And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:
On the third day after His return from the Jordan there was a family wedding at Cana of Galilee near Nazareth, where His mother was present and to which He and His newly chosen disciples were invited. He began His public ministry there not with a display before the Sanhedrin but at a household gathering, bringing joy to the feast and honoring human relationships. By attending and working His first miracle there He sanctioned marriage as a sacred institution ordained and blessed by God. The wine He made was the best served, pure unfermented juice of the grape that did not sanction the use of intoxicating drink. His presence showed that His followers may rightly share in pure social joy to bless others, without worldly conformity or seclusion from society.
Setting and Occasion
On the third day after His return from the Jordan, the marriage took place at Cana of Galilee, a small town near Nazareth. The mother of Jesus was already there when the account opens. The setting thus introduced is one in which Jesus and His disciples were also invited to the wedding.
The wedding was a family gathering of the relatives of Joseph and Mary. Jesus came to it with His newly chosen disciples after being invited, deliberately honoring the feast with His presence because many influential people would attend. His mother had been separated from Him during His baptism and temptation in the wilderness.
The festivities had been preceded by religious rites of purification and confession of sins. In the evening the bridegroom came to the bride's home, and she joined him and the guests in a torchlit procession with singing and music to his home, where a feast was prepared. Wine was customarily served at such feasts, and at this feast unfermented wine was served.
When Mary met her Son at the feast she saw the same tender, dutiful son, together with signs of His wilderness conflict and divine mission. His disciples told her they had recognized Him as the long-awaited Messiah foretold by Moses and the prophets. She had heard of His baptism and the reports about His mission, which had renewed her hope that He was the Messiah, though news of His departure into the wilderness had troubled her. She had treasured evidence of His divine mission, yet she also felt doubts and sorrow and longed for His glory to be revealed.
The verse begins the account of His first miracle, performed at the feast, in which He turned water into the finest wine. That wine was of superior quality, astonishing the guests and prompting the servants to tell how it had been provided.
Ministry Begun and Received
His ministry began there not with a public work before Jerusalem's Sanhedrin but with a household gathering, where His power brought joy to the feast, showing sympathy for people and a desire to contribute to their happiness, and His blessing honored the relationships of human life. Mary, concerned that everything be properly ordered, trusted His wisdom and power to meet the need while submitting to His judgment about what was best. At her word the servants were told to do whatever He instructed, and they obeyed when He directed them to fill six stone water-pots and draw from them, providing an ample supply of wine superior to what had been served earlier, though the ruler and most guests did not know the original supply had failed.
He turned the water in the jars into wine like fresh grape wine simply by looking at it, and His choice to help at the feast contrasts with His refusal to use miraculous power to satisfy His hunger or to prove His identity. The water represented baptism into His death and the wine represented His blood shed to purify the world's sins, and the abundant provision pictured ample means of forgiveness. The wine's superior quality illustrated that He gives lasting, ever-fresh gifts that satisfy the soul and increase capacity for joy, unlike worldly pleasures which fade into weariness, bitterness and disappointment.
The disciples had their first opportunity there to acknowledge Him as the Saviour of the world, and what they had seen and heard at the Jordan, together with the miracle, confirmed their faith and gave convincing testimony that He was the world's Redeemer. That confirmation kindled hope that God had raised up a deliverer for His people. The miracle spread through all that region even to Jerusalem, causing the priests and elders to hear with wonder and to search with new interest and intense anxiety the prophecies pointing to the coming of Christ and the aim and mission of this unassuming new Teacher who did what no other man had done.
The miracle at Cana prepared the way for a cordial reception of Him in Galilee. That welcome was helped by those returning from the Passover reporting His healings and cleansing of the temple among people troubled by the temple's abuse and the priests' arrogance who hoped He might be the promised Deliverer. News of changing water into wine showed His power and encouraged the nobleman from Capernaum to believe He could heal his dying son. Its influence is shown when Jesus later returned to Cana and the nobleman believed His word that his son would live.
The miracle taught His disciples sympathy and humanity and drew His relatives to Him with warm affection, so that they accompanied Him when He left for Capernaum. The guests did not learn of the miracle until after He had quietly left.
Marriage Sanctioned and Restored
By attending the wedding at Cana and beginning His public ministry there, He sanctioned marriage as a sacred institution ordained by God, which He Himself had formed and established and blessed, standing alongside the Sabbath as one of God's gifts to humanity. Marriage kept pure and holy is a blessing, and His presence shows He does not forbid marriage or innocent celebrations conducted according to God's law. His presence at the gathering honored the marriage relation and showed He does not refuse His presence at marriage occasions when marriage is joined with purity, holiness, truth, and righteousness.
