Shabbat shalom and welcome back to the third segment of Part 2 of our series, Reconstructing the Johanine Community in which we are unravelling the mystery of the marriage at Cana. I had intended today's message to be the last segment but I have had to subdivide it further and create a fourth segment next week. The material is so deep that I have to unpack each part carefully. This is hard work but it will absolutely be worth it in the end. What we cover today will contain a number of mini-studies that could conceivably one day become separate studies of their own.

We've been on a grand hunt for pieces of the firstborn puzzle dotted throughout the Gospel of John in particular but also elsewhere in the New Testament and are beginning to see a big - nay, a huge - connection between the Mystical Marriage of Messiah (MMM) or Holy Echad Marriage (HEM) and the Resurrection with related connections to various sacred meals from the Passover meal to the symbolic Master's Supper to the Sukkot or Marriage Supper of the Lamb, to companionship, the Deaconate, the Body of Christ, stone jars, and much, much more. John is a maestro when it comes to coordinating a symphony of complex symbols and layers of meaning that together, especially at their various intersection points when we are confronted by pairs of apparent opposites, lead us to some of the greatest mysteries of the Creator. The truths contained within the various sets of these symbols, brought together and integrated, are purposefully concealed so that only the elect can find them, see their inter-connectedness, and rejoice. The spiritually unregenerated, those who live by the flesh and not the Ruach (Spirit), can never understand what I wish to present and I fully expect them to veer away at some point (if some haven't done so already) and go away. Perhaps some will return another time once they have digested what they can manage right now, and that's ok. There are times and seasons for everything. It took me my whole life to start finally understanding the Book of Revelation.

Today's message will challenge a lot of people as it has in the past when I have brought up the same subject material. I have wrestled long and hard as to how much I should share with you today, and even whether it's in fact the right time, so I am not presenting this lightly. As this may be my last oppostunity to do so, I am anxious to get this right. The actual integration of all the symbols can only be accomplished inwardly so no amount of exposition on my part will actually ever explain the resultant picture in any case because everyone must have a personal revelation on these matters, just as Peter, Martha and Nathanael did concerning the messiahship of Yah'shua (Jesus), because our Father in Heaven alone can reveal these things. I can only point in the direction of the full understanding as I don't even know the full picture myself. To do today's material justice we would need several weeks carefully going through all the Scrptures and historical data on the subject, time I just don't have as I am on a timetable to get my life's work finished before I go home. I have, therefore, left a reading list at the end of today's sermon for those who would like to examine the subject more thoroughly which I encourage you to look at. Today's topic is but one of many in the Johannine tradition.

Many, many years ago when I was undergoing my training in the army as a cadet I learned an important object lesson about risk-taking. Our commanding officer was a very affable Major, forgetful and eccentric at times. I got on famously with him. He could be fun or terrifying, depending what mood he was in. There was nothing he loved more than field exercises, especially when we went abroad as we did once to Germany, a country he loved and whose language he spoke fluently. We used to call him Major Thunderflash because of his fondness of thunderflashes. For those of you who don't know what thunderflashes are, these were originally 'sound bombs' or 'flash grenades' designed to disorient an enemy's senses but came to be used in training exercises too. Upon detonation by the lighting of a fuse, a blinding flash of light and an extremely loud 'bang' were produced to the great discomfort of anyone in the vicinity. And if one landed near you, it could knock you senseless and you wouldn't be able to hear for some time afterwards. They created, if you like, non-lethal explosions designed to mimic exploding shells and grenades on the battlefield. The Major seemed to get a kick out of flushing us out from our positions of concealment by lobbing these long thunderflash sticks in any bush or clump of trees that might have been hiding soldiers - us. He would race through the Lüneberger Heide or wherever we were exercising in his jeep lighting thunderflashes and lobbing them at us with a grin on his face. I can tell you, we kept our heads low when we heard his jeep approaching. Mind you, we had our own fun and got up to mischief using blank rifle cartridges to propell sticks and stones rammed down our gun barrels but that's a story for another time.

I mention this introduction to the Major's unique character merely to illustrate another incident, this time in England at a place call Leith Hill in Surrey. He ordered a large matt green army lorry that rattled like a large empty can and stashed a very long rope, a helmet, a full backpack and a ·303 rifle at the back of it. We had no idea what he was up to. I, as the senior NCO, was not briefed as I ought to have been. I was told to assemble the platoon and to embark on the lorry which then trundled off from the armoury into the countryside, the Major at the wheel. We arrived at a very rocky area near the summit of the hill and were ordered to disembark. 'What was he up to?' we wondered. The Major was in a cheerful mood with a mischievous look on his face and a glint in his eyes, as though he were expecting to have a lot of fun. I saw what I thought was the look of thunderflashes in his eyes and thought to myself, 'Uh-oh, this is not going to be good.' And I was right...but not because of thunderflashes this time. We were led to the edge of a cliff - not a big one, mind you, but enough to make the head of anyone who might suffer from vertigo start swimming. Then I realised what he had in mind. We were going to climb down the cliff with that rope, backpack and tin hat and then scale it...one at a time.

Now you have got to understand that we had never been trained in climbing, let alone with a backpack on our back on and a rifle strung over our shoulder. But the Major must have had a bout of Alzheimers or something because he was quite convinced we had. My troops were scared. Truth told, so was I, although I reassured myself as senior NCO I could remain at the top of the cliff and simply help the lads kit up and go over the edge. But I was not at all prepared for what came next. "Sergeant-major (that was me)," he barked, "show them how it's done!" 'Who, me??' I thought to myself. I swallowed hard and then panicked as all the eyes of the lads were turned on me for reassurance this could in fact be done without breaking our necks. I couldn't tell the Major we hadn't been trained to do this (myself included) as I would have lost face and been seen as a coward unfit to lead. Remember these boys were 16, 17, 18 year-olds, mostly from comfortable middle class backrounds like myself, the most dangerous thing any of us had done was to play cricket. It's at moments like this that you discover whether you are leadership material or not. I was handed a Brodie helmet, last used during the First World War by the looks of the sad condition it was in. If you know what a Canadian Mountie's hat looks like, it was a bit like that but made of metal and with a much smaller rim. The fact that it had whopping great dents in it in the sides (like the Mountie's or a fedora hat, or like Dynamite's Harry's helmet in Olsen Banden for the Norwegians among you) did not reassure me that my head would be protected, but I obediently strapped it on anyway, tilting it a little to the side and wearing a fake smile in order to show a little bravado and so encourage the lads. "That's not going to help much if I fall," I thought to myself gloomily, and peered down to the bottom of the cliff. "That's a long way to fall," I thought, and braced myself for my fate. There was no time to contemplate falling to my death. I had to make a snap decision and lead.

