It is very noteworthy that the miraculous fact is veiled entirely in
the narrative. Not a word is said of the method of operation, it is not
even said that the miracle was wrought; we are only told what preceded
it, and what followed it. Itself is shrouded in deep silence. The
servants fill the water-pots.—'Draw out now,' and they draw, 'and bear
it to the governor of the feast.' Where the miraculous act comes in we
do not know; what was its nature we cannot tell. How far it extended is
left obscure. Was all the large quantity of water in these six great
vessels of stone transformed into wine, or was the change effected in
the moment when the portion that was wanted was drawn from them and on
that portion only? We cannot answer the question. Probably, I think,
the latter; but at all events a veil is dropped over the fact.
Only this, we see that in this miracle, even more conspicuously than in
any other of our Lord's, there are no means at all employed. Sometimes
He used material vehicles, anointing a man's eyes with clay, or
moistening the ear with the spittle; sometimes sending a man to bathe
in the Pool of Siloam; sometimes laying His hand on the sick; sometimes
healing from a distance by the mere utterance of His word. But here
there is not even a word; no means of any kind employed, but the silent
forth-putting of His will, which, without token, without visible
audible indication of any sort, passes with sovereign power into the
midst of material things and there works according to His own purpose.
Is not this the signature of divinity, that without means the mere
forth-putting of the will is all that is wanted to mould matter as
plastic to His command? It is not even, 'He spake and it was done,' but
silently He willed, and 'the conscious water knew its Lord, and
blushed.' This is the glory of the Incarnate Word.
Now that was no interruption of the order of things established in the
Creation. There was no suspension of natural laws here. What happened
was only this, that the power which generally works through mediating
links came into immediate connection with the effect. What does it
matter whether your engine transmits its powers through half a dozen
cranks, or two or three less? What does it matter whether the chain be
longer or shorter? Some parenthetical links are dropped here, that is
all that is unusual. For in all ordinary natural operations, as we call
them, the profound prologue of this Gospel teaches us to believe that
Christ, the Eternal Word, works according to His will. He was the Agent
of creation. He is the Agent of that preservation which is only a
continual creation. In Him is life, and all living things live because
of the continual presence and operation upon them of His divine power.
And again I say, what is phenomenal and unusual in this miracle is but
the suppression of two or three of the connecting links between the
continual cause of all creatural existences, and its effect. So let us
learn that whether through a long chain of so-called causes, or whether
close up against the effect, without the intervention of these
parenthetical and transmitting media, the divine power works. The power
is one, and the reason for the effect is one, that Christ ever works in
the world, and is that Eternal Word, 'without whom was not anything
made that was made.' 'This beginning of miracles did Christ… and
manifested His glory.'
II. Then, again, we see here, I think, the revelation of one great
purpose of our Lord's coming, to hallow all common, and especially all
family, life.
What a strange contrast there is between the simple gladness of the
rustic village wedding and the tremendous scene of the Temptation in
the wilderness, which preceded it only by a few days! What a strange
contrast there is between the sublime heights of the first chapter and
the homely incident which opens the ministry! What a contrast between
the rigid asceticism of the Forerunner, 'who came neither eating nor
drinking,' and the Son of Man, who enters thus freely and cheerfully
into the common joys and relationships of human nature! How unlike the
scene at the marriage-feast must have been to the anticipations of the
half-dozen disciples that had gathered round Him, all a-tingling with
expectation as to what would be the first manifestation of His
Messianic power! The last thing they would have dreamed of would have
been to find Him in the humble home in Cana of Galilee. Some people say
'this miracle is unworthy of Him, for it was wrought upon such a
trivial occasion.' And was it a trivial occasion that prompted Him thus
to commence His career, not by some high and strained and remote
exhibition of more than human saintliness or power, but by entering
like a Brother into the midst of common, homespun, earthly joys, and
showing how His presence ennobled and sanctified these? Surely the
world has gained from Him, among the many gifts that He has given to
it, few that have been the fountain of more sacred sweetness and
blessedness than is opened in that fact that the first manifestation of
His glory had for its result the hallowing of the marriage tie.
And is it not in accordance with the whole meaning and spirit of His
works that 'forasmuch as the brethren were partakers of' anything, 'He
Himself likewise should take part of the same,' and sanctify every
incident of life by His sharing of it? So He protests against that
faithless and wicked division of life into sacred and secular, which
has wrought such harm both in the sacred and in the secular regions. So
He protests against the notion that religion has to do with another
world rather than with this. So He protests against the narrowing
conception of His work which would remove from its influence anything
that interests humanity. So He says, as it were, at the very beginning
of His career, 'I am a Man, and nothing that is human do I reckon
foreign to Myself.'
Brethren! let us learn the lesson that all life is the region of His
Kingdom; that the sphere of His rule is everything which a man can do
or feel or think. Let us learn that where His footsteps have trod is
hallowed ground. If a prince shares for a few moments in the
festivities of his gathered people on some great occasion, how ennobled
the feast seems! If he joins in their sports or in their occupations
for a while as an act of condescension, how they return to them with
renewed vigour! And so we. We have had our King in the midst of all our
family life, in the midst of all our common duties; therefore are they
consecrated. Let us learn that all things done with the consciousness
of His presence are sacred. He has hallowed every corner of human life
by His presence; and the consecration, like some pungent and perennial
perfume, lingers for us yet in the else scentless air of daily life, if
we follow His footsteps.
