Morning Moments

The Western mind often misses much in the Scripture and here is the reason why. The average Christian does not study culture and customs of the East and so “understands” Scripture from his own frame of reference.
When we read of a wedding we generally think of a man and a woman meeting, dating, “falling in love”, becoming engaged, and finally getting married. That is not the consistent with Eastern Biblical culture.

It is a sad thing that terrorism in the West has help some of us make a greater attempt to understand a culture that is for the most part a couple of millennia behind our own in so many ways. It is not to say it is “backward” or “regressive” but it is a tradition oriented society and a tribal one to a great extent. There is nothing wrong with that. Maybe we have been a bit too “progressive”. In any event, we must understand the Scripture from the mindset of those who lived at that time.

So here we are in John 2:1-12 at a pre-arranged wedding, with a celebration that might have lasted for seven days, on what was a Wednesday (virgins married on Wednesday and widows married on Thursday), with a woman (Mary) who had enough authority to tell the servants what to do.

The want or lack of wine may have been as a result of last minute guests or maybe by the addition of Jesus’ six disciples. When the woman saw the want of wine, she turned to her son, Jesus, and asked him to help.

Jesus had taken Joseph’s place as the “head” of the family. We don’t know what happened to Joseph nor when it happened, but he was no longer in the picture. Now Jesus was about thirty years of age and this was the initiation of His public ministry and his first miracle.

I think it is quite obvious that his mother did not expect a miracle, but perhaps expected him to procure more wine for the celebration. She had pondered all that the angel told her in her heart, but did not know when nor where Jesus would begin revealing his messiahship.

It is important to remember that only Mary, Jesus, the servants, and possibly his disciples saw what happened here. So this private manifestation at a private wedding began His public ministry.

BLESSINGS!