CHAPTER 6. DISTANTIATION: THE EXEGETICAL MOVE ON THE SELECTED TEXTS IN JOHN
6.1 Jesus’ mother at the Cana wedding: John 2:1-12
6.1.1 Location of John 2:1-12 in the Fourth Gospel
The structure of the Gospel of John has been delineated in various ways by scholars who identify different parts that make up this Gospel. For instance, the wedding at Cana is found in the part designated as the revelation of Doxa (glory) to the world, known as the Book of Signs. Besides the changing of water into wine, this part reports six other signs:
the healing of the official’s son (4:46-52), the healing of the paralytic (5:1-9), the multiplication of loaves (6:1-14), the walking on water (6:16-21), the healing of the blind man (9:1-12) and the raising of Lazarus (11:17-47). Ridderbos considers the word sign
“shmei/on“ in John as linked with wonders “te,rata”. For him the term “sign” has the meaning of ‘miraculous act’ (Ridderbos 1997:113). For Walvoord, a miracle is also a
‘wonder’ “te,raj”, a ‘power’ “du,namij”, and a ‘strange event’ “para,doxoj”. Walvoord believes, however, that the Fourth Gospel writer used the word ‘sign’ “shmei/on” (v.11) because “he was seeking to draw attention away from the miracles and to point rather to their significance (Walvoord and Zuck 1983:278). Hendriksen notes, however, that the term “shmei/on” is used more often by John than the other Gospel writers. He believes that the term “sign” has a deep meaning, signifying a physical illustration of a spiritual principle determined by the context. But he emphasizes one thing about the sign: he argues that the sign points away from itself to the one who performs it (Hendriksen 1979:117). Here I am in substantial agreement with Walvood and Hendriksen.
These signs work rhetorically as credentials supporting the wonderworker’s claim to enjoy God’s favour (Neyrey 2007:65). The narrative about the first sign fits well into this purpose as confirmed by the suggested its outcome (verse 11). Before examining the sign itself, the next section surveys its setting.
139 6.1.2. Setting of John 2:1-12
The present study approaches the story from the perspective of conflict resolution. It is therefore important to pay attention to the setting of the story because, as Vlassenroot indicates, conflict is better understood in its social setting. The context of the conflict helps to know its roots and understand why and how people turn to it (Vlassenroot 2006:49). The information about the geographical location matters a great deal for the understanding of the role of Jesus’ mother, particularly for Rwandan readers. The features of the setting of this story include the geographical setting, the time setting and the literary setting.
6.1.2.1 Geographical setting of John 2:1-12
Features of the geographical setting in this narrative are introduced in terms of Malbon’s literary question ‘where?’ The geographical setting is a key factor in entering the world of the text, which is its mimetic axis of representation (Fowler 1991:55).2
2 The mimetic axis of representation and the rhetorical axis of communication are two metaphors of axis developed by Paul Hernadi (1976). However, these are not the innovation of Hernadi. They were the product of Abraham, and were later developed by Jacobson. Hernadi then picked up and clarified the two intersecting axes of the diagram. He identified them as the rhetoric axis of communication and mimetic axis of representation (Fowler 1991:55-56). Thus, the mimetic axis of representation in the narrative criticism together with the use of “where” suggested by Malbon’s narrative criticism serve as key factors in entering the world of the text, pointing to geographical features needed for the understanding of our texts.
The narrator specifies that the event took place at Cana of Galilee. In the New Testament, Cana is only mentioned in the Fourth Gospel; there is no mention of it in the synoptic gospels. The Fourth Gospel reports two miracles by Jesus at Cana. The first happened in this wedding;
the second was the healing of the official’s son whom Jesus healed from a distance without touching him (John 4:46-50). Howard-Brook observes that the geographical site of Cana is unique to the Fourth Gospel, mentioned in 2:1-11, in 4:46-54 and in 21:2 as the home of Nathanael (Howard-Brook 1994:77). Cana is identified as a place where the glory of the Son of man took shape in the miracle of the abundance of wine (Ridderbos 1997:97).
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The exact location of Cana where the wedding took place is not agreed upon by scholars.
