Luke 4:14-30: Liberation!

Presented to Corps 614 Regent Park of The Salvation Army, 31 January 2016 by Captain Michael Ramsay

This is the original. To read the version presented the Alberni Valley Ministries on 07 April 2019, clik here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2019/04/luke-414-30-today.html

A week ago Saturday was the men’s breakfast. It was a great breakfast. It was one of the best turn outs yet. The speaker spoke about digging ditches: great message. There was bacon. It was a great time. At one point someone asked me very politely who the woman was who had come to the men’s breakfast. There was one lady who showed up – a friend of ours here – John was good to send her away, with some bacon. I thought that is who I was being asked about. ‘No, who was the lady who stayed and had breakfast with us for the whole meal? At the next table there?’, he asked.

‘Oh. That wasn’t a woman’, I said. Our friend was a little embarrassed – there wasn’t really any need to be - but you know what it is like when you think things are one way but they turn out to be another way. Our scripture today is a little bit like that.

Luke 4:14-30: This is really an interesting text. At least for me it is. It is one of those where you have read it maybe less than one million times but you have read it enough that you think you know what it says and then one day you slow down and read what it actually says and are somewhat surprised.

I started to look at this passage in preparation for today a couple of weeks ago when we just came back from Cuba which was also around MLK day in the US. It was at that time and in that context I read the passage Jesus’ quotes from Isaiah here. We recognize this passage don’t we? Our corps is based on Isaiah 61:4 and Jesus here quotes Isaiah 61:1-2 and more and it is a powerful quote. Jesus says, NIV,

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me

    to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

    and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

¹⁹     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

This is exciting stuff and this reminds me of Martin Luther King Jr. in the US; Che, the Argentinean, Fidel Castro from Cuba– and William Booth from our Salvation Army for that matter. I don’t know if you have ever read the writings of any of these revolutionaries and I would probably add voices of Leon Trotsky, Nelson Mandela, or Leo Tolstoy to the list. These people - Booth, Castro, MLK jr. – these people can be absolutely inspiring.[1] Whether you ascribe to liberation theology or not, I don’t think you can read the words of any of these people without being impressed upon.

Our Scripture fits right in line with any of the aforementioned, Jesus quotes Isaiah and more in saying:

• today good news is to be announced to the poor;
• today he has sent me… to proclaim freedom for the prisoners;
• today, he has sent me.. to preach recovery of sight to the blind;
• today, he has sent me… to set the oppressed free;
• TODAY, he has sent me… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. Not tomorrow, not in some far off place, not in some far off time, but
• Today this very scripture has been filled in your presence. Do I hear an ‘amen’?!

This reminds me so much of some of MLK’s speeches – especially his ‘I have a dream’ speech and his address to the UN on receiving the Noble Peace prize that I can’t help but hear these verses echo as MLK’s voice in my mind: Today, the oppressed shall be set free![2] Today, we proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour! Amen!

As I was preparing for this time today I was going to chat about how this passage is a fulfillment of scripture. The Christ and thus all Christians will proclaim these things alongside those revolutionaries we have mentioned today. I was going to mention how those in the synagogue rejected Jesus because he was taking on the mantel of messiah calling for these revolutionary ideas of justice. I was then going to quote some of the aforementioned and highlight how they and we have received that message - reflecting especially upon how North America has fallen short of MLK’s dream and how we killed him as we killed Christ and others… but then I read the text a little more closely.

