Читать книгу John - Jey J. Kanagaraj - Страница 9

The Beginning of Jesus’ Public Ministry

Jesus’ Public Ministry (2:1—12:50)

Some scholars treat John 2 as the beginning of the unit that ends at 4:54, often given the title “From Cana to Cana.”1 This section pictures how the first sign took place in Cana of Galilee (2:1–12) and the second sign, which completes the first sphere of Jesus’ Galilean ministry, also took place in Cana (4:46–54). God’s new community was expanded by including both the Jews and the Gentiles.

First sign of Jesus in John (2:1–12)

In 2:1–12 a vision of Jesus’ glory, promised in 1:51, becomes possible first in a wedding at Cana, the native place of Nathanael, situated in Galilee eight miles north of Nazareth, where Jesus was brought up. The time reference “on the third day” implies not only that Jesus’ revelation of his glory took place after three days of his promise (1:50b-51) but also that by this time the circle of twelve disciples was complete. If we count the number of days from the time the Baptist witnessed about Jesus (1:19–2:1), the wedding at Cana falls on the seventh day. Brown sees here an implicit reference to God’s creation of the world in seven days (Gen 1:1–2:3) and argues that John is seeing the start of Jesus’ ministry as the start of new creation.2 This symbolic interpretation looks forward to the creation of a new humanity by Jesus who was raised on the third day (20:22).

Galilee had both Jews and Gentiles in it, and the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and his first sign performed there may symbolically mean that he loves both Jews and Gentiles and that they have an equal place in the new community he came to create. “The mother of Jesus was there” implies that the wedding could have been that of one of her relatives or of a close family friend. That is why Jesus and his disciples also had been invited. Jesus’ mother is mentioned throughout John’s Gospel without her name. Brown thinks that the absence of the name may be to symbolize her as a new Eve or new Israel, the church.3 However, most probably the avoidance of her name is just to highlight her earthly relationship to Jesus. Being the mother of Jesus, she too had a place in Jesus’ new community (cf. 2:12).

The reference to the invitation of Jesus along with his disciples (2:2) shows how closely the community of Jesus’ disciples had been linked with him within a short time. The mother of Jesus, as a woman, plays a key role in the first sign that Jesus does. Wine, as per Jewish custom, was used in festive occasions such as weddings.4 The wine used in this wedding ran out. Jesus’ mother may well have had some responsibility in catering for the guests,5 therefore she immediately brought the urgent matter to the attention of Jesus by telling him, “They do not have wine” (2:3). Perhaps she believed that Jesus, being the Son of God, was able to provide for the need on any occasion. However, Jesus did not do any miracle as his mother expected. He questioned her, “What is for me and you, O woman?” (2:4a). The word “O woman” is not a word of disrespect (cf. 19:26). Jesus’ words “My hour has not yet come” (2:4b) show that Jesus would act to supply wine in accordance with the will and timing of God rather than his physical parent. For him, to do the will of the Father was his food (4:34) and so he did not allow human relationships to direct his steps in his mission. While this meaning is well taken, the term “hour,” which occurs twenty-six times in John, has a deeper meaning.

Although Jesus says that his hour has not yet come, later he uses both present and future tenses to say, “The hour is coming, and now is” (4:23; 5:25; 16:32). Eventually he says, “The hour has come” (12:23, 27; 13:1; 17:1). The Johannine terms “the hour,” “my hour,” and “his hour” indicate the time when Jesus will return to the Father through his death and resurrection. The term “an hour” (the Greek word hōra without the definite article) refers to the effects that Jesus’ hour would bring in the lives of the believers, and those effects include the manner of worshipping God, persecution, a new understanding of Jesus’ words, and the final resurrection of all humans to face judgment (cf. 4:21; 5:25, 28–29; 16:2, 25).6 Thus, at the deeper level “my hour” in 2:4 means that the Father’s time to reveal Jesus’ glory through his death and resurrection has not yet come.

Gaining confidence from Jesus’ response, his mother instructed the servants, “You do what he would tell you” (2:5). She acted with an exemplary faith and with determination to supply wine through Jesus. However, his disciples were so passive that they were unable to recognize the need of the time.