Anyway, I had no choice in the matter. I was the senior Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) and it was my duty to lead. I think the Major saw me hesitate and was not amused but I got a grip of myself. You have to understand we had no fancy mountaineer safety devices, no rappelle, just a double rope knotted at one end. The Major took me aside to 'remind' me of what to do, and then I went over the side, my heart in my throat. It was a clumsy descent. I'm glad I had that helmet on as loose earth and rocks fell onto my head and bounced off down into the ravine below. I got to the bottom in one piece, heart beating furiously, and was ordered by the Major to climb back up to see off the rest of the troop one at a time. More loose earth and rocks followed. That took a long time, I can tell you. Anyway, I made it back up to the top, smiled at the lads to assure them it was a piece of cake, and with a huge sigh of relief watched them each get baptised in earth and rock too. We were all changed after that experience, and doubtless for the better, I might add.

Now I mention this story by way of introduction to today's message simply to point out that sometimes we must face cliffs in life, cliffs we never dreamed we would have to go down or climb up. And, yes, they're scary, especially if like me, you haven't been prepared properly. The Major had forgotten we had never been trained but you don't argue with officers. There will be times Yahweh will tell you to do things you never dreamed of in your wildest imagination you would be called upon to to do or able to do, like an Anglican brother who was commanded by Yahweh to smuggle Bibles into Communist China, alone, without being able to speak a word of Chinese, but you have to obey. He obeyed, experienced numerous miracles, including the true gift of tongues when he spoke Mandarin fluently on a train in order to witness.

As one called to prepare the Remnant I must, at times, confront people with hard, inconvenient truths - truths they would rather not hear, and truths they often resist and oppose vehemently because of false tradition. Remembering my own experience on Leith Hill, I have always made a special effort to try and prepare my students in advance by dropping hints along the way over a long period of time. With few exceptions, the silent reaction has usually been, 'Well, ok, I can accept the theory but I'll never be called upon to do this because it's for way in the future,' and so the teaching gets mentally pushed aside and forgotten...until I, or someone else, bring it up again. To be honest, there are many things I have been called to say I never wanted to say because I knew there would be a ferocious backlash. Most Christians here in Sweden and Norway won't speak to me because they think of me as a heretic. It's been a lonely walk at times, being spurned like that. Some are listening now, but not saying anything so as not to draw flak on themselves from their friends. I don't argue with them because there's no point as too many feelings get in the way. Some subjects are traditionally taboo and have been, in some cases, for the better part of 1,500 years of Roman Catholic ecclesiastical totalitarianism. But like it or not, we have to overcome our prejudices and hear what we don't want to hear sometimes. Myself included.

So, wihout beating around the bush, I will come directly to the point. It is my belief that the marriage at Cana might have been Yah'shua's (Jesus') own wedding but I'll not say absolutely that it was. 'Oh, this can't be so,' you might protest in response to the first sugestion, 'because John 2:2 says that Yah'shua (Jesus) was "invited" along with His talmidim (disciples), and no one is 'invited' to their own wedding!' It's a fair point and it's also why most conclude that the bridegroom at Cana couldn't be the Saviour, a perfectly reasonable conclusion. But you need to be aware why John is using this wedding as a pointer to deep spiritual truth, foremost of which is show that the Messiah is both human and divine...a kind of 'marriage' between two states of existence that has never before happened. He has two natures because he is the point at which heaven and earth - the spiritual and the material - meet or 'wed'. He is, Himself, the intersection of two different universes, two different created orders - the mortal and the immortal, the material and the spiritual, the old creation and the new creation - and it is because of this that the resurrection is made possible. This fusion point we are drawn into when we are born again, enabling us to partake of a degree of resurrection life in the here-and-now, until the Last Day when we, as He does now, can partake of it fully. But it starts with him - with the Incarnation, the Cross and the Resurrection. He is the interface between the two worlds - His Father's world and our world - the firstfruits of the resurrection (1 Cor.15:20). So bear with me while I unpack this further and then you can prayerfully rethink what's going on here.

Returning to Cana... Up until now, to this point in John 2, everyone still thinks Yah'shua (Jesus) is merely a mortal man like you and me...and only that. The purpose of these signs that John picks up on and masterfully weaves together is to show that this carpenter from Nazareth is also Elohim (God). They have no idea that He is the Word made flesh (Jn.1:1,14) as John would some 70 years later teach in the Prologue of his Gospel. Yes, as the Targum of Isaiah shows, the religious leaders were expecting the Messiah to be divine though it's hard to say how much the ordinary man and woman knew about that as most seemed focussed on the messiah being a military man to be sent to liberate them from Roman oppression. In any case, Yah'shua (Jesus) frequently bypasses the religious leaders and reveales Himself to the common man and woman first. No doubt the local Rabbi was at the Cana wedding but I doubt higher-up leaders were. Yah'shua (Jesus) attends the wedding as an ordinary man but by the time it is over people will start to wonder if He is far more. At the very least they will start viewing Him as a navi (prophet). Further miracles will be signs to confirm this truth of the deity of Christ. We understand things gradually and normally need exposure to the truth many times before we will embrace it, especially if it's a hard truth. Most of you hearing me today, now and by the time I have finished, will not believe me and may even be offended, and that's ok. As a former Anglican I would once have dismissed this particular claim too. But in time, if you remain on this trajectory in Christ, you will also see these things and marvel.

Now consider this. The idea of an unmarried, celibate Messiah is incompatible with historical reality, but it's nevertheless the one Rome chose, influenced by Greek aesthetic paganism, to embrace. This Roman Catholic tradition was uncritically continued by Protestantism. Now it is true that there is no explicit statement in the New Testament saying that Yah'shua (Jesus) was either married or unmarried because there is no need to state the obvious or the natural. Likewise, we are told nothing about the apostles' wives, and we would have known nothing about the existence of Peter's wife had it not been for the fact that his mother-in-law, whom tradition names as Glaphys, became involved in one of Yah'shua's (Jesus') miracles:

"When Yah'shua (Jesus) came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on Him" (Mt.8:14-15, NIV).

Peter is mentioned briefly by the historian Josephus (Atiquities 18.6.3) which tells us that the apostle was originally a freed-man who once belonged to Bernice whom we find mentioned in Acts 25:13. Bernice was married to Herod the Great's son, Aristobulus. This was before Simon Peter became Yah'shua's (Jesus') talmid (disciple) on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. Remember a freed-man during biblical times was different from a freed slave - freed-men were considered privileged Roman workers, even if they were Judahite (Jewish), who enjoyed certain privileges only reserved for Roman citizens.

