jesus's first miracle in the world. It recalls me what Johnny (the theological student from UK) once shared with us about the teachings of this miracle, by which the change of intrinsic quality of things manifested Jesus as the master and the creator of Universe. This sorte of completely changes in essence, from water to wine, or more precisely, from H₂O to C₂H₅OH, is only able to be made by Lord. And what more powerful is that, if we observe the process of this miracle more carefully, Jesus's own hands never touched the jar. It is only through his words that the miracle happen and was realized, just like the process of the genesis of the world, and like what the opening of Gospel John describes:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. (Joh1.1-3)

So it echoes to the main point of ch1 that who Jesus is. Through the content (the changes of nature) and the form (by his words) of this miracle, the message is sent that Jesus is the Lord Himself. 

Joh2.5-8 also gave me another insight that although the jars and the servants are all very normal things, as soon as God's words work with/within them, they even could bring marvelous things and good news to people, like Moses's rod, which was originally a common tool in his hand:

Then the LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?"

"A staff," he replied. 

The LORD said, "Throw it on the ground."

Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. 

Then the LORD said to him, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail."

So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. 

"This," said the LORD, "is so that they may believe that the LORD [..] has appeard to you." (Ex4.2-5)

Just as what once Pr. Ko encouraged us that whenever something is used up, we can ask for Lord Jesus's help, and also as what uncle Chih-Jen once shared about Elisha's question to the widow that "what do you have in this house?" Lord here asked Moses, "what is that in your hand?" The left story is quite similar to the miracle in John 2 that the wonder thing happened in Moses's own hand when he followed and fulfilled God's words. I think it's the same with our case today. Whenever we face difficulties or confusions, we could think about that, "what is that in our hands?" and then, try to do what Jesus's mother told the servant, "Do whatever he tells you." Finally our powerful Lord would intrinsically change everything, for instance, our own selves.