He intended marriage for a man and woman to be united in holy wedlock and to rear families whose members are honored as part of the family above. The wedding was a solemn and impressive occasion whose innocent happiness pleased Him, and by attending He affirmed marriage as a divine institution. He treated the marriage covenant with marked respect throughout His ministry and later used marriage to illustrate important truths.
Marriage joins husband and wife in a vow to be one, in which the wife is to respect her husband and the husband is to love and cherish his wife. Their belief in Christ should also unite them in Him, and it pleases God when spouses learn of Jesus together and grow in His Spirit.
He came not to forbid marriage, destroy the bonds and influence of family life, or enforce celibacy upon any class of men, but to restore its sacredness and exalt it to its original sanctity. He came to restore, elevate, purify, and ennoble pure affection, and He looks with pleasure upon the family relationship where sacred and unselfish love bears sway. By performing His miracle at a wedding, He showed that marriage is not forbidden by God.
The earthly family is a type and symbol of the family in heaven. In a Christian home God's grace transforms character so that the church can be active and living. His presence in the home can make it a place of happiness like Eden, and He can turn the ordinary experiences of life into heavenly joy.
His presence showed He was in full sympathy with pure joy and did not put a cloud over the happiness of the family and the guests, but shared in the pure happiness of the family occasion. By being there He showed Himself in harmony with the blessed institution of marriage. He gave His sanction to every gathering that is pure and lovely and of good report, and approved gatherings marked by purity and goodness, when marriage and celebration are joined with purity, holiness, truth, righteousness, and goodness. His presence and instruction sanctified such feasts.
Pure Wine and Provision
The wine created from water at Cana was the best served at the feast, the pure, clarified, refined juice of the grape, unfermented, wholesome, refreshing and harmless, with a blessing in it and not one particle of fermentation. It was not fermented, adulterated or intoxicating wine, but pure grape juice, and its superior quality and abundant supply showed that lasting, ever-fresh gifts that satisfy the soul come from Christ. The miracle therefore did not make intoxicating wine or sanction the drinking of fermented wine, for the Bible nowhere sanctions intoxicating wine. In providing only such drink He stayed consistent with His own Old Testament warning that wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging, placed no temptation before men, and gave what is soul-refreshing and life-giving with nothing that could minister to evil, just as the bread of the Last Supper was without leaven.
He thereby set an example of temperance and self-denial like His forty-day fast in the wilderness to break the power of appetite over man, which had led among other evils to the free use of intoxicating liquor. He taught the bringing of the lower nature into subjection, as in His commands of abstinence to John the Baptist and to the wife of Manoah, and the bringing of taste into harmony with a healthful appetite. The sign was meant to lead the governor of the feast to recognize that this wine was better than any he had tasted before and to turn his perverted taste toward what was wholesome. The unfermented wine at Cana is the same kind used at the first communion and to be always used on the communion table as the symbol of His blood, so the sacramental service is soul-refreshing and life-giving. He never by word or act sanctioned fermented wine, using only unfermented wine at the Lord's Supper.
Only unfermented wine should be kept in the house and no alcoholic wine or liquor at all. The verse belongs to the scriptural ground for true health reform and temperance, calling for educating self and others to learn the laws of health, live in harmony with them, and practice temperance in all things. It calls for arousing conscience to true reform and teaching its principles by precept and consistent example at large gatherings and through publications, keeping the subject fresh, because without true temperance there is no susceptibility to the sanctifying influence of truth. His provision of wine by miracle, joined with the feeding of the multitude, shows Him as the heavenly Provider supplying human need and giving an example of care in providing food for different times and occasions. It teaches that the food business is one of God's own instrumentalities to supply human necessity and that God will teach His people the preparation of the best and most wholesome foods and will not leave them in ignorance.
Example for Social Life
By attending the marriage in Cana He showed that people may rightly gather for pleasant occasions, and that Christians may attend such joyful occasions and rejoice with others when the celebration accords with heaven's laws. He welcomed people's happiness and was in full sympathy with pure joy, coming not to put a cloud over the happiness of the family and guests. He often visited homes to help them set aside their troubles and remember God's goodness and love, and He taught the way of salvation wherever people were open to receive it. His presence there shows that He did not shun ordinary social life or withdraw from it, but mingled with people so they could become acquainted with God revealed in human life. His presence and instruction at this and other feasts sanctified them.
