John 2: 1-25

John 2 is big on 2 things: Jesus is not interested in being ordinary, and that He definitely is not down with people turning faith into a business.

John 2:1-12

The First Sign: Turning Water into Wine

2 On the third day a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’s mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding as well. 3 When the wine ran out, Jesus’s mother told him, “They don’t have any wine.”

4 “What has this concern of yours to do with me,[a] woman?” Jesus asked. “My hour has not yet come.”

5 “Do whatever he tells you,” his mother told the servants.

6 Now six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification. Each contained twenty or thirty gallons.[b]

7 “Fill the jars with water,” Jesus told them. So they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the headwaiter.”[c] And they did.

9 When the headwaiter tasted the water (after it had become wine), he did not know where it came from—though the servants who had drawn the water knew. He called the groom 10 and told him, “Everyone sets out the fine wine first, then, after people are drunk, the inferior. But you have kept the fine wine until now.”

11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

12 After this, he went down to Capernaum, together with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they stayed there only a few days.

Here is another little thing explaining why Jesus did what He did.

They annoy me in the middle with doing a “subscribe to me” thing, but…

Cleansing the Temple

13 The Jewish Passover was near, and so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple, he found people selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and he also found the money changers sitting there. 15 After making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers’ coins and overturned the tables. 16 He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”[d]

17 And his disciples remembered that it is written: Zeal for your house will consume me.[e]

18 So the Jews replied to him, “What sign will you show us for doing these things?”

19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple,[f] and I will raise it up in three days.”

20 Therefore the Jews said, “This temple took forty-six years to build,[g] and will you raise it up in three days?”

21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the statement Jesus had made.

23 While he was in Jerusalem during the Passover Festival, many believed in his name when they saw the signs he was doing. 24 Jesus, however, would not entrust himself to them, since he knew them all 25 and because he did not need anyone to testify about man; for he himself knew what was in man.

The Big Idea

There are clearly two sides of Jesus:

At the wedding, He brings joy, abundance, and blessing.

At the Temple, He gets after corruption and hypocrisy.

One moment He's rescuing a wedding reception; the next He's flipping tables in the Temple.

It is simple - He can fill what is empty and demonstrate that things are not as they are supposed to be.

If you are expecting Him to fit into neat little assumptions about how He should act, it is pretty clear Jesus won’t.

John 1: 1-51

John the Apostle was a Galilean fisherman, the son of Zebedee, and the brother of James. As one of Jesus' closest inner circle, he is famously referred to in the Gospels as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." He authored five New Testament books: the Gospel of John, three epistles, and Revelation. (Wikipedia)

The Book of John is basically the Gospel that walks into the room, waits for everyone to settle down, and says, "In case there was any confusion, Jesus is the Son of God."

While the other Gospels spend a lot of time telling you what happened, John seems determined to make sure you understand who Jesus is. Along the way, you get water turned into wine, a guy raised from the dead, blind people seeing, and enough miracles that most people would have stopped asking for proof somewhere around Chapter 6.

John also gives us the famous "I am" statements, where Jesus essentially says, "Let me explain this one more time," using bread, light, shepherds, doors, vines, and resurrection as visual aids.

The whole book can be summed up like this: John watched people repeatedly miss the point, so he wrote a 21-chapter reminder that Jesus is the Messiah and that maybe—just maybe—we should pay attention this time.

THIS BIT ABOUT THE WORD IS CONFUSING!

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 4 In him was life,[a] and that life was the light of men. 5 That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome[b] it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him.[c] 8 He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.[d]

10 He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be[e] children of God, to those who believe in his name, 13 who were born, not of natural descent,[f] or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man,[g] but of God.

14 The Word became flesh and dwelt[h] among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son[i] from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified concerning him and exclaimed, “This was the one of whom I said, ‘The one coming after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’”) 16 Indeed, we have all received grace upon[j] grace from his fullness, 17 for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side[k]—he has revealed him.

John 1:19-51 (according to me)

Everyone is trying to figure out who Jesus is - John keeps saying, “It’s not me.”

Religious leaders show up, and they ask John if he is the Messiah - he is basically like, “Nope. Not Elijah. Not the prophet - I am just the dude telling everyone to get ready”

Jesus shows up, and John points him out, saying, “The Lamb of God.” He makes it clear that Jesus is the man and that he is just the supporting cast.

Some people decide to follow Jesus to see who He is. Jesus asks them, “What do you want?” They end up deciding that he is the Messiah.

They go and tell their friends, and this is where the “Can anything cool come out of Nazareth?” line comes to be.

Nathanael gets schooled when Jesus tells him things He shouldn’t be able to know and he goes from skeptic to believer real fast.

Jesus says, “Just wait - I am going to do way cooler stuff than that.”