Jesus started acting in his own time as per God’s will. He wished to supply better quality of wine by using the water kept in six stone jars, as per the Jewish rite of purification, each jar containing 80–120 liters (2:6 TNIV).7 The use of “stone jars” for purification is mentioned not in Lev 11:32–38, but in the Mishnah, a Rabbinic text of the second century that reflects the life situation of the late first century (m. Kelim 5:11; m. Besah 2:3). He asked the servants to fill the jars with water up to the brim and they did it (2:7). In obedience to Jesus’ instruction, they drew some water out and took it to the master of the feast (2:7–8).8

The text does not mention when the water drawn out of jars was turned into wine. We are only told that the master of the feast tasted the “water which had become wine” without knowing where it was from (2:9). The Greek perfect-tense gegenēmenon shows the quality of the water, which perhaps had already become wine before it came to the hands of the master. The water became wine probably when the servants were drawing it from the jars or when they were carrying it. They knew by whom the miracle happened, but not how it happened (2:9). There is a secrecy motif in this first sign of Jesus (2:11a), conveying the truth that the miraculous deeds of Jesus are beyond human comprehension. The focus of the sign, then, is not on how or when the turning of water into wine happened but on why it happened.

This sign also contains non-understanding, a literary feature of John. The master of the feast misunderstood the supply of “good wine” as the work of the bridegroom. Hence he told the bridegroom that he was keeping thus far the good wine in contrast to the usual custom of offering the best wine first so that the guests would appreciate the host’s provision, and then, after too much drinking, offering the wine of lesser quality (2:10).9 The master thus never understood the work of Jesus.

By following the Jewish rite of purification to do his first sign (literally “beginning of the signs”), Jesus brings out the truth that the real meaning of the Jewish religious customs is fulfilled only in him, who transforms the old ceremonial system into something that human beings can experience. Jesus replaces the old Jewish ritual order with his own new order.

In the OT, the “sweet wine” supplied by God to his people is the mark of deliverance from exile (Jer 31:12; Amos 9:13–14) and of prosperity (Joel 3:18), and it has an eschatological connotation also. In the light of this, Jesus’ conversion of water into wine indicates that the long-awaited kingdom of God has arrived and that God himself has drawn near in the person and ministry of Jesus to fulfill his promise of abundant blessings.10 The narrative of the wedding at Cana reaches its climax in 2:11, where the manifestation of Jesus’ glory through this sign leads the disciples to believe in him, while for others it is only a satisfaction of physical thirst (see comments on 1:14 for understanding “glory”). This sign renews the disciples’ commitment to Jesus and leads them into deeper faith.

After this sign, Jesus went to Capernaum with his mother, brothers, and disciples and stayed a few days there (2:12). This is a symbol of the corporate life of the new community, which includes men and women, centered in Jesus.

Jesus’ revolutionary act in the temple (2:13–22)

In 2:13 there is an abrupt shift from Capernaum (2:12) to Jerusalem. In the Synoptic accounts, Jesus enters into Jerusalem only once, at the end of his ministry, but in John Jesus makes four visits to Jerusalem, mainly during the Passover (2:13; 5:1; 7:10, 14; 12:9, 12). During one of his visits Jesus cleansed the Jerusalem temple and subsequently confronted the Jewish leaders (2:13–22). In the Synoptic Gospels this event is narrated nearly at the end of Jesus’ ministry (Matt 21:12–17 par.), whereas in John it is placed in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. One cannot prove that Jesus cleansed the temple twice. For John chronology has only marginal significance. In both 2:1–11 and 2:13–22 Jesus transforms the Jewish legal custom to do good to people by fulfilling their need.

Jesus went up to Jerusalem just before the Passover, a Jewish festival celebrated every year in commemoration of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, having passed over their houses without killing the first-born by seeing the blood of a lamb on their lintels and doorposts (Exod 12). All who went up to Jerusalem used to go to the temple to offer sacrifices and worship God (cf. Ps 122). Naturally Jesus, as a Jew, first went into the temple.

In the temple, Jesus did not see an atmosphere of worship, but a business trend. He found those who were selling oxen, sheep, and pigeons, and money changers sitting (2:14) for exchanging the currency brought by pilgrims who came from other countries into Tyrian coinage, which was the prescribed currency to pay temple dues (m. Bek. 8:7). The oxen, sheep, and pigeons were required by the Law to be sacrificed (Lev 1 and 3). Surprisingly, sale of “lambs,” the actual Passover sacrifice, is not mentioned in the narrative. The temple authorities apparently did not give priority to the sacrificial lambs, but were primarily concerned with the trade that would bring them economic profit. That is why Jesus became zealous for the house of God and made a whip of cords to chase out the animals and to pour out the coins of the money changers by overturning their tables (2:15). He rebuked them by stating that they should not use “my Father’s house” for the purpose of trading (John 2:16; cf. Jer 7:11 and Isa 56:7; see also Matt 21:13 par.).