His presence at the wedding was a step in breaking down social barriers and bringing people together as members of one family, showing His close sympathy with humanity as He began His work of reformation. It began to break down religious exclusiveness and Jewish prejudice, including the prejudice created by the Pharisees' separation from Gentiles and from most of their own people. As Redeemer of the world He met people in ordinary life in order to reach people of every class with His mission, not only the Jews, opening a way for that mission to reach all classes. The innocent joy of the solemn occasion pleased Him, and His attendance displayed social sympathy.
It is a lesson for His disciples through all time that they must not exclude themselves from society, renounce all social communion, seek strict seclusion from their fellow beings, or think to preserve their religion by hiding it within stone walls to escape contamination of the world. Such seclusion loses golden opportunities to enlighten and benefit humanity. In order to reach all classes they must meet people where they are in ordinary life and in ordinary and social settings, to do good and share truth while keeping their lives pure, for people will seldom seek them of their own accord and hearts are not touched by divine truth from the pulpit alone. He Himself awakened interest by going among people as one who desired their good, seeking them at their daily vocations, manifesting unfeigned interest in their temporal affairs, carrying instruction into households and bringing whole families in their own homes under the influence of His divine presence. He sought men in the public streets, in private houses, on boats, in the synagogue, by the shores of lakes, and at marriage feasts.
His joining the mixed assembly of the festal gathering, with no shadow of worldly levity marring His conduct and without compromising purity, sanctioned innocent social fellowship with His presence. His presence at social gatherings was not worldly conformity but a way to honor those who welcomed Him, share His teachings, and give them opportunity to know His character. Through His generous, genial conduct and teaching on such occasions He drew people to know Him and showed how unlike the Pharisees' austere seclusion, coldness, restrictions, narrowness and self-righteous severity His life and teachings were, despite their criticism. He did not force His presence on anyone but shared the social life of His countrymen when invited, and His presence and teaching at such occasions honored the household and those who welcomed Him.
His example does not endorse self-indulgence or worldly levity, and it does not establish that theatergoing, dancing, or other pleasures are harmless. As He turned common water into the wine of heaven, the same power works with a God-fearing mother's loving ministry in close connection with Christ to transform ordinary life and experiences in the home into a blessing of heavenly worth and joy. Her ministry of love makes the home a Bethel and gives her work infinite worth, and His presence in the home can make it a place of happiness like Eden, a symbol of the family in heaven.
On the third day after His return from the Jordan there was a family wedding at Cana of Galilee near Nazareth, where His mother was present and to which He and His newly chosen disciples were invited. He began His public ministry there not with a display before the Sanhedrin but at a household gathering, bringing joy to the feast and honoring human relationships. By attending and working His first miracle there He sanctioned marriage as a sacred institution ordained and blessed by God. The wine He made was the best served, pure unfermented juice of the grape that did not sanction the use of intoxicating drink. His presence showed that His followers may rightly share in pure social joy to bless others, without worldly conformity or seclusion from society.
Setting and Occasion
On the third day after His return from the Jordan, the marriage took place at Cana of Galilee, a small town near Nazareth. The mother of Jesus was already there when the account opens. The setting thus introduced is one in which Jesus and His disciples were also invited to the wedding.
The wedding was a family gathering of the relatives of Joseph and Mary. Jesus came to it with His newly chosen disciples after being invited, deliberately honoring the feast with His presence because many influential people would attend. His mother had been separated from Him during His baptism and temptation in the wilderness.
The festivities had been preceded by religious rites of purification and confession of sins. In the evening the bridegroom came to the bride's home, and she joined him and the guests in a torchlit procession with singing and music to his home, where a feast was prepared. Wine was customarily served at such feasts, and at this feast unfermented wine was served.
When Mary met her Son at the feast she saw the same tender, dutiful son, together with signs of His wilderness conflict and divine mission. His disciples told her they had recognized Him as the long-awaited Messiah foretold by Moses and the prophets. She had heard of His baptism and the reports about His mission, which had renewed her hope that He was the Messiah, though news of His departure into the wilderness had troubled her. She had treasured evidence of His divine mission, yet she also felt doubts and sorrow and longed for His glory to be revealed.
The verse begins the account of His first miracle, performed at the feast, in which He turned water into the finest wine. That wine was of superior quality, astonishing the guests and prompting the servants to tell how it had been provided.
Ministry Begun and Received
His ministry began there not with a public work before Jerusalem's Sanhedrin but with a household gathering, where His power brought joy to the feast, showing sympathy for people and a desire to contribute to their happiness, and His blessing honored the relationships of human life. Mary, concerned that everything be properly ordered, trusted His wisdom and power to meet the need while submitting to His judgment about what was best. At her word the servants were told to do whatever He instructed, and they obeyed when He directed them to fill six stone water-pots and draw from them, providing an ample supply of wine superior to what had been served earlier, though the ruler and most guests did not know the original supply had failed.
