SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/5/2016
10:22 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Supply
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 2:6-10
Message of
the verses: “6 Now there were six stone waterpots set
there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty
gallons each. 7 Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots with water."
So they filled them up to
the brim. 8 And He said to them, "Draw some out now and take it to
the headwaiter." So they took it to him. 9 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, 10
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.’”
In Warren Wiersbe’s commentary on the gospel of John
he entitles this section “Jesus the Guest,” while John MacArthur entitles this
section “The Supply.” So I guess we
could say that Jesus the guest brought forth the supply of wine that was needed
so that the bridegroom would not be embarrassed because he did not have enough supply
of wine.
We want to
look at a passage in the gospel of Mark to show the importance of ceremonial
washing that the Jews did during this time when Christ was on the earth, and a
part of this included having these stone waterpots. They must have done a lot of this ceremonial
washing for there were six of these waterpots which could have held as much as
180 gallons of water. Mark 7:3-4 “3 (For
the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands,
thus observing the traditions of the elders; 4 and when they come from the
market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are
many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the
washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.)
I wrote the following commentary on these two verses on June 18, 2012 “Verse
four speaks of the tradition of washing their hands and in their traditional
way after coming from the market place, and one though on this is perhaps they
had run into a dreaded Gentile or maybe even a Samaritan and that would mean
that they had to hurry home to wash of the uncleanness from these people.
“We see in verse five that these Pharisees and
Scribes were questing Jesus on why His disciples did not follow their
traditions. All I can tell you at this
point is that they are not going to like His answer to them. You know that the truth hurts at times.”
We remember that Mary asked Jesus to do something
and then left what He would do to Him and now we see her confidence in Him is
seen as He tells the servants to fill these waterpots with water, all of them
and fill them to the top, as this was important for some may have thought that
there would be room to add something to the waterpots that caused the water to
turn into wine. Just a thought here and
that is that we can see from the book of Leviticus that shows that washing of
things like earthenware pots and even smaller ones like the woman at the well
was using had to be cleansed, but it is fare to say that these Pharisees were
taking thing way to far, and that they were also doing these kinds of things to
show that they were clean and ready to go to heaven because of their
works. Now Jesus fills their stone
waterpots up with the best wine that has ever been made.
We have been looking at a sermon that John
MacArthur preached on these verses in 2012 and because I learned so much from that
sermon I have been quoting from it in these Spiritual Diaries and I want to do
this here too. “So they filled them to
the brim, which is what He wanted. If they weren’t filled to the brim, somebody
would just say He added wine to the water. But if the water goes all the way to
the brim, there’s nothing left to...no room left. That was the point. And by
the way, you have people who are completely disinterested parties now who are
going to give testimony to this miracle. They don’t have any stake in this issue. They’re
not trying to prove anything about Jesus. These are servants, whoever they
were, the people who were serving there. They might not have been full-time
servants. They might just have been friends and folks who were willing to do
this. But they don’t have any issue. They are disinterested parties who are
going to witness and give testimony to this miracle. So they filled the water
pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. “And He said to them,
‘Draw some out now and take it to the head waiter”--the architriklinos,
the maitre d’, the chief waiter, take it to him--“so they took it to him. When
the head waiter tasted the water which had become wine.” Whoa-whoa-whoa; when
did that happen? Well, that happened between verses 8 and 9. What? No, it
actually happened in the white space between verses 7 and 8. They filled it to
the brim and all of a sudden they drew some out, took it to the head waiter,
they took it to him and the head waiter tasted water which had become wine.
This is so understated. This is like in the backdoor. Where’s the miracle? I mean, this is massive.
How do you get wine? Grapes. How do you get grapes? Vines. How do you get
vines? Seeds. How do you get seeds? Other vines. How do you make the vine grow?
Sunlight, water, earth. How do you get the wine? Crush, strain.
“There are no grapes, no vines, no seeds, no other
seeds, no sunlight, no water, no earth. Nothing. He’s created wine out of
nothing. I mean, at least He could have said, “Wine!” Right? I mean this is a
pretty dramatic deal here.
“The head waiter tasted the water which had become
wine, and didn’t know where it came from. But the servants who had drawn the
water knew they knew what happened. So you’ve got these completely
disinterested eyewitnesses giving testimony that He had literally created wine
to replace water. Where did the water go? And by the way, this would have been
unfermented wine that just sort of bypassed the curse. It bypassed the earth,
the vine, the grapes, everything. This was the best wine ever. This was Eden
kind of wine.
“And it becomes apparent right away because the
headwaiter calls the bridegroom and the bridegroom is the guy who wants the
news ’cause he’s responsible for this. Said to him, “Every man serves the good
wine first, and the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine,
but you’ve kept the good wine until now.” That’s just axiomatic. Everybody does
that. You do that. You have company over. If they keep eating long enough,
they’re going to get the leftovers that are still in the refrigerator. You
know, I mean, that’s the way it goes. You prepare something; you give them what
you’ve got. If they’re still hungry, you start digging down into yesterday and
the day before and last week. I mean, that’s...so he says, “Nobody does this.
Nobody keeps this quality of wine until the end, nobody does that.” Which is
the unexpected, again an indifferent witness to the fact that this was wine.
And it was not only wine, it was the best wine that had ever been consumed,
pure, sweet, unfermented, delicious, like nothing else the man had ever tasted.
“So you have this testimony of a creative miracle
in the mouth of people who have no stake in trying to prove anything about
Jesus. It’s amazing. Well, the party was back in full bloom. And verse 11 gives
us the final word on this. And the final word is the purpose. We saw the party,
the problem, the predicament, and then we saw the provision and the purpose in
verse 11. “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and
manifested His glory and His disciples”...What, did what?...“believed in Him.”
“So now we’re seeing the purpose of the gospel of
John. “These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and believing have eternal life in His name.” That’s
the purpose. That’s the purpose.”
Now we mentioned in an earlier SD about why and
what wine was used for, and how it was mixed with water because the water
supply was not good enough to just drink, but when I read this chapter the
first few times my thoughts were not like what I learned about wine, my
thoughts were that this wine was the best, which it was, but the best to drink,
something like people who know wines say about them today. There are wines that go for great sums of
money because of where the grapes were grown and the year that they were grown
and I suppose how they were processed, but as we can see here this wine that
Jesus made from the water in these stone pots was the best wine ever made, and
the reason was because Jesus made it.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Think
about Jesus making wine out of water, and then think about what He can do for
us as He can make sinners into saints by the greatest miracle ever done as He
provides salvation for all who come to Him because of what He did on Calvary.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I am thankful for the miracle of salvation as pictured in what Jesus did in changing water into wine.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Cain” (Genesis 4:13).
Today’s Bible question: “Where did Pharaoh overtake the children of Israel?”
Answer in our next SD.
1/5/2016 11:01 AM
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