Sanctity is not singularity. There is no need to withdraw from any
region of human activity and human interest in order to develop the
whitest saintliness, the most Christlike purity. The saint is to be in
the world, but not of it; like the Master, who went straight from the
wilderness and its temptations to the homely gladness of the rustic
marriage.
III. Still further, we have here a symbol of Christ's glory as the
ennobler and heightener of all earthly joys.
That may be taken with perhaps a permissible play of fancy as one
meaning, at any rate, of the transformation of water into wine; the
less savoury and fragrant and powerful liquid into the more so. Wine,
in the Old Testament especially, is the symbol of gladness, and though
it received a deeper and a sacreder meaning in the New Testament as
being the emblem of His blood shed for us, it is the Old Testament
point of view that prevails here. And therefore, I say, we may read in
the incident the symbol of His transforming power. He comes, the Man of
Sorrows, with the gift of joy in His hand. It is not an unworthy
object—not unworthy, I mean, of a divine sacrifice—to make men glad. It
is worth His while to come from Heaven to agonise and to die, in order
that He may sprinkle some drops of incorruptible and everlasting joy
over the weary and sorrowful hearts of earth. We do not always give its
true importance to gladness in the economy of our lives, because we are
so accustomed to draw our joys from ignoble sources that in most of our
joys there is something not altogether creditable or lofty. But Christ
came to bring gladness, and to transform its earthly sources into
heavenly fountains; and so to change all the less sweet, satisfying,
and potent draughts which we take from earth's cisterns into the wine
of the Kingdom; the new wine, strong and invigorating, 'making glad the
heart of man.'
Our commonest blessings, our commonest joys, if only they be not foul
and filthy, are capable of this transformation. Link them with Christ;
be glad in Him. Bring Him into your mirth, and it will change its
character. Like a taper plunged into a jar of oxygen, it will blaze up
more brightly. Earth, at its best and highest, without Him is like some
fair landscape lying in the shadow; and when He comes to it, it is like
the same scene when the sun blazes out upon it, flashes from every bend
of the rippling river, brings beauty into many a shady corner, opens
all the flowering petals and sets all the birds singing in the sky. The
whole scene changes when a beam of light from Him falls upon earthly
joys. He will transform them and ennoble them and make them perpetual.
Do not meddle with mirth over which you cannot make the sign of the
Cross and ask Him to bless it; and do not keep Him out of your
gladness, or it will leave bitterness on your lips, howsoever sweet it
tastes at first.
Ay! and not only can this Master transform the water at the marriage
feast into the wine of gladness, but the cups that we all carry, into
which our tears have dropped—upon these too He can lay His hand and
change them into cups of blessing and of salvation.
'Blessed are they… who, passing through the valley of weeping, gather
their tears into a well; the rain also covereth it with blessings.' So
the old Psalm put the thought that sorrow may be turned into a solemn
joy, and may lie at the foundation of our most flowery fruitfulness.
And the same lesson we may learn from this symbol. The Christ who
transforms the water of earthly gladness into the wine of heavenly
blessedness, can do the same thing for the bitter waters of sorrow, and
can make them the occasions of solemn joy. When the leaves drop we see
through the bare branches. Shivering and cold they may look, but we see
the stars beyond, and that is better. 'This beginning of miracles' will
Jesus repeat in every sad heart that trusts itself to Him.
IV. And last of all, we have here a token of His glory as supplying the
deficiencies of earthly sources.
'His mother saith unto Him, "They have no wine."' The world's banquet
runs out, Christ supplies an infinite gift. These great water-pots that
stood there, if the whole contents of them were changed, as is
possible, contained far more than sufficient for the modest wants of
the little company. The water that flowed from each of them, in
obedience to the touch of the servant's hand, if the change were
effected then, as is possible, would flow on so long as any thirsted or
any asked. And Christ gives to each of us, if we choose, a fountain
that will spring unto life eternal. And when the world's platters are
empty, and the world's cups are all drained dry, He will feed and
satisfy the immortal hunger and the blessed thirst of every spirit that
longs for Him.
The rude speech of the governor of the feast may lend itself to another
aspect of this same thought. He said, in jesting surprise, 'Thou hast
kept the good wine until now,' whereas the world gives its best first,
and when the palate is dulled and the appetite diminished, then 'that
which is worse.' How true that is; how tragically true in some of our
lives! In the individual the early days of hope and vigour, when all
things were fresh and wondrous, when everything was apparelled in the
glory of a dream, contrast miserably with the bitter experiences of
life that most of us have made. Habit comes, and takes the edge off
everything. We drag remembrance, like a lengthening chain, through all
our life; and with remembrance come remorse and regret. 'The vision
splendid' no more attends men, as they plod on their way through the
weariness of middle life, or pass down into the deepening shadows of
advancing and solitary old age. The best comes first, for the men who
have no good but this world's. And some of you have got nothing in your
cups but dregs that you scarcely care to drink.
But Jesus Christ keeps the best till the last. His gifts become sweeter
every day. No time can cloy them. Advancing years make them more
precious and more necessary. The end is better in this course than the
beginning. And when life is over, and we pass into the heavens, the
word will come to our lips, with surprise and with thankfulness, as we
find how much better it all is than we had ever dreamed it should be:
'Thou hast kept the good wine until now.'
Oh, my brother! do not touch that cup that is offered to you by the
harlot world, spiced and fragrant and foaming; 'at the last it biteth
like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.' But take the pure joys
which the Christ, loved, trusted, obeyed, summoned to your feast and
welcomed in your heart, will bring to you; and these shall grow and
greaten until the perfection of the Heavens.