Peter, being a freed-man, was able to marry whom he pleased and could work for wages as an 'employee'. As such, Simon Peter, and his older brother Andrew, freely moved within the court of Herod the Great and worked as a labourer under Bernice before becoming a Judahite (Jewish) fisherman and, more importantly, a "fisher of men" (Mt.4:19; Mk.1:17). Incidentally, Herod the Great, Bernice's father-in-law, was that brutal leader who was notoriously known for having all the infants under the age of 2 murdered when Yah'shua (Jesus) was born. This he did when the wise men would not disclose the place of His birth (Mt.2:16-18). Tradition has it that Peter was also related by marriage to Herod Agrippa, Herod the Great's grandson, the man who beheaded John the Baptist and who was responsible for also having Yah'shua (Jesus) crucified under Pontius Pilate. Glaphys was the late Alexander's Judahite (Jewish) wife and Peter's biblically unnamed mother-in-law but that's a long story we don't have time to go into today. This same tradition tells us that Peter's wife was beautiful, loving and provided patience, reason and sympathy to perfectly offset his impulsive and moody personality. She was that modest woman of appearance and the honoured 'weaker' vessel whom Peter compliments in his letter to the Dispersion:

"Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in Elohim's (God's) sight. For this is the way the qadosh (holy, set-apart) women of the past who put their hope in Elohim (God) used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master (lord). You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear" (1 Pet.3:1-6, NIV).

So Peter's life was enriched by his link to Herod's family but, importantly, was neither consumed nor defined by it. It also beautifully explains how his two letters are written with such sophistication and sensitivity, those letters liberals say a fisherman could never have written, which of course, if he hadn't had a life in a royal court before becoming one, likely would have been true. Like Moses who began life in the Court of Pharaoh to find himself of a much lowlier status as a shepherd in Midian before becoming Yahweh's Navi (Prophet) to Israel, so Peter, the former employee in a Royal Court, found himself a lowly fisherman who became an Apostle and the first Presiding Patriarch of Messianic Israel. Are we perhaps seeing parallels here? I think so. It's certainly more than 'coincidental'. Like Moses who was married to a Cushite Princess named Tharbis in tradition (whom Aaron and Miriam objected to him bringing along in the exodus) before taking a Midianite woman called Zipporh as his second plural wife (see Yahweh's Exodus Women), so Peter was married to a lady-in-waiting in Herod's Court before she became a humble fisherman's wife herself. Circumstances change, sometimes radically.

I am sharing all this with you to show you how historical detail can sometimes change the complexion of the biblical accounts, giving them more colour, and therefore greater depth and meaning. I personally believe this tradition because I consider Josephus, like Luke, to have overall been a reliable historian even if he was trying to impress his Roman masters. Perhaps one day we will learn more about the wives of the other apostles and their undoubted influence on the lives of these the Master's intimate companions in the Gospel. This is a reason I am a passionate advocate of history. Those who were alive in the first century when the New Testament books were written were privy to all of this information and could have made enquiry to find out more if they had so wished. They were blessed in that way, we are not, which is why this information has had to be painstakingly dug out out for the Remnant to see and be blessed by. All that 99.999 per cent of Christians have access to for historical information is the Bible books themselves which leave out a whole lot of detail so as not to cloud or bog down the main message with irrelvent detail. Remenber, the locus of the New Testament books is the Saviour and His salvation, not the details of those who were the various props in the narrative. Only enough is given to enhance the main theme.

So I repeat - the fact that the wives of Christ and the other apostles are not mentioned isn't because these men were unmarried but because in the biblical narrative everything centres on Christ, His teachings and His mission alone. That's why we don't know what His favourite food was because it's irrelevent to the storyline. Nor does it mean that marriage, as Augustine-inspired Catholic tradition would have us believe, is somehow 'dirty' because they believed sex was 'dirty' thanks to the prejudices born of Augustine's raunchy Manichaen past.

Indeed, Christ made the point that following Him might cost the talmidim (disciples) dearly family-wise. Have we ourselves not suffered in this respect? Most of you, who will later watch the video of this assembly, know nothing of my family life because I choose not to share it in public for a variety of reasons, reasons which you will find are similar for our being told so little about the families of the key figures of the New Testament story. And we do that, in major part, to protect our families from the evil designs of those who seek to destroy us because they desire to silence our witness. This is where history and our theological philosophy of critical realism become so important now in these end-times as we necessarily seek to put more flesh to the bare bones of the biblical record. If celibacy were some ideal that Christians or Messianics should follow, and were the physical act of marriage to be intrinsically impure or evil - a fruit of the Fall, as Catholicism falsely teaches, thanks to Augustine - then there would be some mention of it somewhere in the New Testament. But none is. Quite the opposite, the Song of Solomon assures us. We must not only pay especial attention to what is in the Bible but what isn't in it too.

As it is, any kind of compulsory celibacy ran completely against the whole stream of Israelite thought, something Roman Catholicism sought to reverse by ranking marriage as inferior to it. Paul only advocates it in times of great persecution when raising a family would either be impossible or undesirable, hence his advice to the contemporary Corinthians in particular not to get married if they can manage to stay single. Now it's true Christ might have been unmarried but if He had He would not have been given a licence to wander around first century Judea, Samaria and Galilee as an itinerant preacher and He most certainly would not have been addressed as 'Rabbi' by the religious leaders of the day who were the ones issuing such licences to preach and teach in the first place. It's for exactly the same reason we know Paul must have been married at some point since you couldn't be a Pharisee in first century Judea without having a wife. That's simply historical reality and the fact that this isn't mentioned in the Bible doesn't mean we can invent our own historical backround material. It's up to teachers like myself to carefully dig it up.

If either Yah'shua (Jesus) or Paul had defied the convention (and we're not here making the case that this convention was either right or wrong, just stating the fact that it existed), it would have raised a firestorm amongst the religious leaders and laity alike and mention of that would most certainly have found its way into the New Testament somehow, just like the sabbath and (later) circumcision controversies did. Neither am I saying that you have to believe Christ or Paul were married to be saved. Whether you do or don't doesn't matter. Either way you're alright. What's important is that you honestly deal with evidence when it's presented to you, so that you don't get upset with me or others for saying these things and start making impassioned accusations or advancing straw-man arguments one way or the other. Just agree to disagree if you don't believe me. My purpose in this series is to sensitise you to other things going on in the backround of John's writings. Just as the apostles must have had wives, so they would most likely have had children too.

