John 2 - How long should it take to erect a temple? 46 years? 3 days?

John 2 is a short chapter – 5 minutes of reading tops. It relates only two incidents: the wedding at Cana where Jesus is purported to have turned water into wine and the cleansing of the temple, the latter appearing surprisingly at what would appear to be the beginning of his ministry; the other gospels place it near the end.

I have occasionally quipped that if Jesus had been born into the Mennonite congregation of my youth, he would likely have arrived at such a wedding early and turned the wine there into water. Wine was objecta non grata at Eigenheim weddings . . . and still is.

We could debate the significance of this miracle, and one is tempted to do so. John makes the points that his mother has confidence in his ability to help the host out of an embarrassing situation, that the jars Jesus had filled in order to produce the new wine were jars normally used for ritual cleansing, that the water-into-wine event “was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him,” This latter likely forms John's reason for including the story: Jesus can be no Christ, no Messiah, unless he can demonstrate extraordinary power and authority, can he?

Signs and wonders: Jesus himself rebukes his followers and critics for founding faith on signs and wonders. Matthew 16:4, for instance: “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” 

Rest assured, Jesus didn't come down to earth to put on magic shows; there were plenty of magicians out in public already competing for supremacy in that area . . . and still are. No surprise, though, that in the pre-early church, the talk among followers and potential followers would touch on Jesus' supremacy in the miracles area as being a good reason to trust in his power and authority.

But water into wine? Really?

And then Jesus takes exception to the goings-on in the temple and puts on a one-man demonstration to emphasize his displeasure. I try to imagine a present-day equivalent to this demonstration. A practice in my church, for instance, of producing classy bulletins with photos, plenty of news and opinion, announcements and illustrations, all produced by a private printer who sells them outside the church, then inside the foyer where a booth for that purpose is allowed to be set up. Eventually, the “marketplace in the foyer” becomes accepted and other products, other vendors are added and gradually, subtly, the purpose of the foyer as a gathering place preparatory to worship is eroded.

We don't think of our church as a temple, as God's dwelling place to which pilgrimages are made, where sin-offerings are accepted, etc. A shift happens in Jesus response to yet another challenge from the temple leadership: by what authority are you doing this? Jesus replies with an apparent non sequitur: tear this temple down and I'll rebuild it in three days. (John indicates that this temple refers to Jesus' body and not to the worship structure that took 46 years to erect.)

I'm not sure John got this right; had Jesus intended to give a real answer to a real question, the 3 day rebuilding would have been a claim to his unlimited authority and power, an eventuality that never saw literal fruition in Jesus' lifetime (partly because it was rendered hypothetically) . . . or to today, where the only remaining part of the temple is the wailing wall, effectively a remnant of the temple's foundation.

But the metaphorical implication is clear nevertheless: Faith in Christ replaces reliance on temple intercession; the gospel is not just for Jerusalem, not just for the temple crowd anymore.

The anchor has been pulled up, the good news is being set free.

Nevertheless, many who choose to follow Jesus in response to the Passover weekend events do so because of the signs and wonders he performs. It's significant that John reports Jesus turning away from such followers, knowing, I presume, that the foundation on which their belief is founded will prove them in the end to have been fair-weather friends. “But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.”