Like all mantles, Joseph’s mantle is an inheritance that ultimately comes from the great Giver of all gifts, the Lord Himself. And unless it returns to His hands for repair and mending, it becomes increasingly tattered and defiled. As we’ve seen, it passed through the partnerships of Sheerah and Joshua, Deborah and Barak, Jezebel and Ahab. It needed fixing by the time those last two had shredded it. And Jesus did so: He washed it clean and stitched it back together. It was a multi-step process and He started at the wedding feast in Cana. There we catch a first glimpse of the restoration He was to bring to it when His mother approaches Him to let Him know the wine has run out.
‘Woman,’ He says to her, ‘…My hour has not yet come.’ (John 2:4 ESV)
Now there’s a lot of controversy over this mode of address. But when it comes right down to it, although it wasn’t an insult to address a woman this way in first century Israel, it was offensive to speak to your mother this way.
This, therefore, is a major clue about the spiritual dynamic involved.
Immediately after this, Mary says to the servants: ‘Do whatever He tells you.’
Here’s the second clue. It’s a quote straight from the story of Joseph. These are Pharaoh’s words to the Egyptians at the start of the famine: ‘Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.’ (Genesis 41:55 NLT)
Joseph, you may recall, was renamed Zaphenath-Paneah by Pharaoh, a name I believe honours the Canaanite goddess, Anat of Zaphon. The Greek version of her name was Anath, and it so happens that the Aramaic word for woman is ‘anath’. That’s why I think Jesus addressed His mother that way—to reveal that Anat, the dispossessor and the claimant to the rulership of appointed time, the threshold guardian who tries to block the processing of shame, was involved in this sudden shortage and was intent on bringing down massive, inescapable humiliation on the bridegroom’s family. After all, isn’t Jesus speaking of appointed time when He comments, ‘My hour has not yet come’?
However, to show that He is the ruler of time and seasons, not the usurper Anat, He changes water into wine on the spot. Let’s face it, water to wine is not such a big deal—it’s in the process of happening every day out in the vineyards of this world. But normally the transformation takes months, not minutes.
To further demonstrate His overcoming of Anat the dispossessor, He makes new wine. Sure, it’s fine and aged but it’s undeniably new. And the Hebrew for new wine, ‘tirosh’, derives from a word for inheritance. This miracle symbolises a restoration of all that we have been dispossessed of. Jesus specifically took hold of Joseph’s mantle and scrubbed it clean of Anat’s stains.
He hasn’t yet passed it to one of His disciples, but He will.
This is Grace Drops and I’m Anne Hamilton. May Jesus of Nazareth restore your full, amazing inheritance.
Thank you to Lorna Skinner of www.riversofmusic.co.uk for the background music.
Joseph’s mantle is featured The Summoning of Time: John 2 and 20: Mystery, Majesty and Mathematics in John’s Gospel #2.
For more on Anat, see Dealing with Lilith: Spirit of Dispossession.
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