Book Of John Study #2

Many of us would read John 2 and see that Jesus turned water into wine and be clueless of what was really going on here.
+ In that time Wedding celebrations would usually last a week and many guests would be invited. There had to be careful planning about food, drink etc. If the party ran out of food/drink it was a huge embarrassment to the couple and family. Jesus was responding to a heartfelt need here.

+ In this story I started thinking about what it looks like for a lot of people to wait to life hits empty to look to God. God still delivers the best but why wait to the end or when it gets bad. Following Jesus is the best possible life. But we tend only to come to God when things are at whits end or the end of life on Earth. What does it look like for us to come close to God throughout our lives and trust him in every part?

+ The temple clearing - here we see Jesus' and what righteous anger looks like. He isn't angry for selfish reasons, or for no purpose but rather he sees injustice happening and he is furious at that.
---The story behind the story---
The temple is packed - and people have come from all over to make their sacrifices. Jesus isn't upset that people are buying and selling but what they were doing. See the vendors and money exchangers were charging incredibly high rates to make a huge profit because they knew the people would have to do it. They would turn away their animals and make them buy their higher priced animals.

v19 Jesus says tear down this temple and I will restore it in 3 days. What Jesus is referring to is himself. He references himself as the temple. This is really a huge deal. The pharisees thought he was talking about the physical building. Jesus was making reference to himself being crucified and resurrected 3 days later.
+ Jesus as the new temple system. This passage also refers to the fact that Jesus was saying the temple system as they know it was broken. Jesus is going to be the way to God not sacrificing at the temple. Jesus was attacking head on their system and obviously these men who made a good living off of the temple didn't want to see it go. They wanted to kill him for things like that.

+ Later in Matthew 21:12-22 (read it) Jesus clears the temple again. After he does this they walk by a fig tree. The fig tree had leaves on it meaning that it was supposed to have fruit but it didn't. I think this is direct reference to the temple and the pharisees. It is supposed to offer life but only has crumbs. The outside looked good but the inside there was nothing.

What are your thoughts?