These things – proclaiming good news to the poor, freedom to the prisoners, sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed, the year of the Lord’s favour – this isn’t what got the people in Jesus’ hometown upset at all. They weren’t upset about this or any possible messianic claims imbedded therein. In fact it was quite the opposite. Take a look at our Scripture. Jesus begins his homily on this pericope by saying that today this scripture has been fulfilled, vs. 21, he then presumably elaborates upon that premise and look at how Luke says the people respond.[3] Luke records, vs. 22, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’ they asked.” It says that they are amazed. They are impressed that Joseph’s son, whom they all undoubtedly know personally as this is his home synagogue in his home town, which he has visited and read scripture in many times before; they are impressed that he spoke in such a way.[4] I can imagine from verses 21 and 22 that if this were a contemporary church, people would be shouting ‘amen!’ at full volume as Jesus winds up his message. They are amazed, it says, but then their amazement changes. It doesn’t change because he may have implied that he is the Messiah and it doesn’t change because he claims that the time of scriptural fulfillment is now. The gospel notes that they were quite happy with that:[5] they were quite happy as Jesus proclaimed good news to the poor, freedom to the prisoners, sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed, the year of the Lord’s favour. What made them mad was Jesus implied very obviously that that favour - and all of the other related blessings - that this salvation is not for them.[6] Jesus says, vv. 24-28:

“²⁴ “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵ I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶ Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. ²⁷ And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

²⁸ All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.”

Can you imagine? A now newly or about to become famous preacher or politician or both, whom you have grown up with (either he or his mom and dad) comes to his and your home community’s church and speaks to us all about these wonderful things that are going to happen. We all say, ‘good job!’ ‘Well done!’ ‘You tell them Jesus!’ ‘Go get ‘em!’ Right? We are proud when people we know from the neighbourhood make good on their life. We are proud of everyone who makes it from our community here. In Saskatchewan where we were recently posted, every small town on the Canadian prairie has these big bill boards on the highway outside their community saying home of ‘Travis Moen’, ‘Zack Smith’, ‘Patrick Marleau’, whomever – celebrating and commemorating famous hockey players, football players, politicians or others who have come from the community. It would be the same in Jesus’ home synagogue in Nazareth. ‘That’s Jesus’, they might say, ‘I knew him when he was just a little kid. His dad and I grew up together. He was a good kid. Everything this boy is saying makes sense. He’s one of us. He’s a chip off the old block and more. Jesus is one of us and we are going to take the world by storm.’ And then, right in the middle of our voiced or imagined praise of him, it would be like he says – right when we are all puffed up about how great he is and how proud we are of our neighbourhood – Jesus says… “Oh you thought I was saying all these good things about you…?’ ‘This is not for you – no, no - this good stuff is all for someone else. Not you Nazareth, where I grew up; not for you Israel, where I live; not for you Judah.[7] This good stuff is not for you who are here thinking that you are the only children of God. This good stuff is for someone else and not just for someone else; it is for your enemies: the Sidonites and the Syrians, just like it was in the days of Elisha and Elijah before, and implied always.[8] You thought I was talking about you…no, no, no, this good stuff is for other people and not just other people; it is for other people with whom you to go to war when you get the chance. Jesus says, just like in the OT and as always, it is the Sidionites, the Syrians, and others that will experience this salvation from the Lord that you just ‘amen-ed’; I am not talking about you.” Can you imagine?

 You can see why they might get a little upset. It would be like if someone led a pep rally here at the ACC, under all the old banners hung from the rafters, extolling the virtues of the ‘greatest hockey franchise ever’ and as everyone in Toronto here is cheering about how indeed they will win another Stanley cup and maybe even someday soon –even next season - assuming the speaker is talking about the Leafs and the crowd is all worked up and then he yells out ‘and God bless Canada’s greatest hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens!’ This would be the feelings aroused in our text. And even more, it would be like Jesus was extolling the virtues of the greatest country on earth, working us all up into a frenzy believing he is talking about Canada and then says ‘God bless America’ or ‘God bless Saudi Arabia’… ‘Oh you, thought I was talking about Canada?’

This is what has gotten the people all riled up.[9] They came here wanting words of encouragement and wisdom and Jesus read and spoke about the Scriptures and he gave them some words alright. They thought he was blessing them and he was telling them quite plainly that just like God could have saved Israelites in the times of Elisha and Elijah but he chose rather to save their enemies; so too today. This is why they are upset.