He turned the water in the jars into wine like fresh grape wine simply by looking at it, and His choice to help at the feast contrasts with His refusal to use miraculous power to satisfy His hunger or to prove His identity. The water represented baptism into His death and the wine represented His blood shed to purify the world's sins, and the abundant provision pictured ample means of forgiveness. The wine's superior quality illustrated that He gives lasting, ever-fresh gifts that satisfy the soul and increase capacity for joy, unlike worldly pleasures which fade into weariness, bitterness and disappointment.
The disciples had their first opportunity there to acknowledge Him as the Saviour of the world, and what they had seen and heard at the Jordan, together with the miracle, confirmed their faith and gave convincing testimony that He was the world's Redeemer. That confirmation kindled hope that God had raised up a deliverer for His people. The miracle spread through all that region even to Jerusalem, causing the priests and elders to hear with wonder and to search with new interest and intense anxiety the prophecies pointing to the coming of Christ and the aim and mission of this unassuming new Teacher who did what no other man had done.
The miracle at Cana prepared the way for a cordial reception of Him in Galilee. That welcome was helped by those returning from the Passover reporting His healings and cleansing of the temple among people troubled by the temple's abuse and the priests' arrogance who hoped He might be the promised Deliverer. News of changing water into wine showed His power and encouraged the nobleman from Capernaum to believe He could heal his dying son. Its influence is shown when Jesus later returned to Cana and the nobleman believed His word that his son would live.
The miracle taught His disciples sympathy and humanity and drew His relatives to Him with warm affection, so that they accompanied Him when He left for Capernaum. The guests did not learn of the miracle until after He had quietly left.
Marriage Sanctioned and Restored
By attending the wedding at Cana and beginning His public ministry there, He sanctioned marriage as a sacred institution ordained by God, which He Himself had formed and established and blessed, standing alongside the Sabbath as one of God's gifts to humanity. Marriage kept pure and holy is a blessing, and His presence shows He does not forbid marriage or innocent celebrations conducted according to God's law. His presence at the gathering honored the marriage relation and showed He does not refuse His presence at marriage occasions when marriage is joined with purity, holiness, truth, and righteousness.
He intended marriage for a man and woman to be united in holy wedlock and to rear families whose members are honored as part of the family above. The wedding was a solemn and impressive occasion whose innocent happiness pleased Him, and by attending He affirmed marriage as a divine institution. He treated the marriage covenant with marked respect throughout His ministry and later used marriage to illustrate important truths.
Marriage joins husband and wife in a vow to be one, in which the wife is to respect her husband and the husband is to love and cherish his wife. Their belief in Christ should also unite them in Him, and it pleases God when spouses learn of Jesus together and grow in His Spirit.
He came not to forbid marriage, destroy the bonds and influence of family life, or enforce celibacy upon any class of men, but to restore its sacredness and exalt it to its original sanctity. He came to restore, elevate, purify, and ennoble pure affection, and He looks with pleasure upon the family relationship where sacred and unselfish love bears sway. By performing His miracle at a wedding, He showed that marriage is not forbidden by God.
The earthly family is a type and symbol of the family in heaven. In a Christian home God's grace transforms character so that the church can be active and living. His presence in the home can make it a place of happiness like Eden, and He can turn the ordinary experiences of life into heavenly joy.
His presence showed He was in full sympathy with pure joy and did not put a cloud over the happiness of the family and the guests, but shared in the pure happiness of the family occasion. By being there He showed Himself in harmony with the blessed institution of marriage. He gave His sanction to every gathering that is pure and lovely and of good report, and approved gatherings marked by purity and goodness, when marriage and celebration are joined with purity, holiness, truth, righteousness, and goodness. His presence and instruction sanctified such feasts.
Pure Wine and Provision
The wine created from water at Cana was the best served at the feast, the pure, clarified, refined juice of the grape, unfermented, wholesome, refreshing and harmless, with a blessing in it and not one particle of fermentation. It was not fermented, adulterated or intoxicating wine, but pure grape juice, and its superior quality and abundant supply showed that lasting, ever-fresh gifts that satisfy the soul come from Christ. The miracle therefore did not make intoxicating wine or sanction the drinking of fermented wine, for the Bible nowhere sanctions intoxicating wine. In providing only such drink He stayed consistent with His own Old Testament warning that wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging, placed no temptation before men, and gave what is soul-refreshing and life-giving with nothing that could minister to evil, just as the bread of the Last Supper was without leaven.