John the Baptist’s Testimony

19 This was John’s testimony when the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, “Who are you?”

20 He didn’t deny it but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”

21 “What then?” they asked him. “Are you Elijah?”

“I am not,” he said.

“Are you the Prophet?”

“No,” he answered.

22 “Who are you, then?” they asked. “We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What can you tell us about yourself?”

23 He said, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord[l]—just as Isaiah the prophet said.”

24 Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 So they asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you aren’t the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet?”

26 “I baptize with[m] water,” John answered them. “Someone stands among you, but you don’t know him. 27 He is the one coming after me,[n] whose sandal strap I’m not worthy to untie.” 28 All this happened in Bethany[o] across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

The Lamb of God

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I told you about: ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ 31 I didn’t know him, but I came baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he rested on him. 33 I didn’t know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The one you see the Spirit descending and resting on—he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”[p]

35 The next day, John was standing with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

37 The two disciples heard him say this and followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and noticed them following him, he asked them, “What are you looking for?”

They said to him, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”

39 “Come and you’ll see,” he replied. So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.[q]

40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard John and followed him. 41 He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah”[r] (which is translated “the Christ”), 42 and he brought Simon to Jesus.

When Jesus saw him, he said, “You are Simon, son of John.[s] You will be called Cephas” (which is translated “Peter”[t]).

Philip and Nathanael

43 The next day Jesus[u] decided to leave for Galilee. He found Philip and told him, “Follow me.”

44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law (and so did the prophets): Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”

46 “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael asked him.

“Come and see,” Philip answered.

47 Then Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

48 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.

“Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you,” Jesus answered.

49 “Rabbi,” Nathanael replied, “You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel!”

50 Jesus responded to him, “Do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” 51 Then he said, “Truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Daisy’s World

This dog is the biggest pain in the ass, I can’t even tell you how much. From the incessant cat chasing and barking to losing her mind when she hears a Life 360 alert go off - she is in perpetual motion and constant noise. Rare is the moment when one does not know where she is; it’s not hard, as ebullient as she is. When she cannot be found, it creates worry because there is worry about what she is getting into.

But she absolutely loves with her whole heart. I try to keep this in mind when she is driving me crazy, barking at animals when they cross the TV screen.

Create

I love making videos, and I have several cameras; nice ones. The problem with them is that they have one of two problems, or both. They are either too big, which makes it a pain to take them places, or they are so expensive that I don’t dare take them all over for fear of them being damaged. (Yes, I have also asked myself why I even have them too, but they do get a lot of good use in my studio at school and such)

With all of that in mind, I recently purchased a DJI Osmo Action 6. It is a sweet little unit that takes pretty good video, is small enough to carry anywhere, robust enough to take underwater (don’t know if I will ever do that), and inexpensive, so I won’t worry about it.

I know how zero excuses about making videos. That and summer is here, so I am gonna get to creating.

Below is video #1. Daisy is cool enough to have a post of her own, so you will see it in two places on this site.

John Kiriakou

I have really gone down the rabbit hole on this guy. John Kiriakou, former CIA agent, whistleblower, convicted felon, inmate, and finally social media icon. I listened to him on a couple of podcasts, and he was really interesting. He talked about what life was like recruiting assets in foreign countries, life as an analyst, and finally, all of the political infighting that happens at Langley. Was fascinating stuff. Then I learned about his books. The one that caught my eye was, Doing Time Like a Spy. He went to prison for releasing some secrets about the CIA’s torture program - IMO, he is a whistleblower.

This is a great read! I went through it in 3 days or so, and it was just so interesting. When you think about it, he really did receive training that would make it easy to navigate a place like prison. It did get really Machiavellian - but when you want a ChoMo (child molester) to get out of your cell, you would probably stop at nothing as well.

He has a ton of podcasts right now; he is kind of blowing up. He is incredibly well read, well spoken, and he really writes in such a way that he can maintain one’s interest really well.

Thumbs up - go check it out.

Another year, more The Alchemist

Yes, I know that I have already posted about this book before, but this time I have a fancy new teleprompter that I have been waiting for some time to figure out how to use and create a video about this book, well, one particular part of it anyway - the Personal Legend.

I talk to so many kids, and one of the questions I often ask is, “What are you passionate about?” I then watch them go through a series of thoughts, which I interpret this way:

I am passionate about this, they think. Self-editing takes place, I won’t say that - I will say this safer comment that I believe will not result in possible derision and/or judgement.

What a bummer, man. I see the light shine in their eyes, and they dim it out. All. By. Themselves.

So I decided that maybe Paulo Coelho has a better answer. I will try to jump on his shoulders and hopefully resonate with the kids.