The fact that next to nothing is mentioned of Christ's childhood in the New Testament save for one incident at Passover when He disappeared and was found conversing with the learned Elders and Torah-teachers of Israel (Lk.2:41ff.), doesn't mean He had no childhood, in spite of the much later fake 'Infancy Gospels' created in the 2nd century purportedly filling in the gaps in this life when He was 5 to 12 years old. These were made up by some over-zealous, sensationalistic early Catholics, one of whose stories about the clay bird being miraculously turned into a living one was borrowed by Mohammed, likely from Nestorian missionaries, and found its way into the Quran [1] in the 6th to 7th century and is presented there as historical fact. (It's one of hundreds of reasons we know the Quran is a mishmash of borrowed material from different sources). Likewise nothing is mentioned of Yah'shua's eating habits, playmates, likes and dislikes, hobbies and marriage(s), not because He didn't have them but because they were not germaine to the story of His mission.

What you do with these teachings is between you and Father Yahweh and if you want to turn your back on what I am saying and walk away that's up to you too. You're not obliged to accept anything not concretely stated in Scripture and no one here will try to hinder you or guilt you if you don't. You are a free agent and that we totally respect. Nevertheless, as realists, we are obliged to make especial note of such facts about historical reality that are made known to us, and what we choose to do with them (or not) is up to us for which we will be held accountable. All available truth matters. What you choose to believe or not believe does, though, affect the way we live out our Christian witness, for good or evil.

Most, if not all the apostles, were married - there is no doubt Peter was (because we're told he was) and Paul must have been in order to have been a Pharisee, as I've said. Most importantly, Yah'shua (Jesus) Himself never advocates celibacy but the very opposite, in spite of a commonly misunderstood passage that is the fault of the Greek translator from Aramaic which was the language spoken by Christ and the apostles. I'm thinking of the infamous 'eunchs' passage of Matthew 19:12 which allegedly has Yah'shua (Jesus) saying:

"Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage (lit. 'made themselves eunuchs' - NRSV) because (' for the sake' - NRSV) of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it" (Mt.19:11-12, NIV).

A reason we know Christ cannot have said this is because mutilation or castration of the body (here the male testicles), whether by others or oneself, is expressly forbidden by Yahweh's Torah. Yah'shua's (Jesus') advocacy of castration would have made Him a sinner in violation of the Law and therefore unqualified to be the atonement for man's sins. The only authentic time castration is mentioned in the New Testament is negatively when Paul wishes the circumcision party would "go the whole way and emasculate (castrate)" themselves for their heresy (Gal.5:4, NIV).

The truth, as we now know, is that the Greek translator encountered the Aramaic word which which can either mean 'eunuchs' or 'faithful ones', in other words, 'believers'. It's one of those unfortunate things with languages that sometimes words can double up and have two or more meanings that only the context can determine. Sometimes we are hard pressed to know which was meant leaving some Bible passages ambiguous to this very day. This is true not only here in Matthew 19:11-12 but also in the account of the Ethiopian official converted by the apostle Philip. He is recorded in our New Testament as a 'eunuch', a high official of the Queen of Ethiopia. Yet as a believer he was going up to Jerusalem to worship in the temple which he would otherwise have been forbidden to do, for no one with a mutilated body was allowed into any sacred place. So he can't have been a eunuch. Indeed, he wasn't, but a 'faithful one' or 'believer', a convert to the Judean faith, a Yahwist.

Here, then, is an alternative, better way to translate Matthew 19:11-12 based on what Aramaic scholarship has shown us, and appears this way in one of the messianic translations (the HRV):

"For there are faithful ones (believers), which were so born from their mother's womb, and there are faithful ones (believers) which were made of man (i.e. by conversion through preachers), and there are faithful ones (believers) which are self-made faithful ones (believers) (i.e. through personal study and prayer) for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake" (Mt.19:12, HRV).

Remember also the context of this saying of Christ which was divorce. Because Yahweh's marriage laws were so strict, the talmidim (disciples) despaired that it was even possible to live the pure life demanded by the Saviour. Only fornication leading to adultery is grounds for divorcing a wife, Yah'shua (Jesus) had said (vv.8-9). And in a typical display of Yehudi (Jewish) hyperbole (exaggeration), they replied to the Master: "Then it's better not to marry!" (v.10, NLT). It's the Saviour's reply that has led to the misunderstanding that has been the justification for the whole Catholic mess-up on sex. "Not everyone can accept this," He replies, and traditionally that is interpreted (thanks to Catholicism) to mean that 'not everyone can accept celibacy which is the better way' instead of 'not everyone can accept the strict divorce laws and stick with their spouses even when the going gets tough' because 'in the beginning' there was no divorce, and Yahweh wants it to be like that again. Then He goes on to say, in the correct translation, the only ones who can live marriage so strictly in line with the original divine intent are those whom Elohim (God) helps (i.e. supernaturally, when, in the case of adultery, anger and a sense of betrayal rise up demanding an end to the marriage: we are supernatutally equipped by the Ruach/Spirit to stick it out when you just want to throw out the adulterous husband or wife, which legally you would be entitled to do, but which Christ desires you should not but instead He wants you to make the difficult and painful decision to forgive and painstakingly rebuild trust again if the miscreant partner is willing to change his/her way and rebuild trust. But not everyone is willing to do that - to walk the higher way of Christ and so people walk away from their marriages leaving a trail of destruction behind them - unresolved bitterness issues, alimony and financial ruin, broken homes, hurt children, etc..

Christ acknowldged that this is something really, really hard to do, because adultery wounds so deeply, as those of us who have experienced this trauma know only too well, and then He explains how:

"Some are born as believers (and are so equipped to forgive), some have been made that way (through personal life choices of spiritual disciplining), and some choose not to marry for the sake of the Kingdom (as Jeremiah and John the Baptist [2] did). Let anyone who can, accept this statement" (vv.11-12, NLT adapted).

This is the Master's way of saying it's a tough call to make if your spouse cheats on you but He would rather you forgave and started again than take the drastic step of ending the marriage, which you would be entitled to do according to the original Divorce Law of Torah, for there are children to think of too who will be impacted by divorce. The incident of the woman caught in adultery (Jn.8:1-11) reminds us that the Master expects us to give the adulterous parties at least one chance, but that a repeat is not optional. So there is a condition to forgiving. If you don't think you could manage this in a hypothetical situation, then it might be better you don't marry at all. That's what Christ is saying here. That's why it's difficult and not all can manage such strictness. Can one be born a believer? Like I said, John the Baptist was (he leaped for joy in his mother Elizabeth's womb when in the vicinity of the unborn Messiah in Mary's), others (that's nearly all of us) convert either by hearing others or searching on our own (as I did). What Christ is absolutely not doing is commending castration which would have made Him a violator of Torah and a sinner, and therefore unable to fulfil His task to live a sin-free, Torah-obedient life. Castration or emasculation is an abomination in the sight of Elohim (God), just as contemporary 'gender-reassignment' surgery in the West is, just as female circumcision is in Africa. They are both violent mutilations that deface the image and temple of Elohim (God).