He thereby set an example of temperance and self-denial like His forty-day fast in the wilderness to break the power of appetite over man, which had led among other evils to the free use of intoxicating liquor. He taught the bringing of the lower nature into subjection, as in His commands of abstinence to John the Baptist and to the wife of Manoah, and the bringing of taste into harmony with a healthful appetite. The sign was meant to lead the governor of the feast to recognize that this wine was better than any he had tasted before and to turn his perverted taste toward what was wholesome. The unfermented wine at Cana is the same kind used at the first communion and to be always used on the communion table as the symbol of His blood, so the sacramental service is soul-refreshing and life-giving. He never by word or act sanctioned fermented wine, using only unfermented wine at the Lord's Supper.
Only unfermented wine should be kept in the house and no alcoholic wine or liquor at all. The verse belongs to the scriptural ground for true health reform and temperance, calling for educating self and others to learn the laws of health, live in harmony with them, and practice temperance in all things. It calls for arousing conscience to true reform and teaching its principles by precept and consistent example at large gatherings and through publications, keeping the subject fresh, because without true temperance there is no susceptibility to the sanctifying influence of truth. His provision of wine by miracle, joined with the feeding of the multitude, shows Him as the heavenly Provider supplying human need and giving an example of care in providing food for different times and occasions. It teaches that the food business is one of God's own instrumentalities to supply human necessity and that God will teach His people the preparation of the best and most wholesome foods and will not leave them in ignorance.
Example for Social Life
By attending the marriage in Cana He showed that people may rightly gather for pleasant occasions, and that Christians may attend such joyful occasions and rejoice with others when the celebration accords with heaven's laws. He welcomed people's happiness and was in full sympathy with pure joy, coming not to put a cloud over the happiness of the family and guests. He often visited homes to help them set aside their troubles and remember God's goodness and love, and He taught the way of salvation wherever people were open to receive it. His presence there shows that He did not shun ordinary social life or withdraw from it, but mingled with people so they could become acquainted with God revealed in human life. His presence and instruction at this and other feasts sanctified them.
His presence at the wedding was a step in breaking down social barriers and bringing people together as members of one family, showing His close sympathy with humanity as He began His work of reformation. It began to break down religious exclusiveness and Jewish prejudice, including the prejudice created by the Pharisees' separation from Gentiles and from most of their own people. As Redeemer of the world He met people in ordinary life in order to reach people of every class with His mission, not only the Jews, opening a way for that mission to reach all classes. The innocent joy of the solemn occasion pleased Him, and His attendance displayed social sympathy.
It is a lesson for His disciples through all time that they must not exclude themselves from society, renounce all social communion, seek strict seclusion from their fellow beings, or think to preserve their religion by hiding it within stone walls to escape contamination of the world. Such seclusion loses golden opportunities to enlighten and benefit humanity. In order to reach all classes they must meet people where they are in ordinary life and in ordinary and social settings, to do good and share truth while keeping their lives pure, for people will seldom seek them of their own accord and hearts are not touched by divine truth from the pulpit alone. He Himself awakened interest by going among people as one who desired their good, seeking them at their daily vocations, manifesting unfeigned interest in their temporal affairs, carrying instruction into households and bringing whole families in their own homes under the influence of His divine presence. He sought men in the public streets, in private houses, on boats, in the synagogue, by the shores of lakes, and at marriage feasts.
His joining the mixed assembly of the festal gathering, with no shadow of worldly levity marring His conduct and without compromising purity, sanctioned innocent social fellowship with His presence. His presence at social gatherings was not worldly conformity but a way to honor those who welcomed Him, share His teachings, and give them opportunity to know His character. Through His generous, genial conduct and teaching on such occasions He drew people to know Him and showed how unlike the Pharisees' austere seclusion, coldness, restrictions, narrowness and self-righteous severity His life and teachings were, despite their criticism. He did not force His presence on anyone but shared the social life of His countrymen when invited, and His presence and teaching at such occasions honored the household and those who welcomed Him.
His example does not endorse self-indulgence or worldly levity, and it does not establish that theatergoing, dancing, or other pleasures are harmless. As He turned common water into the wine of heaven, the same power works with a God-fearing mother's loving ministry in close connection with Christ to transform ordinary life and experiences in the home into a blessing of heavenly worth and joy. Her ministry of love makes the home a Bethel and gives her work infinite worth, and His presence in the home can make it a place of happiness like Eden, a symbol of the family in heaven.