Saturday after the Octave of Christmas, January 7, 2023

John 2, 1-11

There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the Mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the Mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” His Mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “raw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it. And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.

Shortly after calling his disciples, the Lord took them with him to a wedding at the Galilean town of Cana.  For those disciples who had left John the Baptist to follow Jesus, this must have seemed strange.  Jesus, pointed out by John as greater than himself, was not acting in accord with John’s behavior. John, of course, never went to weddings.  But if he had, he would have used the occasion for preaching.  Jesus of Nazareth seemed to go to this wedding as simply one more invited guest.  Nor was it recorded that any of the Prophets of old had attended any weddings.  The Apostles must have wondered what sort of man they were following.  “The Mother of Jesus was there.”  Mary had been invited to the wedding, and so courtesy demanded that her Son be invited too.  We should note that Joseph is not mentioned, for he had already died.  “When the wine ran short.”  This translation makes it sound inevitable that the wine would run short, but this is not indicated in the Greek.  We may surmise, however, that the steward for the banquet has not foreseen the arrival of twelve extra guests, friends of the Son of one of the other invitees, and that more unforeseen  guests had arrived too, causing a quick shortage to what must have originally seemed an abundance of wine.  However, it is also possible that the bridegroom’s family did not possess much means, and they bought as much wine as they could afford.  This notion receives support from the fact that while the steward will later speak of a lesser quality wine to be saved for later in the celebration, this was not resorted to by the servants.  There simply was no more wine in the house.

“They have no wine.”  We should also note that through this whole account, the only person named is Jesus.  The bridegroom, the bride, the Lord’s Mother, the steward — no one is named but him, and so the Lord comes across as the dominant figure.  John, very careful with the places where the deeds of Jesus are performed, does at least give us the name of the town.  Now, his Mother, before anyone else, knew that the wine was running out.  She could not have known this if she had been reclining with the other guests.  She could only have known this if she was in the storeroom with the servants.  Why was she there, apparently exchanging the hospitality of her hosts for the company of the servants?  Because when she declared herself to the angel as the “Handmaid of the Lord”, she perfectly described how she saw herself.  Not as a handmaid here and there, but always.  Her identity was that of a servant and so she naturally sought out the places where the servants would be in order to assist them.  This was as natural for her as it would be for any other invited guest to recline with the bride and groom.  And Jesus, who came to serve, not to be served, was with her, and the Apostles as well, still wondering what they were doing at this wedding and in the servants quarters.

“Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.”  The Lord addresses his Mother in the way an adult Jew of the time would address an adult Jewish woman in public.  It is equivalent to “ma’am”.  The Greek of John’s Gospel cannot hide the very Hebrew sound of what Jesus says to his Mother.  It is as though John, who was present, translates what the Lord and his Mother say to each other into Greek from the Hebrew, not attempting to put it into an idiom more familiar to the Greek reader but leaving it in all its awkwardness and ambiguity to remind the Greek that the Lord was not a Greek. Literally, the Greek says, “What to you?  What to me?”  As though to say to her, What shall we do about it?  His explanation for his words to her, “My hour has not yet come”, is better translated as, “Has not my hour come?” as though to affirm that her intuition is correct,  this is the time and place for the commencement of his miracles.

The Lord directed the servants to fill up the water jars used for the elaborate cleansing rituals required by the Pharisees, though not by the Law, and then he changed the water into “the good wine”, thereby showing how he would take the Jewish religion as it then existed and fulfill it.  He also shows with this sign how he would take human nature and make it immortal, how he would take sinners and make them saints.  And how he would take a means of shameful execution and make it a sign of triumph.