All of this should call to mind the Genesis mandate in Matthew 19:

"'Haven't you read,' He (Yah'shua/Jesus) replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what Elohim (God) has joined together, let man not separate'" (Mt.19:4-6, NIV).

This is my point. If Yah'shua (Jesus) did not preach or promote celibacy contrary to the Israelite expectation that everyone marry, then there is no reason to suppose that He practicied it either. Yet He did the very opposite, I suggest. He upheld His Father's Law, Israel's mandated way of life. He was, after all, incarnated as a human being to experience human life in its fullness. Marriage and family life is a big part of what being normal human beings means. This, I maintain, He lived without succumbing to sin, by living as we do. In other words, all He did He did perfectly without violating any Torah mitzvah (commandment). As it is written:

"Because He Himself (Christ) suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted" (Heb.2:18, NIV).

Are there not temptations in marriage that are unique to marriage, temptations that singles don't face? The temptations to commit adultery, fornicate, break covenant vows, break faith in the deepest human-to-human relationship there is? Temptations for a woman not to submit to her husband (something she is not required to do to any other man save her father as an unmarried woman - Eph.5:22-24) or a man to love his wife as Christ loves the Messianic Community (Church) (Eph.5:25-20)? Is not marriage and 'one-fleshedess' a grand and wonderful delight - a "profound mystery" (Eph.5:32, NIV), said Paul? Then how could Christ have been tempted in every way that we are within that profound mystery if had He not been in a position to be so tempted too? True, singles have their unique temptations but the issue is not that we cannot be single only that we should not remain single unless we receive a specific commandment to be so as Jeremiah did so that he could fulfil his mission. Paul became single by the time he was called to be an apostle and chose to remain that way so he must have been married prior to his call. Whether he was divorced, his wife died, or left him we don't know.

Yah'shua's (Jesus') ministry was one of profound example which His talmidim (disciples) were supposed to emultate. As I have pointed out in many articles over the years, marriage was not only usual but virtually mandatory amongst the Yehudi (Jewish) contemporaries of Messiah. Whilst it is true certain extremist Essenes practiced compulsory celibacy (and there will always be extremists just as there are amongst the ultra-messianics and ultra-evangelicals today - the Shakers were a 19th century group who refused to marry), we now know that not all did. One Jewish writer of the first century even went so far as to compare premeditated celibacy with murder. A Yehudi (Jewish) father was as obliged to find his son a wife as he was to ensure he was circumcised, it was that important. So marriage was virtually universal except among some eccentric Essenes. If Yah'shua (Jesus) had been single as late as his early 30's, it would have drawn attention to Himself - He would have stood out and provoked negative comment. There is no trace of that anywhere in the New Testament. Given that He challenged contemporary interpretations of the Sabbath which triggered a violent backlash from the religious leaders for not adhering to their traditions, you would have expected the same if Yah'shua (Jesus) and the apostles had been unmarried. But again, there was no backlash or criticism, and no mention of them being scandalously single is ever mentioned.

We have this negative idea, promoted by over 1,500 years of Catholic (and to a lesser extent, Protestant) propaganda that sex is somehow dirty and that the Saviour, who was 100 per cent clean, could ever have been associated with it, even in a pure marriage. That's the main subconscious reason almost all conservative Christians shudder at the thought of Christ having been married. This belief is deeply embedded in the Roman-European mind. It would, they believe in their prejudice, have negated His mission because, they believe, singleness is somehow 'holier' and Christ could not possibly have been sullied by anything quite as unholy or 'icky' as sex. But that is a lie. What Yahweh has blessed is pure. And "the marriage bed must be kept pure" (Heb.13:4, NIV), not that it is intrinsically impure like a menstrual stain or something worse. There are plenty of sexual abominations to be sure, there is plenty of aberrant sex in the world to tempt men and women with, but that is true of everything moral and ethical. And Christ was tempted by every aberration (we must suppose) but resisted every one without ever once committing sin as we are definitively told (Heb.4:15). That a married Christ would have maintained a pure marriage whilst having a full physical relationship is perfectly consistent with Yahweh's willingness to depict the relationship between Him and His Bride, the allegorical Wife or Bride - us - with the deepest intimacy of human marriage, something that can only make sense if we accept this proposition, else we cause a contradiction to enter into that which is not contradictory - truth that has been lost because of the Western Catholic demonisation of marital sex. The only contradiction is surely man's false doctrines on these matters, is it not? [3]

If Yah'shua (Jesus) had not been married, then, His singleness as a celibate would have stuck out like a sore thumb in the society of His day just as not being a feminist and not being a 'progressive' now makes us stick out in our own today. He would have drawn attention and criticism for advocating and practicing celibacy as a Rabbi and teacher. No question of it. It would have been a stigma and just cause for an accusation that would have been used against Him time and time again in the same way He was accused of breaking the Sabath by healing on that day of rest. He was, and is, Lord of the Sabbath, just as He is Lord of marriage. So why no mention of celibacy in the Gospels? Because He wasn't celibate and never taught the doctrine. Indeed, there is no reference to a celibate Yah'shua (Jesus) until centuries afterwards by which time Catholicism, with its ban on married priests and its promotion of nunneries and monasteries, held sway.

A little less radical than the Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox Church has always permitted its local priests to marry but not its Bishops and those higher up in the hierarchy, the argument being that as ministers they need to devote the time they would otherwise have given to their wives and children to Church service. Marriage, they say, would have been a hintrance to both their spirituality and ministry. To which I say, 'stuff and nonsense'. Pastors and Elders are useful precisely because they are married, family men who have to minister to married parishioners with family problems to be resolved. Kahlil Gibran rightly citicised the celibate priest giving marital advice to couples both preparing for marriage and those already married. How would they, as celibates, know without any sort of life experience of that holy estate? They would be teaching from a manual only. Yah'shua (Jesus) almost certainly conformed not only to the conventions of His time in order to have been given leave to preach freely but to fulfil the mandate of Scripture to be fruitful and multiply. He had to be obedient to that too. Only a married Messiah explains why nothing is said about marriage in the Gospels - it was as normal as using the bathroom...and nothing is ever said about that in the Bible, at least not since the time of Ahab (2 Ki.9:8, KJV)!

Yah'shua (Jesus) would likely have married young as all Judahite (Jewish) boys of His day did. And as I have already pointed out, Yah'shua (Jesus) could never have held the office of 'Rabbi' and been single, if we are to believe the historical evidence. He was no self-appointed teacher breaking the scriptures or the rules of His society. The Mishna is quite adamant on this point:

"An unmarried man may not be a teacher" (W.E.Phipps, The Sexuality of Jesus, New York, 1973, p.44).