Below is my copy for the teleprompter. I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Ahh, the end of another school year.  Around this time, I start thinking about where and how things are going in my life, which causes me to pick up a book that I read once a year when I am feeling and thinking that way.  It is called The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.  How was I turned on to this book?  I heard Reggie Miller on a sports radio channel talking about it one day on my ride home from school over 20 years ago.  So I went and bought it - this was before Amazon and Kindle readers.  It was an easy read - I’d call it a 2-sit-down read.

It really resonated with me.  So much so that I gave it to some of my students to read.  When I got it back, they had written in it - scribbles everywhere. At first, this made me really angry, but then I took the time to see what they were writing.  It was really good stuff.  Occasionally really profound, and students were responding back and forth to what other students had written.  So I told them to go ahead and keep doing it.   Tell me what you think about it.  Expand on it.  When other people read the book, they might take something from what you wrote in there.

Over the years, tons of students read it, and the annotations just kept growing.  So much so that it kind of became a living, breathing thing.  It had a heartbeat of its own because so many people added their thoughts and whatnot.  I treasured that book, and it always worried me when I gave it to someone to read.  As it so happens, I did loan it out and never got it back, and I consider it such a loss because there was just so much good stuff in it.

So why did I keep reading this book over and over?  One of the best parts about it is when Coelho talks about Personal Legends.   Your personal legend is your deepest calling or purpose in life.  It's the thing you always wanted to do. Dreamed about.  Your personal legend is purpose plus desire plus identity.  It is the thing that makes you feel alive and true to yourself.  It's the path that aligns your desires with the universe or “Soul of the World.”  More on that later.

That stuff all sounds really good, right? Well, here is where it gets tricky.  Coelho says that we all know EXACTLY what our personal legend is when we are young.  This is because all things are possible.  That the universe sends us messages about what we should be doing - he called them omens.  

The primary reason that people do not realize their personal legends is fear, just being afraid.  Afraid of failure, losing what they already have, and of what other people will think.  The deeper message is that fear is more dangerous than failure.  Santiago, the protagonist, meets a mentor, Mel-chuh-zeh-duk, who nudges Santiago towards the truth that the journey matters as much as the destination.  Learning and transformation are as important as the treasure he seeks.  Mel-chuh-zeh-duk offered his advice for a price, which demonstrates that searching for one’s personal legend requires sacrifice and commitment - chasing your personal legend is not free; you have to give something up to pursue it.

Santiago learns that the universe conspires to help us in our quest, but not through anything miraculous, so get that out of your head right now.  It gives you signs that guide you, signs that, along with your intuition and awareness, will tell you what direction to go.  It helps us by giving us opportunities.  We must pay attention to these opportunities, trust our instincts, and act decisively.  These opportunities also have to be pursued with enthusiasm.  A lack of enthusiasm is betraying your personal legend.  Either be about it, or forget it.

What is my personal legend?  When I was young, it was to be a professional baseball player, which, to a small extent, I managed to do.  And there were all kinds of help from the ‘universe’ to assist in that endeavor.  

Other possibilities presented along the way.  I think that the universe put several people in my life who might be considered ‘omens’ along the way.  Mr. Gary Twesten, my HS biology teacher,  was the person that I remember to this day who made me think that being a teacher would be a really cool gig.  The fact that I remember his name is quite remarkable because I am the worst person in the world at remembering names.  I am thankful that he was placed into my life.

This is all to say that I think I have been very blessed in the journey I have taken chasing down my personal legend - but I do not want to talk about that whole thing right now.  I would like to talk about your personal legend.

Just yesterday, I spoke with a student about what their personal legend might be. After I asked this question, I watched them go through the self-editing process, where they were deciding whether or not to tell me what it was, and started explaining why they didn't think it was right for them - they had already given up on it, which validates what Coelho said - that we only believe our dreams are possible when we are young.  As time passes, we begin to rationalize why chasing those dreams is no longer a viable option.  We become convinced that our lives will take us in another direction and that it is okay to let go ‘the dream’  Coelho also said that at that point, the universe will stop sending us omens because it doesn't want to break our hearts; it knows when we have given up and that it would only make us feel bad by reminding us about the dreams we once had.

There's a lot to unpack there.  I highly recommend that you read the book, as it will do a far better job explaining how one chases down their personal legend than I ever could.  What I think you should do is go have a meeting with yourself, take yourself out to coffee, go for a long drive, and try to reacquaint yourself with who you were as a 7-year-old.  Talk with them about what they wanted to be in life, when the entire world was new, and all things were possible.  If you can somehow replicate that mindset, even for a little while, it might open up a world of new thoughts and maybe opportunities.  Perhaps an omen showing you a glimpse of your 7-year-old passion is right around the corner, and if you align some effort and attention, new opportunities might present themselves. If you trust your instincts and act decisively, who knows what might happen?