Lent Devotionals – Day 3

John 2: 1 – 23:

In today’s passage, we come across two very famous and poignant stories. Both, however, show very different characteristics of Jesus and yet both also pertain to His goodness and His glory.

The first is His first recorded miracle in the gospel of John: turning water into wine. At a wedding in Cana, rather embarrassingly, the hosts had ran out of wine – this is a particularly shameful act in the culture of that time where hospitality and generosity were virtues that must be upheld with the highest of dignity.

Jesus asks for six stone jars to be filled with water and then, when the master of the banquet tastes the water, he realises that, miraculously, it has turned into wine.

The second story comes in the temple, the place that is seen as the sacred location that contains God’s presence. When Jesus enters, he sees that it has become a marketplace, bursting with stalls ran by greedy salesmen and market dealers, far from the intention of what the temple was built for.

In a spit of rage, Jesus makes a whip, turns over their tables, and drives out all of the cattle, the sheep and anyone who was selling produce.

Both these stories, however disparaging they may seem, point to the holiness of Jesus. The first shows his abundance. The second shows his anger. Neither are sinful. Both are wholly perfect.

Like in turning water into the best wine, Jesus is abundantly generous in the gifts that he gives us, so much so that He will lay down His life for ours, taking our sin and giving us grace and forgiveness for all of our wrongdoings.

That does not mean that Jesus is soft, easily trodden over and weak. In the second story, He shows how anger can be truly righteous. When channelled correctly, towards the enacting of the glory of God, upholding His name and his holiness, anger can be righteous.

Becoming riled about social injustice, about poverty, about inequality or slavery is a God-given characteristic. We have been moulded in His image to be vehemently passionate to see His kingdom come to Earth in all its glory, just as Jesus showed in John 2.

Jesus is abundantly generous and graceful. Jesus, when the time calls for it, is also perfectly angry. We are called to replicate the balance between these two characteristics, however fine a line that may be.