Our Role in the Gospel

Our Role in the Gospel

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the Mother of Jesus was there. 2 Now both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding. 3 And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” 4 Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “whatever He says to you, do it.” 6 Now there were there six water posts of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water,” And they filled to up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it. 9 When the master of the feast had tasted the water that is made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feat called the bridegroom, 10 And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!” 11 This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believe in Him. 12 After this He went down to Capernaum, He, His mother, His brothers, and His disciples; and they did not stay there many days.

In our first two posts on the wedding at Cana, Christ has used this opportunity to separate himself from the ties of his family, pointing to the fact that although our family is important, we should never love family more then our Love for God. There should be nothing that separates us from God and our relationship with our Heavenly Father.

The second thought brought out in our last post is the stone pots that were used for ceremonial cleansing. Stone being of more value than earthenware (clay pots). According to Levitical law earthenware pots were made unclean by the things that were common (dead or defiled) thus making them unfit for ceremonial use. When this happened these earthenware pots were to be broken. But this was not the case for pots made of stone, for they were not defiled by things that were common or unclean.

We also discussed the fact that Jesus commanded the servants to fill the pots to the brim. This was done so no one could say, that something was later added to the water to make it better or sweeter than the first wine that was given. The witnesses could therefore testify that nothing was added to these pots. We also learned these stone pots represented Christ who is our rock the same rock that supplied fountains of water to the children of Israel during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
We reviewed the principles of this ceremonial cleansing that the Jews performed which had little to do with the inside, what is in one’s own heart, but more to do about the outward appearance.

The size of these pots means that there was approximately 120 gallons of water. This is a significant amount of water, but there is another aspect of this, for in the scriptures numbers that are multiples of 7 or 12 are considered to be infinite numbers, which would mean that the water brought by the servants in these stone pots, which represented Christ, within Him there is a unlimited supply of pure, clean, living water, which is poured out without measure onto all who are willing to receive the Gospel message.

Yet there is still another spiritual implication to this as well. Jesus could well have gotten the water himself or filled the water pots without the aid of the servants. He had the power to do this, but he was illustrating before his disciples that although he has the power to perform a miracle, he has instead chosen to use human power to accomplish that which humans can do on their own and then supplies the divine power necessary to finish the work that humanity in themselves cannot do.

If God chose to do all the work himself, then he would have nothing but a band of spiritual weaklings on his hands, incapable of doing anything for themselves.
Like Moses who was instructed to throw down his staff (Exodus 4:2) Moses had to do something first to then see what God would do. Also, with the woman who prayed to Elisha for help and her oil was multiplied (II Kings 4:2). Even with Jesus own disciples he taught these same principles in Matthew 15:34, they had to search for the food first before he could multiply it.

So the lesson taught by Jesus in this living parable is that Yes, Jesus has the power to do all things, and could very well have gotten the water for himself by simply commanding the pots to be full, but he used human agents to do the work that they could, until they can do no more, and then performed a miracle to complete the work that needed to be done.

Therefore, let this be a lesson to all of us that have said, “let others finish the work, for they are trained and equipped to do these things, and I am not.” If this was the case, nothing would be accomplished and perhaps this is the reason why churches today are dying, because the people fail to do what they can, and instead rely upon others and the power of God to do the work that we can do ourselves.

The servants (deacons) filled the pots as full as they could be filled and when their part was done, Christ took over to complete the miracle so that the faith of the disciples could be strengthened and all those present would understand by the separation from his mother, the miracle of the water to wine, that something special was about to happen.