The First Miracle
‘This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on Him.” — John ii. ii.
HIS is one of those precious memories which the mother of our Lord pondered in her heart, and doubtless often recited in that home to which this Evangehst led her from the cross. Several incidents in this Gospel may be traced to that fellowship in love and sorrow which, until her death, must have linked his mother and the disciple whom Jesus loved.
Is it not wonderful that this was our Lord’s first miracle! Had we been asked to select the one which seemed most appropriate to stand as the frontispiece of his earthly ministry, we should have selected the raising of Lazarus, the calming of the storm, or the feeding of the hungry crowds; but who would have chosen this? The inventive genius of man would have conceived an introductory scene which combined the chief features of the Transfiguration and of the giving of the law. How different is the simplicity of this incident!
In the previous chapter we are told that the Apostles beheld in Jesus Christ the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father; and when we ask one of those eye-witnesses to give a sample of its choicest manifestations, we are conducted to a little village in the highlands of Galilee, at the distance of an afternoon’s walk from Nazareth, where the Master sits at a simple marriage feast amongst his friends, and makes wine out of water to supply their lack.
The miracles of this Gospel are signs (xx. 30), carefully selected as bearing upon the special characteristics of our Lord’s
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person and work, which the Evangelist had set himself to portray. There was a distinct purpose in his performing this miracle as his first, and in its being set so prominently at the front of this narrative. We are told that He manifested forth his glory; and we reverently ask, How? As we strive to answer that question, may we again sit at his table, and hear Him speak!
I. It was his Glory to show that true Religion is CONSISTENT WITH ORDINARY LiFE. — There is a common tendency to associate the highest type of religion with rigorous, austerity of life, as if the human were too common to be divine. We fancy that he whose thoughts commune most deeply with the Eternal must be a stem, silent, and solitary man. This type of the religious life was exemplified in the old prophets, who dwelt in the solitudes of unfrequented deserts and hills, withdrawn from the common joys and engagements and ties of human existence; only emerging now and again to pour on the ears of awestruck crowds the burning words of the living God. Such had been John the Baptist. The deserts, his home; the locust and wild honey, his fare; the camel’s cloth, his dress. And we might have expected to find the Son of God more rigorous still in his isolation; rearing Himself in severe and solitary grandeur, like the Jungfrau among the Alps.
But no. His early years are spent, not in a desert, but a home. He comes eating and drinking. He moves freely amongst men as one of themselves. He interweaves his life with the life of the home, the market-place, and the street. And in pursuance of this purpose He wrought his first miracle at a peasant’s wedding.
Travelling by easy stages from the Jordan valley. He had reached Galilee. Finding his mother gone from Nazareth, He followed her over the hills to Cana, and for her sake was invited with his six new-made followers to the simple feast. It was a time of simple-hearted enjoyment. “The bridegroom crowned with flowers with which his mother had crowned him in the day of his espousals; the bride adorned with her jewels, sitting apart among the women.” And though He was the Son of God, no cloud would veil his face or cast a restraining spell upon the guests.
This is the harder ///c. — Easier, like the anchorite, to be separated from the world, than, like the Saviour, to be in it and not of it. Easier to dechne an invitation to the house of the great than to go there and behave as the Son of God. Easier to refuse the things of sense than to use them without abuse. Easier to maintain a life of prayer far from the haunts of men, than to enter them maintaining constant fellowship with God in the unruffled depths of the soul. Nothing but the grace of the Holy Spirit can suffice for this. But this is sufficient if daily and believingly sought.
// is most honouring to God. — The idea of the ascetic life is that every human feeling is a weakness, and every natural instinct a sin. No woman’s caress, no childish voice, no tender love, none of the jewels or flowers of existence, may soften the rigours of that lot. But is not all this a libel on God’s original creation? Has He made so great a mistake in creating us that we must thwart his ideal at every step, ere we can rise to our true manhood? Must we make ourselves other than men before we can be saints? Surely, to reason thus is to dishonour the wisdom and love of God in our original creation. And the Incarnation teaches us, as does this miracle, that God does not require an emasculated, but a fulfilled and purified humanity.
