All of my family were Jews, to be sure. But, a
hundred years ago, my ancestors-- like many of our people-- had been scattered
around the world after the conquest of Jerusalem by the armies of Alexander the
Great’s Hellenistic empire Decades later, my family had returned to our
ancestral home—and we still called ourselves Jews.
But we had been changed by the wider world. We had
come to understand that there was sometimes things—ideas and ways of living
that were worthwhile and valuable—from outside our own history and customs. We
had come to believe that the strongest tree was not an oak, standing against
the wind—but still liable to be snapped like a twig in a storm. We understood
the strength of the willow—that sometimes it’s wise to bend.
So I and my sisters and brothers were raised speaking
Greek at home and in the streets and praying in Hebrew—just as our parents and
grand-parents before us had been raised. We worshipped in the synagogue and read Greek philosophers. We
associated with Jews and Romans and Greeks in our business dealings. We may
have grown lax at times, in keeping every single one of the laws of Moses. But
we were still Jews—but Hellenized—some of us even bore Greek names—like mine--
Philip.
So I could tell that my presence made John the Baptizer
uncomfortable when I began following him. There was an unspoken uneasiness
between Aramaic speaking and Greek speaking Jews. We were not quite seen as
Gentiles, but many did not consider us to be “real” Jews. I suspect the
Baptizer might have breathed a sigh of relief on that day when I ceased to
follow him. John had been teaching four or five of us by the riverbank when
suddenly he jumped up and pointed to a man passing by—
“There he is—that’s Him-- the Lamb of God! That’s the
Messiah! That’s him! Follow Him, not me! I’m not even worthy to unlace his
sandals.”
The man’s face was familiar to me. It was Joshua Ben
Joseph (or Jesus-- to use the Greek
version of his name.) I knew he was a carpenter and stone mason from Nazareth Galilee is not such
a large area that you don’t see the same faces again and again growing up.
You can know who they are. You can know all about
them--who their family is—know old gossip about their grandparents—know what
they do for a living—what village they live in—even what house they live in. They
in turn know who you are. You nod to
them in passing—and you can go your whole life never actually speaking to them
face to face.
But that day I finally did speak to Jesus. I
know it may seem odd—but I can’t tell you exactly what we said to one
another—it was a moment I knew that I’d remember for the rest of my life—but it
was not the words we exchanged that were so important. It was the moment
itself, being in His presence—standing so close together we were almost
touching--feeling his attention and his care and his acceptance focused totally
on me—that changed my life.
Jesus didn’t care that I bore a Greek name. He didn’t
care about the customs of my family. He didn’t care if I was prosperous or
poor. He didn’t even seem to care that I had not followed the Laws of our
people with the utter scrupulosity that John preached. More than anything else
at all, Jesus seemed only to care about me—as I was--and the hunger for God
that was in my heart.
In that moment—I knew Jesus bar-Joseph had come from
God. At that moment, I knew that I wanted to follow Him for the rest of my
life. And as soon as I was out of his presence I ran and told my friend
Nathaniel that we had found the long awaited Messiah of our people.
It wasn’t until that day at the wedding that I began
to understand what sort of Messiah this Jesus was. We were in Nathaniel’s
hometown—Cana . His neighbor was marrying a girl from the same
village. Jesus and His mother, had been invited to the feast. She insisted that
Andrew and Simon and Nathaniel and I came along.
I was frankly surprised to be invited—and even more
surprised by how many were present. It looked as if the whole village was
there. Weddings were a week-long affair, and poor families had to be very
careful about how many guests they invited. Nathaniel told me that this family
had always been very poor, but very warm hearted and generous. If you were
hungry and they had two pieces of bread, they’d give you the other piece.
It was the first time I’d met Mary, Jesus’ mother. At
first sight she seemed to be a typical peasant woman, short with sun burnt skin
and strands of white in her dark hair. She was about forty-five years old. Her
hands were calloused from hard work. She spoke with a Galilean accent. Her
manner was loving and warm. And when she smiled, her face lit up and she looked
very much like Jesus....
For this wedding feast the parents had made a great
effort. They had roasted some young goats and chickens and bought several types
of fruit and olives. They served the sweetened wine of Cana , which was famous in the whole of Galilee , because it went to one’s head so quickly...
After several toasts of wine that overflowed
throughout the feast, the dance followed in the small garden of the house. The
men formed one circle, and the women, another. Everyone forgot all the cares
besetting us. The music and wine uplifted everyone’s spirits, singing and
laughing our everyday woes away.
And, suddenly I realized how different this Jesus I
had begun following was from my former master John. The Baptizer I realized,
would have been as out of place here as a goat in a fishing boat. Even if John
had condescended to attend any event as happy and loud and human as this he
would have stood around on the sidelines with a disapproving expression on his
long face, putting a damper on everyone’ good time.
But Jesus was in his element—not standing off to the
side, but in the midst of the crowd, laughing and singing and joking and
dancing as much as anyone. Watching Him, there came to my mind the words of the
Prophet Isaiah:
6 On
this holy mountain the God of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of
well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with marrow,
of well-aged wines strained clear.