Whatever the situation may have been, we have got to overcome our Western prejudices concerning the superiority of celibacy, institutionalised by Rome and inherited to a large degree by Protestantism (even if only subconsciously by the latter), and root out the evil seed planted in our civilisation by Catholicism with its numerous pagan elements. If Yah'shua (Jesus) were indeed married, and Cana was the place of at least one wedding, why doesn't John come out directly and say so? Now I agree that that is a very legitimate question to ask. Why give the impression that He was only an invited guest? (Jn.2:2) Why doesn't John openly say it was the wedding of a relative or something like that, in the way it's normally portrayed by orthodox Christians who sometimes struggle to interpret what's going on? Why the anonymity? Why aren't we told who the bridegroom and bride were? As it is, there is no explanation as to why the mother of Yah'shua (Jesus) is "there" (2:1) with such an overseeing rôle. The host and hostess at such weddings were usually the bridegroom's parents. Yet Mary was seemingly in charge, giving orders to the servants, something a guest would never have done.

Remember also that Joseph, Yah'shua's (Jesus') stepfather, had almost certainly died a long time before as there was a considerable age-gap between him and his wife, Mary, something that was common back then and elsewhere in the West before the modern compulsory schooling system threw boys and girls together socially at approximately the same age. Again, the debate is not about whether one or the other is right or wrong, preferable or not to be desired, but what the circumstances were 2,000 years ago. We must not let the habits and biases of our own age colour our interpretation of what happened back then. A lot of things change in 2,000 years. So with her husband deceased, and her son the Bridegroom, it was only natural Mary should have been in charge of the proceedings. Perhaps a close male relative was the host in the absence of Joseph? And perhaps he lived in Cana and not Nazareth? Who knows, unless Yah'shua (Jesus) assumed both rôles which admittedly would look rather odd. If the wedding was of a near relative (as orthodox Christians often claim), than Yah'shua (Jesus) would have been the obvious choice as Master of Ceremonies in the absence of the near-relative's father who might have been dead. So for a Sherlock Holmes, the evidence taken together would, I believe, have led essentially to what I am suggesting here today as being highly probable. But unfortunately the default of most people, including those claiming to be Spirit-led Christians, isn't the cool-headededness of a detective but hormones and tradition attached to a hair-trigger offense-response out of a misguided sense of loyalty to the theological 'take' of their 'church tribe' when a very old tradition is challenged.

Last week we talked about apparent paradoxes. Perhaps the most important of these is that Yah'shua (Jesus) is spoken of as an ordinary man like us in some places and as Elohim (God) in others. Those who choose only to consider the first of the two become Arians like the Jehovah's Witnesses and those who consider only the second like the Gnostics who claimed that He was never human at all but a phantom. Only those who take both sets of Scripture and declare He is both are correct. Could John 2:2 be one part of a pair of apparent contradictions - a Johannine paradox? Could He have been both an invited guest (if this was a near relative's home and not his mother's) and the Bridegroom? How is that even possible? And why shoud such a common-o'-garden thing be a mystery? Bear with me as I unpack this by first giving you another example of what I am hinting at.

The Book of John (and it's John we need to focus on because this is His writing technique we're studying) is full of these paradoxes but one of the best we have yet to address. But before we go on I want to expose another bad Greek translation that has wormed its way into so many of our English Bibles because this verse concerns the deity of Christ, and in particular His transcendance and His ability to similutaneously exist as Elohim (God) and man and in consquence how He could be both in heaven and on earth during His mortal, pre-resurrection ministry. We are going to take a look at part of the conversation that took place between Yah'shua (Jesus) and Nicodemus one night, when he visited the Master in secret in order to make his investigation private, after he learned that he had to be born again in order to see the Kingdom of Heaven. This, as you know, confused him as he carnally tried to picture going back into his mother's womb as an older man and being physically born a second time, which is of course an absurdity. But Nicodemus was asking the wrong question. The account is in the third chapter of the Gospel of John. Yah'shua (Jesus) kindly rebuked him for being so unspiritual (since he was an important teacher of the Torah and a prominent religious figure) and tried to explain who He, Christ was, to him.

We're going to look at only one verse, verse 3, but let me first read the background for you in the New King James Version (NKJV) which is one of the few translations which gets it right:

"There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Yah'shua (Jesus) by night and said to Him, 'Rabbi (notice the offical title), we know that You are a teacher come from Elohim (God); for no one can do these signs that You do unless Elohim (God) is with him.' Yah'shua (Jesus) answered and said to him, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of Elohim (God).' Nicodemus said to Him, 'How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"' Yah'shua (Jesus) answered, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Ruach (Spirit), he cannot enter the kingdom of Elohim (God). That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Ruach (Spirit) is ruach (spirit). Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Ruach (Spirit).' Nicodemus answered and said to Him, 'How can these things be?' Yah'shua (Jesus) answered and said to him, 'Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven" (John 3:1-13, NKJV).

Our focus is on the last verse: "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven" (v.13, NKJV). The problem is, there are two Greek variants of this passage. One set of copies contains the phrase, "who is in heaven" (in other words, Yah'shua (Jesus) was telling Nicodemous (not doubt to his astonishment) that whilst He, the Son of Man, was physically present talking to him, He was simultaneously in Heaven - in two different places at the same time - some manuscripts contain that phrase and the other set of copiies cuts it out (or, in the opinion of one school, the original didn't contain it and later another tradition added it to bolster their own belief system). What's the truth? Can we know it? And how? Well, I am going to show you.

I have prepared a table for you containing some of the most commonly uses Protestant, Catholic and Messianic versions. Please take a look at it now. I have arranged versions that contain the phrase-in-question in the left-hand column and those that omit it in the right. Many versions contain both variants. Some put one variant into the main text and add a footnote saying that other variant has taken it out, and some (like the NKJV I just read to you) put in the other variant and accuse other manuscript writers of taking the phrase out. So the translators have made a decision - a personal decision, mind you, based solely on the Greek translation. Please note that none of the Aramaic texts leave out the phrase "who is in heaven" because all Aramaic manuscripts have that same reading. Since Aramaic was the language Christ and the apostles spoke, this means the Aramaic Peshitta and the Syriac texts have almost certainly preserved the original saying accurately. Two well-known Messianic translations (the HRV and AENT) correctly render it whilst others (like the JNT/CJB, ISRV and HalleluYah Scriptures) do not because they use Greek manuscripts with the shorter form. Of the English versions, only the KJV, NKJV, RSV and JB use the inclusive Greek manuscript variant (which agrees with the Aramaic), yet most of these include a footnote indicating that an exclusive Greek variant exists whilst other popular versions use the exclusive variant and put the inclusive one as a footnote (NIV, ESV). I consider all of these to be honest translations. Dishonest ones, which only include the exclusive variant without a footnote, or who change the text to make it mean something else, I have marked grey (and, yes, you might be surprised to find the conservative NASB amongst them, and for Messianics the JNT/CJB, ISRV and HalleuYah Scriptures) which I consider in this and some other respects to be unreliable because they reflect, in this instance, clear translator bias.

