Booklet Review By David P. Craig: Jesus Knows How To Party!
The Wedding Party is the fourth essay in the Encounters with Jesus Series – based on several lectures given to students by Tim Keller at Oxford Town Hall, London, in 2012. In the previous three essays Keller has tackled some of the most important questions one can ever ask. In this essay Keller tackles the question: “What did Jesus come to do?” He answers this question by giving us an exposition of Jesus’ first recorded miracle, or sign at a wedding feast in Cana as recorded in chapter two of the Gospel of John.
The miracle of Jesus’ turning water into wine was ultimately a symbol or a signifier of something greater to come. Keller masterfully gives three future signs that Jesus’ miracle at the wedding banquet point to. There are three symbols or types in this wedding encounter that all ultimately point to our future with Christ. This story is a picture of how Jesus enjoyed the joy at the wedding feast by providing more wine, and yet how He became our substitute on the cross by receiving the cup of God’s wrath that we deserve so that we can one day receive the coming joy provided by Him.
Keller unfolds the big story of all of the Scriptures in this one story from John 2. He shows our need to be reconciled to God, how Jesus provides what we need, and how Jesus is the provider of the feast that we all ultimately long for. We can face anything in life knowing what awaits us at the Lamb’s party that is to come in the Kingdom of Heaven.
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