From Cana to Cana

LET’S KNOW THE BIBLE

In Cana of Galilee Jesus performed the archetype of the signs. We have seen how the narration of that episode is symbolic, that is, significant in communicating an important message. Jesus brings to fulfillment the covenant. Now, in the first part of the Gospel according to John, the one usually called the book of signs, we note that the first two signs are both set in Cana of Galilee. The first is well known that of the wedding. We find it at the beginning of chapter 2, but also the second sign explicitly mentioned as such by the evangelist, we find it at the end of chapter 4.

The second sign of Cana concerns a son. There is a royal official who is in Capernaum and goes to Jesus who is in Cana. He meets him and asks him to come down to heal his dying son. Jesus simply tells him, “Go; your son will live.” That man believed in the word of Jesus, and he returned. The next day he met the servants who told him your son lives. He asked what time he started to feel better, and they tell him, the seventh hour.

The translator says it is ‘after one hour of midday, but John tells them seventh hour according to the way of calculating the hours at that time. The seven is a number of fulfillment, of perfection, while the wedding of Cana is characterized by six, the sixth day, six jars, and the second sign of Cana is characterized by the seven. The father understood the very hour in which Jesus said your son will live. The hour has not yet come, he said at Cana, and it is at the seventh hour when the son lives.

In the second sign of Cana, one more thing is said. In the first sign, the object is a material reality, the water becomes wine. In the second sign of Cana instead, the object of the sign is a human person, the son of whom he is said ‘live’ three times. Healing is not so much emphasized as living. The son lives.

Let us put these two stories together and look at them closely. The first sign shows Jesus offering excellent wine from pure water. We said it is a sign of the renewal of the covenant. It does not substitute or abolish the old but completes it, completes the ancient covenant with the gift of his own life. In the second sign, there is the reminder of the living son, that is, in what consists of the new covenant brought by Jesus? In the life given to children, the people become sons and daughters and have the possibility of living, living in a full and perfect relationship with God the father.

Two signs at Cana serve the narrator to offer two beginnings. ‘Caná’ in Hebrew is a verb and indicates the foundation. It is foundation action performed by Jesus in Cana, that is, he lays a foundation, provides a beginning to an action. The evangelist narrates some episodes starting from Cana saying that Jesus moves to Jerusalem where he has a confrontation with the temple authorities. Then in Jerusalem, he meets Nicodemus, with whom he talks about the law, the spirit. Then John the Baptist is presented who retires to leave room for Jesus. Finally, after Jesus has passed through Samaria and met the Samaritan woman talking about the place of worship and announcing the gift of the Spirit, he returns to Cana of Galilee, where he had changed water into wine. And in this way begins the second sign which is a new foundation of a new narrative segment.

We can affirm that chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the Gospel according to John are framed by a geographical name, Cana of Galilee, at the beginning and at end. Both marked by a sign performed by Jesus, they constitute a narrative unit. And by analyzing the various episodes well, we recognize that at the center of the interest of each episode there is an institution of Israel.

Therefore, we could call this narrative section of John ‘the cycle of institutions’ in which Jesus presents himself as the one who changes, renews, brings to completion. The first sign showed the renewal of the covenant. Jesus fulfills the covenant commitment but in a new and extraordinarily superior way. The second episode of this series takes Jesus to Jerusalem and shows an issue he has with the authorities in Jerusalem. He tells them, “destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up.” The Jews at this time are the Jews as opponents of Jesus, not all Jews in general, but in particular that highly polemical group against Jesus. The Jews, therefore, reject his position, deride him, consider him blasphemous. It took 46 years to build this temple, and you will resurrect it in three days? But they did not understand the meaning intended by Jesus.

In this episode, we have one of the usual intrusions of the narrator. In verses 21 and following, the narrator opens a parenthesis and says: “he spoke of the temple of his body.” First of all, he explains the meaning. He is afraid that the reader does not understand the symbol of the temple destroyed and reconstructed. So, he intervenes to say, Jesus meant to speak of his body. He calls it a temple, because the body of Jesus is the temple of God’s presence, not the brick building of Jerusalem. It is the center of the dwelling of God, the body of Christ. The evangelist still specifies “when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this and believed the Scripture and the word said by Jesus.”

We can say that for the moment the disciples memorized the fact but did not understand its meaning. John was present at that occasion; we said he was a young man, probably from a priestly family linked to Jerusalem, therefore an expert in these realities of the temple. He heard that phrase that sounded strange to him; he did not understand, but he remembered it. And after the resurrection that occurred on the third day, he understood that there was a connection. John understood later that Jesus meant to speak about his body that day. Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up it in three days. They understood those words after remembering the saying, and then they also understood the Scripture.

The Scripture spoke of a new temple, of a reconstruction and did not simply mean a new structure, building. But he spoke of a personal priesthood, of a new cult not done with animal victims but with the offering of oneself. And in that way, John understands that Jesus fulfilled all the expectations on the temple, on the priesthood, on the sacrifices. The event of his death and resurrection during three days of Passover is the fulfillment of that history. They understood it after Easter, several years after Easter. But John does not write at that time. He wrote decades later and reflected on it for 70 years and this text came to be a profound spiritual formulation of the episode. So, in Cana, Jesus announced the new covenant; in Jerusalem, he announced the new temple, the covenant is his blood; the temple is his body.