The business seems to have been carried on in the “Court of the Gentiles,” an area beyond which Gentiles were not permitted to go, into the forecourts and the sanctuary, lest they face the death penalty. The ongoing business and profit making consequently prevented the Gentiles from entry into the temple to pray and worship,11 although the temple was to be the house of prayer for “all nations” (Mark 11:17). John’s phrase “a house of trade” alludes to Zech 14:21, where it appears in the context of Zechariah’s prophecy about coming of the non-Jews into the temple to worship Yahweh the King (Zech 14:16–17). Thus, one of the reasons, if not the sole reason,12 for Jesus’ vehement action was the preventing of Gentiles by the Jewish authorities from entering the court by making it a commercial place.

The narrator comments that Jesus’ disciples remembered what is written in the Scripture, “The zeal for your house will consume me” (John 2:17; cf. Ps 69:9). They realized that Jesus’ vehement action to preserve the purification of the house of the Lord was due to his consuming zeal for the Father’s house (cf. Luke 2:49). Psalm 69 actually speaks of the suffering of a righteous one and it was used by first-century Christians to proclaim the suffering and death of Jesus (cf. Ps 69:21 with Matt 27:34, 48; Luke 23:36; John 19:30; Rom 11:9–10). Jesus’ words “will consume me” anticipate his suffering and death in order to build a new temple, that is, a community with a new life to worship the Father in spirit and in truth (4:23–24).

That Jesus spoke of his death is further confirmed by 2:19, where he asks “the Jews” to destroy “this temple,”13 his body, with a challenge that he will raise it up in three days (cf. Matt 26:61; 27:40; Mark 14:58; 15:29). He spoke in response to the Jerusalem authorities, who asked for a sign from him to prove that he had authority from God to disrupt the cultic worship by chasing out the animals kept for sacrifice (2:18). In 2:19 Jesus speaks of his death and resurrection in terms of destroying the old temple with all its legal system of animal sacrifices and building a new temple to be a place of life-giving power. In this sense, 2:17–22 foreshadows the death and resurrection of Christ,14 a “sign” to be seen by his adversaries.

Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, as a whole, is a prophetic and symbolic act that points to the “greater reality” that is coming (e.g., Isa 8:16–18; Ezek 4:1–3). It is also Jesus’ non-miraculous sign that anticipates his sacrifice on the cross (cf. Matt 12:39–40). John’s addition of “sheep and oxen” that were driven out of the temple is to symbolize that Jesus removes the need for animal sacrifices to obtain forgiveness of sins and deliverance. The Jerusalem temple is now replaced by a new Temple, Jesus, in whom the offering of animals has no place (cf. 2:19). Jesus himself is the sacrifice to remove human sin and he is the one who offers it (e.g., Heb 9:11–14). His life and work thus mark the end of the temple worship and the beginning of a new and life-giving worship. The action of Jesus in the temple is not merely that of a Jewish reformer or merely a protest against the irreverence and corruption of Jewish worship, but is a sign to convey the truth that the end of animal sacrifice is at hand.15 In this act of Jesus, one can see the shadow of the cross again.

This is confirmed in 2:20–22. The temple authorities misunderstood Jesus’ statement that he was boasting himself of rebuilding the destroyed temple in three days, while it took originally forty-six years to build (2:19–20).16 They ridiculed him for saying so (cf. Matt 27:40) without understanding that Jesus would give up his body to be destroyed on the cross and would raise it up in three days (2:21) to restore true spiritual worship for which the Jerusalem temple stood. Even his disciples only understood this after Jesus’ resurrection. John displays his literary device of non-understanding to lead his readers to a higher level of understanding.17

The resurrection of Jesus opened the eyes of Jesus’ community to see the reality behind his signs and symbolic acts. The comment “his disciples remembered” (2:17, 22) means an unveiling of truth by the Spirit after the death and resurrection of Jesus (14:26; 16:14) so that they might believe the Scripture that testifies to Jesus (cf. 1:45; 5:39). Such a new vision of Jesus is a partial fulfillment of “greater things” to be seen by his disciples (1:50–51).

Supernatural knowledge of Jesus (2:23–25)

Jesus was participating in the Passover feast (2:23a). John does not describe how the Passover was celebrated in the temple; his focus is always on Jesus and his deeds and on people’s response to him. Many believed in Jesus’ name by looking at the signs he performed (2:23b). The plural “signs” informs us that Jesus could have done other signs besides what is narrated in John 2. These could include his healing of many blind and lame people who came to him when he was in the temple (cf. Matt 21:14). Though many believed in Jesus, they did so because they saw signs. This kind of superficial faith springs up from common human nature. Those who saw Jesus’ signs were amazed and appreciated him probably as a wonder-worker without making a faith commitment to him.