Jesus is – as always - concerned about people on the fringes: the poor, ill, and the marginalized; our enemies, our rivals, and others who are on the outside. Those who think they are healthy do not seek a doctor (Luke 5:31; Matthew 9:12, Mark 2:17). Those who think they are saved are not looking for salvation. Jesus here foretells and more Israel’s rejection of her and our messiah and how regardless of that, Israel’s saviour is going to save her enemies and anybody else.

 Now this is offensive but honestly the people hearing this should know this. The Israelites in general should be and the Pharisees in particular would be very familiar with the fact that Israel was not chosen to be saved in place of other people, quite the contrary Israel was chosen to bring salvation to the entire world (John 3:16-17).[10] God says to Abraham, in the Bible, before Israel even exists, that ALL the nations of the earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:3). Israel was chosen by God not to be saved from the world but to bring salvation to the world and though they had not been faithful in that task, still God uses the Israelite, Jesus, to save the world even as many in Israel will reject that Salvation and choose to perish outside of the promised kingdom to come. God loves everyone and He wants everyone to be saved and even in this (cf. Galatians 3:28, 1 Corinthians 12:13), as John Wesley says, He has a preferential message for the poor;[11] and we need to bring and be brought that message – our message- of Isaiah 61 to ourselves, our community and to our world today.

Look at our banners around this church today that we have carried with us to the various locations we have worshipped and proclaimed God’s Salvation. We have Matthew Chapter 7. We have Isaiah 61:4. These are promises Jesus offers to our community and these are promises that Jesus offers to our world. Do we believe that? Do we claim that? And do we live that? The truth is that as John 3:16-17 proclaims, Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn the world but instead he came so that whosoever, anyone and everyone, might be saved. And this is wonderful news: it is not just for the privileged few. It is for all of us and especially those of us when we are in real need. As Jesus says, 

- today good news is to be announced to the poor;

- today he has sent me… to proclaim freedom for the prisoners;

- today, he has sent me.. to preach recovery of sight to the blind;

- today, he has sent me… to set the oppressed free;

- today, he has sent me… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

Today is the day of the Lord’s favour when we can all be rebuilt, restored, and renewed; do we believe that?

Let us pray

www.sheepspeak.com

https://www.facebook.com/Salvogesis

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[1] Cf. Paul John Isaak, 'Luke', Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), 1239.

[2] Cf. William Hendricksen, Exposition of the Gospel According to Luke (NTC: Baker Academic: Grand Rapids Michigan, 2007), 255, re. 'today'

[3] R. Alan Culpepper, Luke (NIB 8: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 105

[4] N.T. Wright, Luke for Everyone (Louisville, Kentucky, USA: WJK, 2004),

[5] Cf. Paul John Isaak, 'Luke', Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), 1239.

[6] Cf. R. Alan Culpepper, Luke (NIB 8: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 108

[7] Cf. Amy-Jill Levine, ‘Luke and the Jewish Religion’ in Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 2014, Vol. 68 (4) 389-402.

[8] Walter L. Leifeld, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Luke/Exposition of Luke/IV. The Galilean Ministry (4:14-9:50)/A. Initial Phase (4:14-6:16)/1. First approach and rejection at Nazareth (4:14-30), Book Version: 4.0.2

[9] Walter L. Leifeld, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Luke/Exposition of Luke/IV. The Galilean Ministry (4:14-9:50)/A. Initial Phase (4:14-6:16)/1. First approach and rejection at Nazareth (4:14-30), Book Version: 4.0.2

[10] Cf. N.T. Wright, Luke for Everyone (Louisville, Kentucky, USA: WJK, 2004), 48.

[11] Cf. Donald W. Dayton, 'PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:THE WESLEYAN OPTION FOR THE POOR' in Wesleyan Theological Journal 26, 1991, 7-22. On-line: http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wesleyjournal/1991-wtj-26.pdf

John 2:1-12: They Believed.

Presented to 614 Regent Park 17 Jan 2016 

by Captain Michael Ramsay [a]

I remember when I was younger than my older two girls are now - maybe 10 or 11. I remember once we were watching TV in the living room –my mom, my dad, my sister, and I - and I, as a 10 or 11 year-old boy make some apparently hopelessly inappropriate comment about something on TV so my mom decides that it is time for my dad and I to have a sex education talk and banishes the two of us to the kitchen.

