John (week 3... belated)
I'm going to try this again. I still think it was a good idea, but perhaps I just didn't give it a chance to catch on at all. I usually like taking giant chunks of scripture in at a time as to get the overall context, but I also find it valuable to keep to one point. I promise I will try very hard not to use small pieces of scripture as a proof text to an idea that I want to get across. And again, I also don't want to be the only voice in this study (click on the comments link at the end), but I am resolved to being so for a time until this might catch on.
One last reminder: I might use a different translation than you might like to read. In my own reading I use multiple translations, from NIV, NASB and the Message. I probably post with the Message more to push those who have some kind of rigid loyalty to one specific version (and it is endorsed by Bono). But if you would like to read it in a different translation, just pick up your Bible or click the link on the verse. From there you can change it to whatever you like. OK now where did I leave off?
John 2:1-11
When I was planning on following this study up a year ago I had trouble with this piece of text. I kept thinking, "Why does this miracle matter?" No other gospel writer had found any importance of incorporating it, why does John? It seems the only significance is that it is the beginning of Jesus' ministry. But why does John choose such a miracle to start with?
Since then I have heard and read a few different ideas on this piece from others. Most things I've heard just use it to back up an idea that Jesus throws a good party. I kind of like that idea. Jesus isn't just a rule giver (he actually gave very few); Jesus loves the company and celebrations of people. I find it interesting that God built celebrations and festivals into the life of his people from the beginning. We need reasons to celebrate and a call from Jesus into the Kingdom of God is a call to a celebration.
Another idea ignited in me from a book by Rob Bell called Velvet Elvis. In the book he parallels this miracle with a Greek myth of Dionysus. Dionysus was the god of wine and a well-told story was how he turned water into wine. The culture John was writing this gospel for would have been quite familiar with this story and so John uses it quite deliberately to capture his readers' attention. Rob writes:
I don't bring this up to say that Jesus' miracles may not have actually happened (I truly believe they did). I am more interested in the possibility that John purposefully used the parallels from these Greek myths to tell the story of Jesus. He reached into a foreign culture and used Jesus to redeem it.
I wonder where we lost this kind of thinking? We now define the Christian culture as that of leaving everything you knew before and trading it for something with a "Christian" label. We replace anything "secular" with something similar (but usually lacking significantly in quality) labeled "Christian". The only films we can watch are "Left Behind" and "Passion of the Christ". The only music we can listen to is Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman.
I once heard a preacher at a Youth Conference go into how all the kids knew quotes from Britney Spears Songs and the American Pie movies, but knew much less about the Bible. I get his point. We probably have a pretty significant imbalance between our time with God and our time with other things. To conclude his point, however, he preceded to call the thousands of youth in the auditorium to a fast of all music, magazines, radio, TV, and film for 30 days. My heart broke as I thought of all the kids who would go home and turn on the TV or listen to the radio and think that they must not be good Christians.
It seems John is able to offer redemption to a culture that does not have Jesus. He does so in their own language, using their own symbols. He transforms them and by adding Jesus makes them whole. Jesus is the restorer of all things to God. This passage (even without the Dionysus parallel) shows that Jesus did not come to create some kind of Christian subculture. He came so that all people from all places would come to know him.
The separation from the secular and the holy is imaginary. The truth is that we must contribute to the world at large, not just our Christian subculture. We must engage it rather than retreat from it and hide ourselves in some Christian parallel universe. God has created all things for his glory. If we join with Jesus in his death than we work to continue to redeem all of creation. We do not own Jesus, and therefore he is definitely at work in more places than just the US brand of Christianity. As missionaries to the world our job is to find him at work in the rest of the world and call attention to it and show others that it is God.
One last reminder: I might use a different translation than you might like to read. In my own reading I use multiple translations, from NIV, NASB and the Message. I probably post with the Message more to push those who have some kind of rigid loyalty to one specific version (and it is endorsed by Bono). But if you would like to read it in a different translation, just pick up your Bible or click the link on the verse. From there you can change it to whatever you like. OK now where did I leave off?
John 2:1-11
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." His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it." Now there were six stone water pots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each. Jesus said to them, "Fill the water pots with water." So they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, "Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter." So they took it to him. When the headwaiter 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 headwaiter 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 poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now." This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.
When I was planning on following this study up a year ago I had trouble with this piece of text. I kept thinking, "Why does this miracle matter?" No other gospel writer had found any importance of incorporating it, why does John? It seems the only significance is that it is the beginning of Jesus' ministry. But why does John choose such a miracle to start with?
Since then I have heard and read a few different ideas on this piece from others. Most things I've heard just use it to back up an idea that Jesus throws a good party. I kind of like that idea. Jesus isn't just a rule giver (he actually gave very few); Jesus loves the company and celebrations of people. I find it interesting that God built celebrations and festivals into the life of his people from the beginning. We need reasons to celebrate and a call from Jesus into the Kingdom of God is a call to a celebration.
Another idea ignited in me from a book by Rob Bell called Velvet Elvis. In the book he parallels this miracle with a Greek myth of Dionysus. Dionysus was the god of wine and a well-told story was how he turned water into wine. The culture John was writing this gospel for would have been quite familiar with this story and so John uses it quite deliberately to capture his readers' attention. Rob writes:
The first three miracles in the book of John are directly related to the three major gods of Asia Minor, the region John writes his gospel to. Dionysus was the god who turned water into wine, Asclepius was the god of healing, and Demeter was the goddess of bread. So how does John begin his story? With Jesus turning water into wine, healing, and then feeding thousands of people. John has an agenda. He wants these people in this place and this time to know that Jesus is better than their gods.
I don't bring this up to say that Jesus' miracles may not have actually happened (I truly believe they did). I am more interested in the possibility that John purposefully used the parallels from these Greek myths to tell the story of Jesus. He reached into a foreign culture and used Jesus to redeem it.
I wonder where we lost this kind of thinking? We now define the Christian culture as that of leaving everything you knew before and trading it for something with a "Christian" label. We replace anything "secular" with something similar (but usually lacking significantly in quality) labeled "Christian". The only films we can watch are "Left Behind" and "Passion of the Christ". The only music we can listen to is Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman.
I once heard a preacher at a Youth Conference go into how all the kids knew quotes from Britney Spears Songs and the American Pie movies, but knew much less about the Bible. I get his point. We probably have a pretty significant imbalance between our time with God and our time with other things. To conclude his point, however, he preceded to call the thousands of youth in the auditorium to a fast of all music, magazines, radio, TV, and film for 30 days. My heart broke as I thought of all the kids who would go home and turn on the TV or listen to the radio and think that they must not be good Christians.
It seems John is able to offer redemption to a culture that does not have Jesus. He does so in their own language, using their own symbols. He transforms them and by adding Jesus makes them whole. Jesus is the restorer of all things to God. This passage (even without the Dionysus parallel) shows that Jesus did not come to create some kind of Christian subculture. He came so that all people from all places would come to know him.
The separation from the secular and the holy is imaginary. The truth is that we must contribute to the world at large, not just our Christian subculture. We must engage it rather than retreat from it and hide ourselves in some Christian parallel universe. God has created all things for his glory. If we join with Jesus in his death than we work to continue to redeem all of creation. We do not own Jesus, and therefore he is definitely at work in more places than just the US brand of Christianity. As missionaries to the world our job is to find him at work in the rest of the world and call attention to it and show others that it is God.
posted by thefury at
2:13 PM
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