Page 34 - Life of Christ w videos

Day #2. John the Baptist on this day recognized publically who Jesus was. He wanted to endorse
Christ’s ministry again declaring, “Look, the Lamb of God!” Andrew and Peter, who heard this asked
Jesus where He was staying. They had found the Messiah.

Day #3. Jesus speaks of wanting to go to Galilee. This is not to commence His ministry there, but to
briefly visit Cana for a wedding feast. It is here that He asked Philip to follow Him. Philip, like Andrew
and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael who came to Jesus. Here Jesus
displayed an attribute of God. He knew everything about Nathanael, including that he was sitting under
a fig tree. Nathanael recognized that only God could have known this, so He declared Jesus as the Son
of God, the Messiah. Jesus then begins his journey to Galilee.

Day #4. Jesus travels from Judea to Galilee.

Day #5. The narration now skips to the fifth day, allowing time for travel to Galilee. Jesus arrived in
Cana, a small village a short distance north of Nazareth. The Gospel of John tells us of the first miracle
that Jesus performed at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Mary, Jesus’ mother, was attending a wedding
that had run out of wine. She came to Jesus and asked him to do something to help, and He tells the
servants to fill six jars with water (about 20 gallons each) and take it to the director of the feast. The
director of the wedding tastes what is given to him and is astonished at the fine quality of the wine.

The question that must be asked is, “Why did Jesus turn the water into wine?” Note that Jesus was
accompanied by his new disciples, Peter, Andrew, Philip and Nathanael. Jesus was not ready to openly
reveal who He was, except to these men and perhaps His mother. He turned the water into wine to
prove His real nature to them. The ultimate purpose of the miracle was to reveal His Glory, with the
result that those who accompanied Him would have faith in Him. The eternal, invisible God will be
visible to all the redeemed in the glorified God/Man Jesus Christ. In essence then, this miracle proved
more about the Someone He was than the something He did.

First Temple cleansing (John 2:13-25), Nicodemus (John 3:1-21), the Woman at the Well (John 4:4-26)

Jesus Cleanses the Temple. The Synoptics mention only one visit of Jesus to Jerusalem during His
ministry, but John mentions two trips, and, in each case, Jesus cleansed the temple. All four Gospel
writers report Jesus’ prophetic demonstration, which provoked direct challenges to His authority from
the religious leadership in Jerusalem. John records four Passovers within the ministry of Christ (John
2:13; John 6:4; John 12:1, John 5:1) and this first Passover marks Christ’s visit to the temple.

Jesus cleansed the temple of the moneychangers and sellers of merchandise because of His disgust at
what they had made of God’s house of prayer, and because of His zeal to purify it from the abuse of
ungodly men. Judea was under the rule of the Romans, and the money in current use was Roman coin.
However, the Jewish law required that every man should pay a tribute to the service of the sanctuary of
“half a shekel” (Exodus 30:11–16), a Jewish coin. It became, therefore, a matter of convenience to have
a place where the Roman coin could be exchanged for the Jewish half shekel. The moneychangers
provided this convenience but would demand a small sum for the exchange. Because so many
thousands of people came up to the great feasts, changing money was a very profitable business and
one that resulted in fraud and oppression of the poor. Money exchange was controlled by the
Sadducees who were making a tidy profit on the temple visitors.

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