My dad and I talk about what we are supposed to talk about for a while but the conversation eventually changes to other interesting things such as God and family history. It is an easy transition from sex education to family history especially as my grandfather’s father brought the first rodeo across Canada; he was always travelling from the east coast to west. He had another reason for travelling too. He had one family out west in Saskatchewan and another family back east in the Maritimes – until, of course my great grandmother found out. My great grandfather could have used one of these sex-ed talks. I am eagerly learning all of this family history from my dad and it is starting to get really interesting as we have long accomplished our assigned topic and task and we are actually laughing about some of the more interesting family stories and other things.

It is at this point that my mom hears all the laughter. My mom comes into the kitchen and with a firm voice reminds us why we are supposed to be here. It is not supposed to be fun. It is so ‘I can learn a lesson,’ she says. ‘And how is the sex education talk going?’ She asks. To which, as an 11 year-old boy, I reply, ‘Very well, I’ve taught dad everything I know’. My dad continues, ‘Yes, I’ve learned a lot.’ That doesn’t go over so well. We laugh. Mom doesn’t. I, however, am glad that my dad had added to my comment because it means that I am off the hook and able to sneak out of the room and out of trouble as Dad is now the recipient of Mom’s attention.

Our pericope today speaks to –among other things- a relationship between a mom and her son. We have an interesting exchange between Jesus and his mother here in vv. 3 -5 of John 2. Jesus is older than 11 in our story today; he is probably in his early 30’s. He is at wedding, probably a family wedding.[1] He is there, as is his mother, his brothers, and his disciples (a least the first 5 of them, anyway).[2] The wedding is taking place in the town of Cana. Cana is really close to where Jesus, his mother, his brothers, and most of his disciples live. It is only 8 or 9 miles north of Nazareth. Eight or nine miles: what is 8 or 9 miles from here? That is still part of the GTA. This wedding in Cana is pretty close to Nazareth.

Whoever is getting married is obviously a family member or a close friend of the family because we notice that when trouble arises – the running out of wine – it is Jesus’ mother, Mary, who either volunteers or is tasked to find the solution to the problem. Mary and Jesus, his brothers and his disciples are not just casual guests. They must know the people getting married fairly well. They (or at least Mary anyway) have some significant role to play in this event.

Now we have just finished the Christmas season here and we looked briefly - as we often do around Christmas - at the 1st Century Judean engagement/betrothal arrangements that are really quite different from traditional Canadian engagements. Today, in our pericope, we have a wedding. Now Galilean weddings in the first century did have some things in common with Canadian weddings of the 21st century. There were often lots of people; friends and family would travel a great distance to attend the festivities. Then, after they did travel all that way, the family would often stay to visit for a while– especially if they walked there, which many of them would have in 1st Century Galilee.

Marriage celebrations then and there, unlike weddings here and now lasted quite a while. A wedding ceremony nowadays can reasonably be expected to last between 30 minutes and 2 hours and then add another hour or few for the reception afterwards. There and then in Galilee it was expected that the wedding festivities would last for up to a week.[3] The Bridegroom was the host. He and his family would then be expected to host all the relatives, friends, and family from both sides for this week: providing them all with accommodations, food, and beverages. Here and now in our world today it is embarrassing enough if we don’t quite make enough sandwiches for a funeral or some other event. There and then, can you imagine if the marriage celebration began on a Monday and was to last until Friday or Saturday but you ran out of food and drink for your guests on Wednesday? It would be humiliating! You couldn’t just call to have pizzas delivered. You couldn’t just have someone run down to the store to pick up a sandwich tray. You would be out of food; you would be out of wine and the whole town, your whole family and the whole lot of your new in-laws would all be thinking a few things about you if you ran out of wine at your wedding celebrations.

