Thursday, February 19, 2009

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign- "We're All Out"

I am praying that God gives us eyes to see the glory of Jesus—his pristine beauty and awesome majesty and inexhaustible fullness. I am looking for the glory of Christ everywhere in this gospel.
In the gospel of John we have 7 signs shown to us before His crucifixion as evidence of His deity. In the gospel of John we have 7 "I Am" statements spoken for us as evidence of His deity. In the gospel of John we have 7 "last" sayings shared with us as evidence of His deity.

The next 7 weeks are entitled, "Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign". The first sign is found in John 2:1-10. These 7 signs are expressions of Messianic replacement and abundance.

After the story of the wedding of Cana in John 2:1–10, John says in verse 11, "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him." This first sign captures the ‘glory’ statement of John 1:14 at the beginning of the gospel, and the ‘purpose’ statement of John 20:30-31 at the end of the gospel.

This is a living parable being acted out right before our very eyes. This is the first miracle and it is filled with such exquisitely beautiful details:
-The social aspect of being invited to a wedding. Jesus and His disciples (5) were invited. We should be people who are invited to places and events. We use the social in order to get to the sacred.
-The prayer- Mary had an interest in the needs of others. She interceded for them. She did not look for a man-made solution that the caterer may have come up with; instead, she went to the fountainhead of the one who could and would supply living waters that would never run out. She went to Jesus. She did not pray the solution to Jesus. She simply was willing to accept whatever Christ’s response might be.

Jesus’ Glory Revealed in This Story (Outline Structure from John Piper)
1. The Glory of an Obedient Son
Jesus’ words are intentionally chosen to reveal a radical allegiance to God’s will above all else.
Jesus knew it would be surprising when he did not say "Mother" but rather, "Woman." His response isn’t disrespectful, but it is abrupt. Jesus is doubly abrupt with his mother: He calls her "Woman," and he says, "This is not your place to be calling out my power." It does seem that his mother expected him to do something.
What makes this so significant is that Jesus goes right ahead and takes care of the problem by doing a miracle. That makes us ask why He spoke to her this way. The reason is that Jesus was absolutely bound to his Father’s will in heaven and to no one on earth. There could be no competing controls on his life

2. The Glory of an Ultimate Purifier
There is a reason Jesus chooses to use water jars that were appointed for "purification," not for drinking, when he performs his miracle and fills them with wine. And the reason is that he means to point to his own death as the ultimate purification for sins that would nullify and replace the Jewish purification rituals. Six was a number of incompletion. The old is giving way to the new.
Jesus says to his mother at the end of verse 4, "My hour has not yet come." Jesus’ hour was the hour of his death when the Lamb of God would take away the sin of the world. This would be the ultimate purification, as stated in 1 John 1:7, "the blood of Jesus his Son purifies us from all sin".
Even though Jesus rebuffed his mother’s request he goes ahead and does the miracle. It seems Jesus is saying, "No, the hour of my death is not here, but I will give you a sign of my death."
Jesus manifests his glory in this story through an acted out parable—of how his own death will be the final, decisive, ultimate purification for sins. And so you see the replacement of the old purification laws and rituals with the anticipation of the once-for-all sacrifice of the cross, and the connection with the upper room discourse-the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper and Jesus stating that the wine represented His blood.

3. The Glory of an All-Providing Bridegroom
The last thing John says about Jesus in this Gospel is that he is the bridegroom who has the bride. The mystery of the church is being revealed. Jesus is the groom and the church is the bride. Jesus does what the bridegroom at a wedding could not do. The groom was responsible for the wine, which means it was his shortcoming that the wedding ran out of wine. All earthly husbands fail to be all that we ought to be. But quietly, powerfully Jesus plays the role of the perfect, all-providing Bridegroom.

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