* footnote, Some [ancient - RSV] authorities add...
** Not in any MS - interpretation only
Text in grey print is not an honest translation but a private interpretatiion

So what has happened historically is this. The original Aramaic (which has been preserved very well) contains the correct words of Messiah. Then the Aramaic was translated into Greek, again with the correct text, as we find in the KJV, NKJV and others. Then someone, somewhere decided that Christ couldn't be on earth and in heaven simultaneously, chopped the last phrase off ("who is in heaven"); then that first mutilated original got copied again and again, so two different Greek variants found their way into circulation and Greek Christians had to pick the one they thought was right. By Yahweh's grace, Jerome was selected to translate the Bible into Latin and chose the inclusive version, which reads "qui est in cælo" (from which we get our English word 'ceiling', by the way) and it was from that that the early English Bibles were born, most famous of which is the KJV.

Then the liberal scholars came along wanting to 'improve' the New Testament with 'older manuscripts', not always realising (or not wanting to realise) that a lot of early manuscript-burning took place during times of persecution. So that is how the original copies likely came to be in the minority giving the impression that the more numerous were the oldest. Now we must not take this too far, as King James Onlyer's do, and make the ridiculous claim that one of the Byzantine texts, which was incomplete and which the KJV translations made use of in their new translation, was the original, and the only true text, a claim that has been soundly debunked by the experts in manuscript evidence. I am just making a very simple outline of a possibility.

Now I am not one of those Hebrew primacists who claims we must dismiss all Greek translations and only use the Aramaic because it isn't as simple as that. Sometimes well-meaning but misguided Aramean lovers of Greek changed their Aramaic copies to reflect Greek variants which they happened to like better, for whatever reason. Again, manuscript scholars are much needed to untangle all of this. Bruce Metzger, a devout believer (now dead), and Bart Ehrman (an atheist but is at least honest in presenting manuscript evidence) have done a trmendous amount of invaluable work on this, and now Aramaic scholars are doing the same. Rather I want to persuade you that it is extremely useful to have an Aramaic translation like the HRV (my favourite) and the AENT at hand, the only serious contenders in the messianic world for now. Thanks to the work of the former translator, James Trimm, we have been able to demystify some of the stranger translations that have been handed down to us through the Greek, like Christ saying castration is good (He never did), that camels (and not ropes) parabolically go through eyes of needles (He didn't), and passages like John 3:13 where Christ is in two places at the same time. I just wanted you to be aware that what I share with you is based on careful scholarly work which is gradually becoming more and more mainstream. I am trying to stay ahead of the academic research curve so that we can harvest important insights for the Remnant. Remember, all scientific scholarly work is provisional until (or if) more and better evidence comes along to modify its earlier conclusions.

Alright, that was a long excursion but one I feel you will be able to look back on and find extremely useful in the future too. We are looking at apparent paradoxes which may be codes for important things Yahweh wanted kept hidden until the end times when He would give His servants the keys to unlock them. We may perhaps find a clue to the anonymity John chooses to use in other parts of of his writings. For instance, who is the "elect lady and her children" in 2 John 1:1? Why the secrecy? Now, theologians have come up with many an answer, some plausible, others not. It may have been that the mother of Yah'shua (Jesus) was at risk and he didn't want the authorities to know where she was, for fear she might be arrested or murdered by enemies of the Kingdom. After all, John had promised faithfully to take care of her. By referring to the "chosen lady" (NASB) he left the matter open to interpretation. So John is capable of being vague when he needs to be, to protect vulnerable persons or hide end-time truths.

Hence many believe the "chosen lady" is just a reference to the Messianic Assembly of Yahweh (Church of God), the Body of Christ, the allegorical, Mystical Bride of Messiah. Or it could refer to a local congregation, perhaps even the congregation at Ephesus which was highly exalted at the time because of its important Christian residents. But that is unlikely unless John was away on a mission and as far as we know he hardly ever left Ephesus, especially in his old age when he wrote many of his works. He refers also to "your chosen sister" in v.13 to complexify and add even more mystery to the situation, precisely to throw enemies of the Gospel off the scent. Whatever the correct interpretation, my point is that John is not above concealing sensitive matters by veiling them with deflective words. You may think that dishonest but I think were your loved ones at serious risk to danger and harm at the hands of a vicious enemy hell-bent on destroying you and the work of Christ generally, you would do the same. I have done that and make no apology for it either. That is my duty as a minister, husband and father. I protect my own as each of you men should too.

So please always remember John writes at a time of great persecution of believers. If Yah'shua (Jesus) had been married with a wife and maybe also had children you can be sure that capturing these would have been a feather in the cap of the Community's (Church's) enemies especially if a wife and/or children had important leadership positions. Remember this was about 100 A.D.[4] Any living wife of Yah'shua (Jesus) would by then have been extremely old but more likely dead but His children would be adults in full maturity and probably in their 60's or 70's, a little younger than the apostle himself. There would almost certainly have been grandchildren and possibly great-grandchildren of Yah'shua (Jesus) running around, assuming of course He ever had any children, and He might not have. We have to admit that is an assumption. I have no opinion about that matter either way and finding out is not a priority of mine nor, dare I say, ought it be for any of us, for reasons I will explain in a minute.

Now I am not troubled by the thought that Monophystites have that any children of Christ would have been little 'godlets' - half-human and half-divine, precisely because I am not a Monophysite - I don't believe, along with the Copic and Assyrian Churches of the Middle East and North Africa, that Yah'shua's (Jesus') human and divine natures were blended together into an inseparable goo to make a completely different hybrid nature. I believe, as many others do, that He was human in the flesh and Elohim (God) or divine in His spirit. That's a very important distinction. So any theoretical children with a mortal wife would therefore have been fully human. They would have got their mortal human bodies from their parents and their human spirits directly from Elohim (God). Their embryos would have been occupied by human spirits. They would have been 100 per cent human, like you or me, and susceptible to exactly the same kinds of temptations and failings. Yah'shua (Jesus) was the only human in Creation who did not fail or sin. Were the Monophysite teaching to be true, then the idea of any children being sired would be completely out of the question, as also Yah'shua (Jesus) being married, which I do not believe He could have been in that way of thinking as He would have effectively been a different species. So I fully understand and accept why a Monophysite would reject the teaching of a married Christ with children.