The third episode, always in Jerusalem, is at the time of Passover, and this placement to the Passover feast is important; Jesus meets an older man, a teacher in Israel, a man who is seeking, who comes to him at night. It is not said why he goes at night, but it seems very easy to understand his desire not to be seen. Nicodemus secretly presented himself to Jesus and seeks a dialogue with Jesus. He begins by giving him compliments, a kind of ‘captatio benevolentia’ (earning goodwill). He tells him: “I know you are a man from God because you could not do the signs you do if God were not with you.” Jesus answers him in an enigmatic way. “Unless one is born from above, one cannot see the kingdom of God.” In Greek, an adverb that is translated ‘from above’ is ‘ἄνωθεν’ = ‘anozen,’ which could also be translated ‘again.’

The expression is ambiguous. Jesus suddenly says to the old Nicodemus: if one is not born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. If one is not born from above. Being born again means being born by the grace of God, by an intervention of a new creation. It is not simply a repetition… how are we born again? This is what Nicodemus asks himself. How do I do that when I am old, Can I perhaps go back into my mother’s womb and be given birth a second time? Smiling, Jesus tells him, you are a teacher in Israel, but you don’t remember the prophet Ezekiel, the prophet Jeremiah when they spoke of the new heart, of the new covenant, of the renewal that God will bring.

He does not properly quote these texts. It is I who have interpreted. What Jesus means is that a master of Israel who has read the ancient scriptures should know that God’s plan is precisely about this renewal of the heart. To say ‘again’ or ‘from above’ does not change the perspective. They are the two aspects of that one word that indicates a novelty. It is not simply a question of changing a doctrine, it is a question of being reborn. It takes a new generation, and this new generation is possible only through the gift of the Spirit.

The old Pharisee Nicodemus who goes to Jesus at night is the image of the law, of a law scrupulously observed but simply with one’s strength. This legal observance does not allow an outburst of novelty, does not save, does not open the heart to new life. There is a need for a creative work of God. The law is not enough for salvation, the Spirit of God is necessary. And here Nicodemus is quiet, the dialogue ends, or rather it becomes a monologue.

Jesus continues his discourse and speaks at length, revealing the meaning of his story. In fact, “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him would not be lost but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.” It is a revelation of the meaning of his mission. Jesus presents himself as the Son sent by the Father not to make a judgment but to save, and this salvation takes place through faith. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned; God does not punish him, but whoever does not believe is ruined by himself. By not believing, a person rules himself out of the possibility of salvation. The judgment is this: “the light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light.”

Jesus presents himself as a light that breaks into the world, shows the dirt that is there. By opening a window in a dimly lit room, letting in the light, you notice the dirt. So once you have seen the disorder and dirt, it is better to make it dark again by turning off the light and closing the shutters, and you can no longer see anything, or you need to clean up. Christ came into the world as a light that allows us to see but to see the limits of man. While sunlight simply allows you to see the dirt but does not help to remove it, and it must be the person who must engage in removing the dirt.

Here is a different announcement because the Christ who comes as light and reveals man’s limit is the one who gives man the possibility of overcoming the limit if man accepts. The risk is that they love darkness more than light by closing the shutters and turning off the light, the dirt is not visible. And it appears to be clean. We pretend to be healthy, close our eyes, and we do not see the problem. If, instead, we notice the problem thanks to Jesus, the limit of man is highlighted. In him, there is the possibility of salvation.

How does this salvation come about? Jesus anticipates it with an image of the Old Testament. “As Moses raised the serpent in the desert so the Son of man must be raised up so that anyone who believes in him has eternal life.” Remember that Moses is mentioned in the book of Numbers, chapter 21. He built a bronze serpent, placed on a rod so that those who were bitten by poisonous snakes, looking at that figure were healed. The bronze snake depicts the animals that kill, but looking at it objectively, it saves. Raising the serpent becomes a sign of what will be done to Jesus who will be raised on the scaffold of the cross but will also be raised to the glory of God. It means to raise someone to the throne; it also means to hang him and kill him. The cross will be the raising of Jesus with the two meanings: he is truly killed, but the cross is the throne on which Christ reigns and becomes king and judge of the universe. The serpent that causes death objectified and raised up becomes a source of salvation.

After all, the death of Jesus is an atrocious evil; it is a very great injustice, it is the killing of the only innocent, it is an atrocious judicial error; therefore, the death of the innocent is evil, yet the meaning is overturned by how Jesus faced that unfair judgment and by his way of facing the impious death of the cross, salvation is born. Evil hangs from the wood, and salvation flows from Jesus. Looking at the one they have pierced is the source of salvation. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that the law of the Pharisees is not enough; it is good and beautiful, we must observe it, respect it, but it is not enough. It takes the Spirit; it takes a transformation of the heart.

It is necessary to be born again, and who will give the Spirit? The Son raised on the cross. And Nicodemus must accept to be born again, to pass from the law to the gift of the Spirit. Immediately after, we find an episode in which John the Baptist withdraws and tells the disciples that Jesus is the bridegroom while he compares himself to the friend, to the one who prepared the wedding. Now is time for John to leave.

We understood it by reading the wedding at Cana that the bridegroom is Jesus. Now John the Baptist tells us: Jesus is not only the lamb of God, but he is the bridegroom and therefore, the mediators withdraw. By now, the bridegroom is present, a new covenant, a new temple, a new law which is the Spirit, overcoming the mediators with the presence of God himself. Finally, arriving in Samaria, he talks with the Samaritan woman about the place of worship: Where is God worshiped? In the spirit of truth, Jesus says.

And thus, we complete the itinerary by arriving back in Cana. Jesus brings to fulfillment the institutions of Israel. He does not abolish them, perfects them; he realizes the prophecies in him are fulfilled. Jesus is the newness that fulfills the promises.