// is most useful to the world. — Of what use is salt, except in contact with the corrupting carcase? The holiness which builds three tabernacles amid almost inaccessible rocks is of little help to the breaking hearts of devil-possessed men in the valley below. This, at least, is not our Saviour’s message. “Go,” says He, “to Jerusalem and Samaria, to the crowded cities and homes of men. Live amongst them, kindling them with the passion of your holiness. Suffer little children to Gome to you; publicans and sinners to draw near to you; crowds to follow you. All I ask is that whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, ye should do all to the glory of God.”
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II. It was his Glory to teach the Beauty of Waiting meekly for God. — If ever there was a being who might have claimed to act on the prompting of his own spirit, it was surely our blessed Lord. But there never was one who lived in more absolute and entire dependence on the Father from the first. It comes out very clearly here.
His advent with his friends threatened the whole family with a disgrace which to the hospitable mind of the Jew would be irreparable. The wine ran short. Mary, who seems to have had considerable influence in the house, was made aware of the fact, and quickly guessed its cause. She could not endure the thought of inflicting, however unconsciously, so great a mortification on that kindly circle; and she suddenly conceived the hope of helping them through Him whom she had been wont to count her obedient son. Why should He not now assume the position which had been predicted from his birth? She could not have been deceived in all that had been told her; but it had been long and hard to wait. Yet surely the salutation of the Baptist and gathering of disciples were omens of an approaching change. Why should He not now blossom out into all that splendid glory with which Jewish anticipation invested the Messiah?
Her implied request must have appealed closely to the tender heart of Christ. All that she felt, He felt also. But He could not take his commands from her entreaty, or even from the warmth of his own emotions. He addressed her with a title consistent with the most perfect tenderness — indeed. He used it from his cross; but, waiving her suggestion with a common Aramaic expression, went on to announce that henceforth his eye would be, if possible, more closely fixed on the dial-plate of his Father’s will, following the index-finger of his purpose, waiting till it should reach the hour, and the alarum for action should ring out. “Mine hour is not yet come.”
It was so that He waited or acted throughout his life. The Gospels abound in references to his hour. Before it struck He was calm and peaceful, however pressing might be the apparent need for action. When it struck He acted instantly and decisively. Afterwards, He returned unto his rest. This is (E -Eternal Hitea aniJ fntoarit (KlEans:tt0. 6i
almost the hardest lesson in Christian living. We listen to the advice of friend; the threatening of foe; the pressure of circum-. stance. We think we must do something. Like King Saul, we force ourselves and offer the sacrifiGC. We pray hurriedly and throw ourselves into the breach, to discover, when too late, that we have run without being sent, and have defeated our own object by too much haste. “My soul, wait thou,” might often be addressed to ourselves by ourselves. Not a moment behind God; but not a moment before Him. Ready for his hour to strike.
III. It was his Glory to show the Inwardness of true Religion. — In the entrance-hall six stone waterpots were standing, “after the manner of the purifying of the Jews.” Their superstitious dread of uncleanness made it necessary to have large supplies of water ever at hand. Without washing no one ate (Mark vii. 3). The feet of each guest were washed on arrival (Luke vii. 44). The washing of cups and jugs and bottles, says the Talmud, went on all day. And in this we have a symbol of that religion which consists in external rites, and is content if only these are maintained.
But the Master turned the water of outward ceremonial washing into wine for inward drinking. Surely there is deep symbolical meaning here, in illustration of which we recal two sentences, the one from the Old Testament, the other from the New. “Thy love is better than wine”; and “WTioso .... drinketh my blood hath eternal life.”
