The Servants Knew

The Servants Knew.  Probably neither advisable nor edifying, but for argument’s sake, if it were possible to hear a representative cross-section of the prayers of Christians, what do we ask of the Lord? Filtering out requests for the effectiveness of weight-loss prescriptions and for celebrity coaches dressed in Carolina blue to hurry up and retire already, might our typical prayer somewhat echo Isaiah 64:1? “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence.” When we pray, how often do we ask for dinner and a show? We want a front row seat when God wows the world and fills our churches with new converts, which are certainly right and good to pray. But Jesus shows us that a different kind of front row seat exists for catching a different kind of glimpse at the way God works. Jesus shows his servants what he is doing. 

In the first of seven miraculous signs chronicled in the Gospel of John, Jesus turned water into wine (John 2:1-12). The miracle seems almost reluctant … almost. Jesus did not call for a meeting but was invited to a wedding with his disciples (John 2:2). Knowing the unpublicized scoop about Jesus’ identity, Jesus’ mother seems to suggest that he avert a party failure since “they have no wine” (John 2:3). But Jesus is not reluctant; he is focused on a different audience which his mother could not perceive. Preventing party embarrassment isn’t the point. The wine is secondary. The buzzed crowd never gets a sermon. It is never explained to the master of the feast what Jesus did, or why, or how he did it, though he marveled at the unconventional social practice of keeping the best wine for last, an advantage which he did not activate but might have stolen the credit (John 2:10). All the speaking and doing that Jesus does happens in the periphery, because: “My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4).

“Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, ‘Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.’ So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now’” (John 2:6-10).

Hidden from general view, Jesus gives a direct blessing to the servants. It is they who Jesus instructs. It is they who fill the jars. It is they who draw out some water-turned-wine for the maître d’. It is they who knew “where it came from” (2:9). The servants, not the scholars, get to see how God works. The servants, not the socialites, have a role to fill. The servants, not the spectators, witness when Jesus “manifested his glory” (John 2:11) while the others merely marvel at the taste of the wine and the lateness of the hour. The servants alone know!