This is the background to the story when we get to the part of this pericope that always interests me, verses 3,4 &5:

3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him,

“They have no more wine.”

4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied.

“My hour has not yet come.”

5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

This will be Jesus’ first recorded miracle. The question many people seem to ask here is why is Jesus’ first miracle to make wine (and it is wine; it is not grape juice![4]) for people who have already had quite a bit to drink. If they had roadside check stops in those days, I probably wouldn’t recommend that any of them drive home.

The questions that strike me though are:

1) Why is Jesus’ mother even asking Jesus to do something about the fact that they have run out of wine? Why doesn’t she ask Jesus AND his other brothers who are there? This is his first recorded miracle; so why just ask Jesus? Does she expect him to do some kind of a miracle? Has Jesus done something similar at home before? In the context of the Bible here (John 1-2), it has only been in the previous few days that Jesus has even just acquired his first disciples – he probably doesn’t even have all of the twelve yet; did his mom expect Jesus to send these disciples to do something or did she know already (before he had ever performed any public miracles) that he could and that he would perform miracles such as this – making wine at a wedding? [5]

2) Another question I have pertains to Jesus’ response to his mother’s request. When asked by his mom to do something, he says: “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come,” To this my dad would respond, if I ever uttered such a phrase, “Is that anyway to speak to your mother?” Aren’t we supposed to honour our mothers and fathers? How honouring is this response?

3) And another question that I have relates to Mary’s response to Jesus’ comments. Mary asks him to solve the wine problem in whatever way he will solve it. Jesus replies in such as way as one might infer that he is refusing to help his mother: “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.” But this does not faze his mother at all; she seems to ignore his objections all together and says to the servants, “do whatever he tells you”? Why isn’t Mary fazed by Jesus? Why does she seem to completely ignore his response to her as if he is a toddler or a child protesting for the sake of protesting?

Can you imagine the scene at the wedding: The wine has just run out. It is a potentially devastating situation for the bridegroom and his family and Mary and Jesus are having this little discussion as recorded in vv. 3-5.

More questions then arise, of course, such as: Why is the author of the Gospel of John telling us this story? What is the text saying? And more importantly: what is God doing here in the story?

The wedding party has run out of wine. Jesus has just had this encounter with his mother. He then proceeds to save the day by turning some jars of water that they used for ceremonial hand cleaning into about 150 gallons of the best wine possible, to be served when most people have been drinking for a while and so they won’t even notice how good it is.[6] John 2:11: “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” This miracle is Jesus’ first sign of who he is and what he is doing and his disciples put their faith in Him. Jesus’ transformation of water into wine causes his disciples to put their faith in Him.

Lots of questions: let us explore the text a little more here as we address them. This miracle of Jesus’ was no small feat. There was a lot riding on the fact that the wine would show up. If it didn’t, the bridegroom would have been humiliated. Jesus, in turning the water into wine, and not just any wine but into copious amounts of the best wine of the wedding, not only saves the day very dramatically but He shows what God can do and His disciples here and now put their complete faith in Him. This is an important part of the story.

It is the same in our world today, when we are faced with difficult situations, when we are faced with family members putting demands upon us, when we are faced with embarrassment, when we are faced with humiliation, when we are faced with even not being able to provide for our family in our world today, Jesus is there for us just like Jesus is there for his friends and family in Cana. The only questions for us then are: do we believe in Jesus, like his disciples do? And are we willing to put our faith in him, like his mother does?

Speaking of questions, I am not going to leave us hanging entirely about the questions we mentioned earlier. Let’s see what we can find in the way of possible answers. First about the question that everyone asks regarding Jesus making wine for people who had been drinking and were possibly even drunk - does that mean that Jesus condones drunkenness? No, the Scriptures condemn drunkenness more than once actually (Leviticus 10:9, Proverbs 31:4-5, Ecclesiastes 10:17, Isaiah 28:7, 1 Timothy 3:8). However, making water into wine has been associated eschatologically with divinity (Jeremiah 31:12, Joel 3:8, Amos 8:11-14; cf. also Enoch 10:19). [7] This text isn’t addressing drinking. It is addressing divinity and eschatology. Also providing this wine is a real and important part of showing hospitality to your neighbour in 1st Century Galilee, especially on an important occasion like a bridegroom’s wedding. Jesus isn’t promoting drunkenness, on the contrary Jesus is showing his faithfulness to those around him, as well as to God; and he is showing that we can put our faith in him.

