EmmDev 2015-06-18 [John's Portraits of Christ] 2. Son of Man

2. Son of Man

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine." 4 "Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time has not yet come." John2:1-4

We know the story of the wedding feast in Cana where Jesus turns water into wine to rescue a young couple from the embarrassment of being bad hosts. It is the first of Jesus' public miracles recorded by John (and in his gospel John only records seven miracles).

At the end of ch.1, just before this account, Jesus tells Nathaniel that he will see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Then John takes us straight into the wedding feast account and he will go on to use this phrase a dozen times.

What does the phrase mean?
In the Old Testament the phrase also appears often in the book of Ezekial and is commonly translated "mortal man". This gives us a useful insight: The idea behind "Son of Man" is someone who is very very human. Someone who is connected to the frailty and mortality of human kind.

When used of Jesus the phrase is even more poignant because, although He takes on our humanity, He does so without the self-centredness that plagues our sin-broken humanness. Mark reminds us that the "Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45)

Jesus and all his disciples have been invited to the wedding. His disciples were a rag-tag bunch, fisherman, tax-collectors and zealots and yet Jesus was so loved by this couple that they invited his disciples too. "If they're good enough to be his disciples then they're welcome at our wedding." This gives us a picture of the attractive humanity of Jesus.

Jesus' apparent resistance to helping is only apparent, because He provides abundant wine for the wedding. The issue is that He is thinking of another wedding, where the Church is the Bride and He is the Groom. To provide wine for that wedding was going to cost His body and blood and Jesus is very aware of that cost. It's a time that He knows is coming.

Son of Man.
Really human.
Attractively human.
Unselfishly human.
Giving this couple wine for their celebration knowing that one day He will pay a big price.