In John faith based on “seeing” rather than on “hearing” the testimony about Jesus or his words is not genuine faith (cf. 1:50). Since Jesus himself knew all human beings and their secret thoughts (cf. 1:42, 47–48; 5:42; 6:15, 26, 61, 64; 16:19, 30), no human needs to bear witness about anyone to Jesus (2:25). The supernatural knowledge of God is portrayed in the OT: it is God alone who observes the deeds of all human beings and their secret thoughts, because he has fashioned their hearts and observes their deeds (Ps 7:9; 33:15; 139:1–24; Jer 17:10; cf. Wis 1:6). What is true with the God of the OT is true with the Jesus that John portrays! Since Jesus is the Son of God who is in oneness with the Father, no wonder he exhibits the same omniscience as God. Therefore Jesus did not entrust himself to those who seemed to believe in him by seeing his signs (2:24). This shows that Jesus expected the members of his society to believe in him with a commitment not just by seeing the miracles he performed but by hearing his words.

Excursus: “Sign” in John

The word “sign” (se¯meion in Greek) occurs seventeen times in John’s Gospel, out of which thirteen times it occurs in plural. “Signs” denotes the miracles of Jesus. In the Synoptic Gospels, the word “sign” bears mostly a negative connotation, as Jesus refuses his opponents’ demand to perform a sign (Matt 12:38–39; 16:1, 4; Mark 8:11–12; Luke 11:16, 29; 23:8; cf. John 2:18). Even false prophets and false Christs perform signs (Matt 24:24; Mark 13:22). Nevertheless, signs foreshadow the coming of Christ in glory (Matt 24:3, 30; Mark 13:4; Luke 21:7, 11, 25). The Greek version of Isa 8:18 has the word se¯meion with a non-miraculous connotation and in Ezek 4:3 the word indicates the prophetic activity that anticipates a greater reality of which the sign itself is a part. In Isa 66:18–19, se¯meion is used to denote the eschatological gathering of all nations to see his glory and the declaration of his glory among the Gentiles by the survivors of the Jewish nation.18

In the same line, in all his signs in John, Jesus reveals God’s glory in terms of his love and concern for humanity to fulfill their physical and spiritual needs (e.g., 2:1–11; 6:26–27; 11:4, 40). Jesus’ signs (works) in John reveal his oneness with the Father (5:18; 10:38) and his own identity as the Christ, the Son of God, and the Son of Man (9:38; 11:25–27; 20:30–31). Through a sign Jesus strengthened the faith of his disciples in him (2:11) and others could come to believe in him (4:53; 6:69; 9:35–38; 11:45; 12:42). Hence most of the signs are followed by a discourse. However, in some cases the signs cause enmity, which culminates in Jesus’ death on the cross (5:16, 18; 11:46–57; 12:9–11, 37). His exaltation on the cross is presented in John as the greatest sign in which the symbol and reality meet each other (2:18–22; 3:14–15).

1. See Brown 1978: 1.95–96; Ridderbos 1997: 97–99.

2. Brown 1978: 1.105–6.

3. Brown 1978: 1.107–9; cf. Schneiders 1993: 128.

4. Keener 2005: 1.501.

5. Carson 1991: 169.

6. Cf. Brown 1978: 1.517.

7. John gives the capacity of each jar as “two or three measures,” one “measure” being equivalent to almost forty liters, and thus six jars will hold 480–720 liters; Schnackenburg 1980–84: 1.332; Ridderbos 1997: 107.

8. The Greek word architriklinos means “head waiter, butler” or, more aptly to the context, “master of the feast”; BDAG, 139.

9. See Kruse 2008: 95–96.

10. Kruse 2008: 96–97.

11. Kruse 2008: 100.

12. Keener 2005: 1.524.

13. The Greek word naos, used here and in 2:20, represents the whole temple and not the sanctuary alone.

14. Keener 2005: 1.527–31.

15. Hoskyns 1961: 194.

16. Neither the temple repaired by Herod the Great nor the second temple, built under the leadership of Zerubbabel, took forty-six years to construct. It is probable that the specification of forty-six years includes the whole period of Persian kings, Cyrus and Darius (559–513 BCE), in whose time the second temple was built; see Kanagaraj 2005: 110, 113 n. 34.

17. Carson 1982: 59–91; Kanagaraj 1998a: 305–7.

18. Barrett 1978: 75–78.