Continuing from the last letter, I will give just one more example of how understanding Jewish thinking at the time of Christ can enable us to better understand the Gospels and to better understand how contemporaries of Jesus would interpret his words and actions.

You are familiar with the first miracle performed by Christ, the transformation of water into wine at Cana. We would have expected a more momentous first miracle – resurrecting someone, healing someone, something outstanding but instead, we have a miracle by Jesus which seems, at least on the surface, as something mundane and hardly striking. But, there is a deeper undercurrent here which speaks of a drama that is starting to unfold, and hence, the first miracle. And we can partake of this drama and understand a bit more if we immerse ourselves into Jewish Scriptures.

It starts with Mary commenting that they had run out of wine at the wedding. There are several curious points here. Why is she turning to Jesus instead of the best man who would be responsible for the supply of food and wine? And the answer of Jesus is also strange – What is that to you and me, woman? My hour has not yet come. And yet, Jesus turns around and does exactly what Mary has asked for. What is the meaning of all this?

What the undercurrent here may be is that Jesus is referring back to the events in Eden. Some Jewish commentators see in the term woman a reference to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Before the fall, before she is named Eve, she is referred to eleven times as – woman. In this drama being played out in Cana, it seems that Mary represents the new Eve who starts the process of undoing what the Old Eve had done.

They have no wine seems like such an innocuous observation and yet, to Jewish ears, it conveyed a far deeper meaning than the simple fact the hosts had run out of wine at a wedding celebration. There is an allusion here to prophecies in Jewish Scriptures. Isaiah, for example, writes about Israel’s yearning for the wine of salvation:

“The wine mourns; the vine languishes. There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine.” (Isaiah 24) But this prophecy by Isaiah does not end there but continues to say that the Lord Himself will supply the wine of salvation.

“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of fat things, a feast of fine wine… He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces…” (Isaiah 25)

Several points need to be made here.

The first is that the Messiah is not mentioned here. The one involved in this prophecy is God Himself. Isaiah’s prophecy is about a sacrificial feast since fat is mentioned as well as wine. Both of these were offered as sacrifices to God at Jewish services.

This will be a universal feast since it will encompass all of humanity, including the Gentiles. And this will be a feast that will undo what happened at the Fall. Death will be swallowed up and will no longer torment humanity.

Now, it becomes clearer as to the significance of Jesus’ words that his time had not yet come. But there is more yet.

Notice the water-containing jars that are used to generate the wine. These are jars for Jewish rites of purification each holding between twenty and thirty gallons of water. Purification means making ourselves fit to be received by God, cleansed of our iniquities. We’ll see the importance of this shortly.

In Jewish Scriptures, the age of salvation would be characterized by an overabundance of wine and this is what we have in this case. Actually, according to Jewish sources outside the Scriptures, the Messianic age would be characterized by an overwhelming amount of wine.

There is more. By agreeing to provide the wine for the wedding, Jesus is undertaking another role – that of the Bridegroom. By asking for her son to supply the wine for the wedding, Mary has started a whole cascade of symbols and hidden meanings culminating in viewing Jesus as the bridegroom. Jesus is starting to affirm that the prophecies of the divine bridegroom – in Jewish Scriptures, God is the Bridegroom of His entire people – all this is being fulfilled in him. By this seemingly simple miracle of transforming water into wine, Jesus is slowly revealing who he is and why he has come.

The question then arises – when is Jesus’s ‘wedding’?

In the exchange at Cana, Jesus is telling Mary that it is not yet time for him to provide the Messianic wine. He will do this at the hour of his passion and death. Jesus will give the ‘wine’ of salvation at the Last Supper. At Cana he transforms water into wine but at the Last Supper he goes one step further and transforms the wine into his blood. And by doing this, Jesus is instituting the New Covenant that Jeremiah and others foretold – a new and final covenant between God and mankind. The Last Supper is the place of a New Sinai, a wedding, a union between believers and God. Notice at the Last Supper there are twelve apostles representing the twelve tribes of Israel and they, at the Last Supper, enter into a New Covenant, a new and saving agreement between God. The final word in the redemption and salvation of humanity is spoken here over the bread and wine.

Strange as it may seem to our ears, but this was not strange to Jews living during Jesus’ time. The Last Supper was completing the miracle at Cana, showing that the Last Supper was a Marriage Feast. The Jewish Passover itself was a wedding between God and His chosen people and this was sealed in a covenant. But this covenant was broken many times over and the time had come for a New Covenant sealed in Jesus’ blood. This is not mere playing with words and symbols – this is reality of the most profound type – an ontological change was occurring not just in mankind but in all of the created order. At the Last Supper, Jesus was solemnizing the Marriage between himself and what was to be his Church.

The preparatory work was started with John who spoke of the bridegroom coming and this bridegroom was not John but Jesus. John prepares the bride, Israel, for her acceptance by the bridegroom of Israel.

Mary, through her request that Jesus supply the wine for the wedding at Cana, was also calling on Jesus to become the bridegroom and Jesus responds by given a hint of what was to come in the Upper Chamber.

At the Last Supper, Jesus gives the greatest gift that he could give – himself – and this ‘betrothal’ was finally consummated on the cross. This wine of the Last Supper not only takes away sins but also enables mankind to unite – to be wed – to God in eternal life.

At a Jewish wedding, the groom was identified principally by the crown that he wore because he was king for that day. On the cross Jesus is ‘crowned’ with a crown of thorns, in a mock acknowledgement of him as a King of the Jesus, but also, in fact, as the bridegroom of all mankind. There is a major difference here between an ordinary bridegroom and Jesus. The bridegroom had an honor bestowed on him for the duration of one day, but Jesus is the bridegroom and king for eternity.

You may find some of the arguments in the letter difficult to assimilate but the main thrust I am trying to make is that unless we step into the mind-set of a first century Jew we will miss much that is presented in the Gospels. It is imperative for a fuller understanding of the Gospels to become more knowledgeable about the world that Jesus inhabited.

Much of our puzzlement about the Gospels arises from our disconnect with the Jewish culture of Jesus’s time. The two examples I have discussed with you – and there are many more that could be touched on – illustrate that a better grasp of Jewish thinking of that time will enlighten us and explain some of the difficult passages that may trouble us.

What the examples I have used show is the importance of the symbolism and the underlying meaning of passages. It is not just the words on their own – they are insufficient to explain to us the full picture of what is being spoken about, particularly since we are separated culturally – but we must try to recover the meaning and significance that is represented by the symbols. And also, we will see what those passages meant to the apostles and followers of Jesus. It is common that in literature, words have a surface meaning but hidden underneath are nuances that cannot be grasped simply by a superficial reading of words. Unfortunately, we have become so isolated from the first century Palestinian culture that we miss much of what is transpiring.

Sincerely,
Bar-Abbas