The most spiritual men in the old Jewish system were constantly emphasising the impotence of mere ritual to save and sanctify the soul. David felt it (Psa. li. 16). Isaiah felt it (Isa. i. 13). Micah brings it out in clear relief (Micah vi. 7). And here our Lord in this striking miracle seems to say, “The days of ceremonialism are past; the system which was sent to teach spiritual ideas by material substances and external rites is at an end; the tedious routine of outward ablutions, which has diverted men’s attention from the inner life and the befitting garb of the soul, must be laid aside; I am come to teach men to love, to live by faith, to array themselves in robes washed white in my blood, and to rise through close participation in my death to a life of stainless purity and flawless beauty. Not water, but blood. Not washing, but drinking. Not the outward cleanliness, however fair and right; but the purity of the heart, the deliverance of the spirit from the polluting taint of evil.” We are not surprised to learn next that He cleansed the Temple, and that He told Nicodemus that even he must be born again.
IV. It was his Glory to awaken us to see the Divine Power in the ordinary Processes of Nature. — The world is full of miracles; but they are so gradual and quiet that we are often blinded to their wonderfulness, till the flash of a sudden “sign” awakens us from our strange neglect.
It seems doubtful whether the Lord changed all the contents of the six stone jars, or only that which was drawn from them. The latter would more resemble his way, who gives us, not granaries of grain, but daily bread; and who deals out supplies of daily strength. But, even if He had turned all the water into wine, there would be no obstacle to our faith. The sin of drunkenness was not the sin of Palestine, as it is of London; and therefore did not require the special methods of prevention which the principles of his Gospel now lead us to adopt. And we must remember that the light wines of the Galilean vintage were very different to the brandied intoxicants with which we are too familiar.
But this is the interesting point: that we see compressed into a single flash the same power that works throughout the wine-lands every summer, transforming the dew and rain into the juices that redden the drooping clusters of the vines. The superficial man looks at this miracle and cries, “Oh, wondrous day that beheld so great a deed!” The spiritual man looks at it, and, whilst not underrating its marvel, walks the world with a new reverence, because he knows that the same Divine power is throbbing all around. The power revealed in feeding the five thousand is required to cover the autumn fields with grain. The power needed to raise the dead shows how much is constantly demanded to keep us living. The power that quells the storm indicates how much is being exercised to maintain the stable equilibrium of the world.
This is the glory of the miracles of Jesus, that they have taught us to look on the world around us with new and opened eyes. We hear his voice in the summer wind, and amid the roar of the pitiless storm. We catch sight of his form awakening Nature from her wintry sleep by his touch, as once the daughter of Jairus from her couch. We stand spellbound before his power, as once they did who saw the wonderful works of his hands. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. In Him all things consist. And as for this world, it teems with the miraculous:
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.
V. It was his Glory to show the ascending Scale of God’s Gifts. — The devil ever gives his best first; and when the appetite is somewhat palled, he puts on his worse, even to the worst. Gold at the crown, clay at the foot. Feasting with harlots, then famine with swine. Goshen with its pastures, followed by Egypt with its fetters. Ah! you who read this page, and are living a heartless, worldly life, make the most of it, it is the best you will ever have. After you have “well drunk,” there will come coarser tastes, more depraved appetites. That which has satisfied will fail to satisfy; and in its stead will come forms of sin and temptation from which at the first you would have started back, crying, “Do you take me for a dog, that I should ever come to this!”
The Lord Jesus, on the other hand, is always giving something better. As the taste is being constantly refined, it is provided with more delicate and ravishing delights. That which you know of Him to-da, r, certainly better than that you tasted when first you sat down at his board. And so it will ever be. The angels, as his servants, have orders to bring in and set before the heirs of glory things which eye hath not seen, and man’s heart has not conceived, but which are all prepared. The best of earth will be below the simplest fare of heaven. But what will heaven’s best be! If wine in the peasant’s house is so luscious, what will be the new wine in the Father’s kingdom! What may we not expect from the vintages of the celestial hills! What will it be to sit at the marriage supper of the Lamb, not as guests, but as the Bride! Oh, hasten on, ye slow-moving days; be quick to depart, that we may taste that ravishment of bliss! But for ever and ever, as fresh revelations break on our glad souls, we shall look up to the Master of the feast and cry, “TAou hast kept the best until now.”