In Brown’s view, four villages in Galilee are candidates for the biblical Cana: Kafr Kanna, Kenet-Jalil, Ain Kana and Qana Lebanone (Brown 1984:98). But the details of the true Cana among the suggested four regions is not the real concern of this work. The significance of Cana for this work results from its being located, not in a big city, but in a small town in Galilee which may be viewed as conservative in terms of culture. Howard- Brook agrees that not much is said about the Cana location but he also situates it in the region of Galilee and locates it in a rural area far away from the city of Jerusalem. He states, “Jesus begins his activity not in the headquarters of the Law, not in the centre of religious world of Israel, but on the obscure margins, hidden, quiet, yet inviting”
(Howard-Brook 1994: 78).
Besides the geographical location, a brief examination into the circumstances that surround the text and/or are involved in the text is also needed. These circumstances or events provide the immediate context or literary setting of the text.
6.1.2.2 Literary setting and rhetoric of John 2:1-12
At the beginning of the gospel, the prologue in chapter one, Jesus is passive. He begins to be active from John 1:37. The attention that the narrator reserves for the selection of the disciples, and later on, their presence at the wedding (John 2:2), and the effect of the sign upon them displays their importance for this text. The selection of the disciples in chapter one prepares for the Cana sign at the beginning of John chapter two. The story of the Cana wedding in John 2:1-12 is linked chronologically and materially to the events narrated in the preceding pericopes (1:19-51) by the phrase on “Kai. th/| h`me,ra| th/| tri,th”:
and on the third day. The narrator seems to suggest that the wedding in Cana reported in the story occurred on the third day after the events narrated in 1:43-51. In John 2:1-12, Jesus performs a sign which stirs the faith of the disciples. The narrator’s statement:
“This is the beginning of the signs Jesus did in Cana and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in Him” (verse 11), emphasizes the disciples’ new way of knowing their master because of the sign. The sign of the water turned into wine at Cana marks a start with what in the preceding pericope, John 1:50-51, Jesus had offered in prospect as
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“great things”. Köstenberger seems to agree with the argument by suggesting that the events of 1:19-2:12 are perceived as forming a coherent unit describing the first week of Jesus’ ministry (Köstenberger 2004: 89).
The wedding story is also linked with a series of accounts described as a great cycle which begins at Cana, proceeds via Capernaum to Jerusalem and returns via Samaria to Cana (Ridderbos 1997:97). These stories report the filling of the old jars of ritual purification with the new wine (verses 6-9), immediately followed by the Temple narrative where a statement alludes to the destruction of the Temple and its replacement by the body of the newly risen Lord (John 19-21). This “replacement theme” appears in the Nicodemus story where Jesus introduces the idea of new birth for new creation (3:1- 21) as well as in the contrast between the water of Jacob’s well and the living water from Christ, and the worship of Jerusalem and Gerizim with the worship “in spirit and in truth”
(4:1-24). The “replacement theme” in these successive stories conveys what Paul states in 2 Corinthians 5:15 - that the old has gone, the new has come (Carson 1991:166).
By describing the Cana story as the beginning of signs (verse 11), the narrator implies that this story is to be connected to the signs that will follow. Equally significant is Jesus’
reference to his hour, the first of nine references to Jesus’ hour/time reported in this Gospel (Kruse 2003:62). The reference to hour in the wedding story is seen as an internal prolepsis, referring to a theme that will be developed later, or to an event that will occur later in the narrative (Carson 1991:171). Jesus’ hour is generally understood to refer to the time of his suffering, death, resurrection and exaltation to glory (Köstenberger 2004:95). The mention of the hour here alerts the reader to anticipate the arrival of Jesus’
time at a later point in the narrative. It links the present story to the stories that develop the same theme in the “book of signs” (7:6, 8, 30; 8:20) and beyond (12:23; 13:1) especially in the farewell discourse (16:21; 17:1).
The role of Jesus’ disciples as witnesses of his glory (1:14, 51), and thus founders of the coming church (cf. 20:31), is confirmed emphatically here (2:11) (Ridderbos 1997:99).
Moreover, the author creates a sense of familiarity with Jesus’ divine nature, later
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referred to when Jesus is active in Jerusalem (verses 15-16). The author uses the Cana sign to prepare the reader to understand the power of Jesus who, in the coming story will confront the sellers in the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus’ glory manifested at Cana prepares the reader to understand his bold attitude at the cleansing of the Temple. Moreover, the wedding sign, placed before the sign in Jerusalem, allows Jesus to secure the trust of his disciples before he faces the challenges of the leaders (2:13-23). The focus of the present study is on the wedding sign reported in John 2:1-12 and the significance of the role played there by the mother of Jesus. The analysis of this text requires paying attention to its inner structure.