Now about the other questions: the questions about the way Jesus was addressing his mother. He wasn’t actually speaking with any disrespect. The word translated ‘woman’ here in our text, when he addresses his mother can be seen as a neutral or a positive term and he does definitely honour his mother in the text by fulfilling her request and much more (cf. Matthew 15:28, Luke 22:57, John 4:21; cf. also 2 Kings 3:13, 2 Chronicles 35:21).[8] Jesus doesn’t leave her in the lurch; he saves her as he saves the festivities. Mary takes no offence by what Jesus says and she has perfect faith in him as she even instructs the servants in this story to “do whatever he tells you.”[9] I think this is good advice for us today too. Whenever we are faced by life’s crises, like Mary and the servants, we should have the faith to ask Jesus what to do and then we should have faith to do whatever Jesus tells us to do. He is faithful and we can put our faith in Him.

So then pertaining to those of us who are here today, I know that there are people in this congregation and even in this room who are facing challenges every bit as big as Jesus’ friends and family at the wedding. Some here are facing challenges of possibly not being able to provide for your family or yourself – January is a long month for some. Some here are without work. Some have even lost jobs. Some are faced with the daunting prospect returning to work after a long break. Some have serious health challenges. Some have lost loved ones, friends and family members. Some of us are grieving friends who have moved on in one way or another and some of us are faced with family problems every bit as intense as the challenges of today’s text. Some of us are facing new realities, different from anything we had ever hoped for or expected. Some of us are hurt. Some of us feel betrayed. Some of us are anxious, some of us are angry, and some of us here today are just plain sad. Sometimes life can be overwhelming.

John’s record of Jesus’ miracle of turning the water into wine has a special message for each of us who find ourselves in situations like this here today. When things look as bad as they can look; when there seems to be nothing that we can do; when it seems like our life and our world is ‘going to Hell in a hand basket’, as they say; when it seems that everything going askew, we can put our faith in Christ – just like Mary did and just like the disciples did. When everything seems to be going sideways, we can put our faith in Christ and we can turn our will and our lives over to Him. Just as Jesus was faithful in the midst of the chaos and concern at the wedding, saving the day, and his disciples put their faith in him; Jesus is still faithful here and now in the midst of the chaos and confusion of our lives so that we too can put our faith in Him and we too can be saved.

Let us pray.

www.sheepspeak.com 

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[a] A version of this sermon was presented to Swift Current Corps on 06 Jan. 2012. Available on-line at: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2013/01/john-21-12-and-they-believed-in-him.html

[1] Cf. Rosemary King, “17th January: 2nd after Epiphany: The Marriage at Cana (John 2:1-11)," The Expository Times 121, no. 3 (December 2009): 134.

[2] Colin G.Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4), S. 93.

[3] Stack and Billerbeck, Das Evangelium nach Johannes in Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Tulmud und Midrash, (Munchen, 1924), 401. Cited in William Hendricksen, John, in New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Academic, 2007), 114.

[4] Cf. William Hendricksen, John, in New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Academic, 2007), 115.

[5] Cf. Colin G.Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4), S. 93: these were after all eschatological signs.

[6] Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, in The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 538.

[7] Gerard Sloyan, John, in Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, ed James L. Mays, et. al. (Atlanta, Georgia: John Knox Press, 1988), 36-37

[8] ‘Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, in The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 536-537.

[9] Cf. Merrill C. Tenney, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:John/Exposition of John/II. The Public Ministry of the Word (1:19-12:50)/A. The Beginning Ministry (1:19-4:54)/3. The first sign (2:1-11), Book Version: 4.0.2