Now I know that there are all sorts of bogus 'Grail' legends about Yah'shua's (Jesus') alleged children that circulated freely in mediaeval times (you may have heard of the 'Priory of Zion' in France) and there is a lot of pulp fiction about them created by sensationalistic journalists like Dan Brown and Michael Baigent whose books I have read and critiqued. You may remember that Brown wrote the best selling Da Vinci Code, a fictional thriller-novel about Yah'shua (Jesus) and Mary Magdalene and a child they allegedly had (the 'grail'), which much of the gullible public, ever in search of a new sensationalist thrill and opportunity to poke holes in the Christian narrative, has uncritically swallowed wholesale as truth. I do not consider their journalistic 'investigation' to be proper historical research. They're amateurs. They're basically out to rubbish Christianity (which as liberals they hate), discredit the Bible, promote Gnosticism, and make a lot money, which they largely succeeded in doing, I might add. Millions of copies of their books have been printed and read, prejudicing many people against the Gospel. I keep on coming across them in flea markets here in Sweden so they were very popular at one time...until their novelty wore off. This doesn't mean that there isn't some truth in what they write, otherwise they would have had zero credibility, just that it is invalidated by all the lies mixed in with it and their specific agenda. They're also the same people who have sought to discredit the Catholic team responsible for assembling the Dead Sea Scrolls whom they accuse of suppression and falsification, done, they say, in order to protect Catholicism's dogmas. This I had studied too and am sceptical.

All that aside, it is generally recognised that Mary behaves in an unsual way at the marriage of Cana. She orders Yah'shua (Jesus) and the servants to do the very things that would have been expected of the wedding's hostess and not a mere family guest, as I've said. Mary even apparently ignores Yah'shua's (Jesus') protests to solve the wine problem - she goes ahead in full authority and orders the servants to obey her son! The servants behave as though they were accustomed to taking orders from Mary and Yah'shua (Jesus), compounding the mystery. You have to remember too that this was Yah'shua's (Jesus') first public miracle - before this time He had no reputation as a miracle-worker whatsoever in spite of the claims of the bogus 'Infancy Gospels' written long after all the apostles, the creations of proto-Catholics wanting to dishonestly sensationalise their version of the Gospel so as to more readily win over superstitious Roman and Greek pagan converts who loved a good yarn. So the servants wouldn't have responded out of deference to His reputation because no such reputation yet existed. And even if He were well known, they would still have been obedient to the Master of the House. For would not Yah'shua (Jesus) have become family head as the eldest son after his father Joseph's death? Which suggests to me that Yah'shua (Jesus) was the Master of the House as well as the Bridegroom as well as being 'invited' as Elohim (God) in the symbolic world of John, providing the apostle with a suitable cover. This is certainly within the realm of possibility given the way all the symbols are arranged. You may disagree with me, which is fine - all I am saying is I can find no other way to reconcile all the known facts and make consistent all the 'signs' or 'clues' that pointed to His Divine Messiahship. At least note this as a possibility.

In a way, Yah'shua (Jesus) is forced into this miracle by His mother. Since He has never displayed His supernatural powers before (that we know of, the claims of a false infancy gospel notwithstanding) it is unlikely Mary was expecting Yah'shua (Jesus) to change water into wine. She was expecting Him, as the Bridegroom and head of the family, and in the absence of his father, to simply make sure there was more wine for the guests. How He would do this, she did not know, but she evidently had confidence in Him as an 'organiser' and 'fixer'. When she said to the servants: "Whatever He says to you, do it" (v.5) she wasn't saying: "OK, He's going to do a miracle now - follow His instructions precisely" but rather "He's the boss, obey Him!" Nothing more, nothing less. When Yah'shua (Jesus) said, "Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come" (v.4) I doubt she had a clue what He was talking about so early on in His ministry.

This strange English rendition would be better demystified and the bias of the translators unthroned if they had stated: "My moment for action has not yet come" - and Mary probably thought, "Oh, He's just being difficult - avoiding His responsibility - He wants me to do it all". (I'm being humourous, by the way). What is quite certain is that Mary and Yah'shua (Jesus) are not remotely united in purpose and understanding yet - that comes later in the wake of all His future teachings and miracles (Jn.19:25ff). His responses at that time simply mystified her in spite of the prophecy made in the temple at His circumcision. She was still in the dark as to His true mission for it was not her time to know any more than it was the apostles' until that critical moment at Caesarea Philippi. Understand how Yahweh unfolds truth gradually and you will not be so troubled by many of the incidences of apparent 'secrecy' in the Gospels. To have revealed who He was too early would have risked aborting His sacred appointment at Calvary which had to happen in Yahweh's own timing and in Yahweh's own way, with certain actors in the drama prepared, in order to precisely fulfil messianic prophecy. Lots of key events have to come together simultaneously and obstacles (like Peter wanting to stop Yah'shua/Jesus from goung to His death in Jerusalem) removed (Mt.16:23; Mk.8:33; Lk.4:8), a detail John for some reason didn't think necessary to record.

John has inserted ambiguities to draw the attention those with the eyes to see. This is a reason He also often taught in parables. Exoteric (exclusively outward-looking) Christians/Messianics will come to their own conclusions and that is as it must be. Certain things must be concealed for the protection of members of the Messianic Community for this is a time of persecution of Elohim's (God's) people. We must always be alert to this situation.

We shall end there for now and return next week to the fourth and final segment of Part 2 which has now quadrupled in size! This has been one of the hardest topics I have ever had to write on with the exception, perhaps of what I want to say next week, and then I will have completed all I need to say concerning the 'hottest potatoes' of the Kingdom. Thereafter I will just be tidying up, completing, and rounding off. So until then, Yahweh bless you and keep you in Yah'shua's (Jesus') Name. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] See the Islam website
[2] John the Baptist appears to be single when he is first introduced as an adult. We know nothing of his childhood and youth. That he was single is by tradition acknowledged - I doubt a Mrs. John-the-Baptist would have cared to live in a cave wearing animal skins and subsisting only on honey and locusts, forced to live alone or with hypothetical children while her husband went off on missions preaching and baptising by the River Jordan.
[3] Another reason there is this taboo against Christ being married, even in Protestantism, is the impact of the Catholic cult of the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary, elevating Mary to virtual godhood. Thus virginity has falsely become associated with deity when the very opposite is true.
[4] A case has been made by some scholars (e.g. J.T.Robinson) that all the New Testament books had to have been written before AD 70 when the temple was destroyed because no mention of this traumatic event is ever mentioned by any of the NT writers, which would have strange indeed if they were writing right at the end of the first century. I have not yet managed to resolve this discrepancy and speak of it elsewhere.

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