7
And God will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all
peoples,
the sheet that is spread over
all nations;
God will swallow up death
forever.
8
Then the Holy One will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of God’s people
will be taken away from all the earth,
for the Almighty has spoken.
We had all been so caught up in the joy of the day
that none of us had noticed when Mary slipped away into the kitchen to help
with the food. Then I spotted her, at the door to the kitchen, beckoning for
Jesus to come to her. Curious, I followed him as unobtrusively as I could.
What
a disaster! The mother was sobbing, the father was distraught. The servers
stood around holding empty pitchers and looking embarrassed. It was only the
first night, and the party had already run out of wine! Three barrels had
already been drunk—only a quarter of one was left. The family had already gone
into debt for the expensive food and wine that had already been served—and no
more was available. Their very generosity, was about to be their undoing.
I wondered why Mary had called Jesus into the
kitchen. Surely he had no money to buy any wine--anymore than Peter or Andrew
or Nathaniel or I. And even if we had
money—where does one buy wine in the middle of the night? There was quite
frankly nothing to be done except send the guests home.
But his mother continued to look at Jesus with
expectation and hope. What did Mary expect him to do? What could anyone do?
Mary spoke in private to her son. Then with utter confidence in her eyes, She
turned toward the servants hired for the occasion and pointed to Jesus.
“Do whatever he tells you” she told them.
Then out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the seven large stone jar of water, used for
ritual cleansing and purification of food and utensils and hands. I caught
Jesus’ eye, nodding toward the jars, intending to suggest the water be used to
dilute the little wine they had, but before I could even open my mouth, he
spoke to the servers.
“Fill your pitchers from those jars in the corner. Now
serve the guests.”
It was not even a few minutes later that the master
of ceremonies for the feast came back into the kitchen full of compliments to
the family for the quality of the wine—teasingly chiding them for holding back
the best wine until last when the taste buds of the guests were dulled.
The finest wine he’d ever tasted he said. And it was
not just a half of one of those stone jugs—but all of them—around 3500
gallons—filled with more wine than the whole village could have drunk in a
month! The open-handed generosity of this poor family had been multiplied many
times by the overflowing abundance of the grace of God.
Of course, only Mary and the family and the servants
and we four disciples witnessed all this. Only we knew what Jesus had done. And
we marveled. And we believed in Jesus. Truly we told ourselves, this Jesus was
a holy man. Truly, he was the Messiah.
But I for one, couldn’t also help marveling at what
sort of Messiah this Jesus was. He was not an ascetic hiding in the desert like
one of the old-time prophets. He was not a dried-up scholar spending his days
studying the Law or arguing Torah. He was not a priest making ritual sacrifices
in the Temple
Jesus the Messiah had begun his ministry with a
wondrous sign of blessing and joy. I didn’t understand what all this meant at
the time. But I knew Jesus had done much more than simply help a poor family
save face.
I would spend
the next three years of my life following Jesus—listening, learning. I would
stand beside and help him serve thousands of hungry people using nothing more
than a small boy’s lunch. And I knew that he had come to feed more than our
bellies.
I
would see him reach out in compassion to a Samaritan woman of bad repute.
Later, other Greek speaking Jews would approach me and Jesus would reach out to my own people. I
would sit beside Him in the Upper Room, and in answer to my question, hear
Jesus at last proclaim that in seeing Him—we had seen the Creator. I would see
him die—and then rise from the grave.
Jesus,
I would finally realize, was a man who had been born into ordinary circumstances, had
worked hard to make a living, who knew the pains and struggles and simple
pleasures of everyday life, and who embraced it—celebrated it—gave thanks to
God for it—and who in doing all that—with all his heart, blessed it and
transformed it and multiplied it and magnified it and made it holy—just as he
had blessed and transformed that water that day at a wedding in Cana of
Galilee.
After
Jesus’ death and miraculous Resurrection, I would be called to become one of
the first Deacons to serve our faith—a living link between the original Twelve
and the Seven, between Greek and Aramaic speaking Jews. In doing so, I would
help spread the Gospel beyond the small circle of His early followers, to those
Jews of different tongue who would come to make up the early Church. And later,
I Philip, would be honored by God with the call to proclaim the Good News of
Jesus and baptize a man of Ethiopia
By then I had come to realize that the Messiah had
come among us from God for the sake of more than just Israel
Jesus
had come among us to do more than show a few followers the way to God. He had
come that all people might know God—Romans, Greeks, Jews and Samaritans
and Gentiles, men and women, young and old. He had come that all nations
might be blessed, and all peoples freed. He had come that all people might not
only repent but find mercy and forgiveness and acceptance.
He had come to conquer death and offer life. Not only
life after this plane of existence—but new life of joy and gladness and meaning
now— a life of harmony and care for one another—regardless of tongue or nation
or color---on this earth and in this life and right on through to whatever lies
beyond it.
He had come to draw men and women Himself and through
Him to God. Not by the blessing of the old clay pots filled with the water of
Law and ritual purity, but through the blessing of the new wine of forgiveness
and celebration. Not out of fear of hell or even hope of heaven, but simply out
of love—for one another—and for their Maker. Amen
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