The Word for today:
John 2:1-22
John 2:1-22
mark this: John 2:6-11 --
Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons...
...This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.
Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons...
...This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.
One of the major prophecies concerning Jesus is from Genesis 49:10:
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
(The scepter was a rod denoting sovereign authority. This prophecy tells us that the ultimate King must come from the tribe of Judah.)
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
(The scepter was a rod denoting sovereign authority. This prophecy tells us that the ultimate King must come from the tribe of Judah.)
And the prophecy continues into the next verse, Genesis 49:11:
Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes.
Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes.
What?
Some of the statements in the Bible require an understanding of the customs at the time they were written. So let's look at Genesis 49:11 in light of the customs of the day.
A donkey would never be tied to a grapevine, because there would soon be no grapes left! But the donkey in this prophecy is tied to the choicest vine. What a waste of the finest grapes.
And not only that, but this king to come through the line of Judah will do another unheard-of thing: he would wash his clothes in wine!
What is going on with all this waste?
What's going on isn't waste. It is a description of a new day, a day of God's superabundant provision--a day when the choicest grapes will be so common that we'll tie the donkey to the vine; a day when wine will be as common as washwater.
But was there ever a day when wine was as washwater?
The day arrived in John chapter 2, when Jesus turned 6 casks--each holding 20 to 30 gallons of washwater--into the choicest wine.
The disciples knew what they were seeing. They knew its prophetic significance. It was an unmistakable pronouncement to His disciples that here was the promised King.
God's superabundant provision during His first coming would be the blood of the Son of God, symbolized from Melchizedek to the Lord's Supper by wine. It would wash our sins away.
At Jesus' Second Coming--during the Millennial reign yet to come--God's superabundance will be literally fulfilled, when the choicest wine will be as common as washwater.
Jesus' orchestration of His first miracle drew from the past, projected into the future, and centered on the cross--while harmonizing the poetic, prophetic, literal, symbolic, and redemptive notes of scripture.
An engagement gift to His Bride, it is the poetry of blood and wine, a love song so exquisite that it can only be divine.
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