Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.
At the wedding at Cana the supply of wine failed and Mary told Jesus in hope He would relieve the difficulty and reveal Himself as the Messiah to take His throne. His reply was not cold or disrespectful but a respectful form whose tone carried love, while it set a boundary that her maternal authority to direct His actions and use of power had ended and His work must follow His Father's will and appointed time alone. His hour had not yet come because He acted according to a divine plan established beforehand, having waited thirty years in obscurity and refusing to be hurried into display, with His glorification as King and His offering for sin still future while His present lot was humiliation and sorrow. Mary did not take the answer as refusal but as encouragement that He would help, trusting His wisdom and leaving the matter to Him when she told the servants to do whatever He said. The wine He then provided was pure fresh juice of the grape with no fermentation, and His presence and gift honored marriage as a divine institution and showed His sympathy with innocent human happiness and social life.
Setting at Cana Wedding
The saying belongs to the wedding at Cana in Galilee, a family gathering attended by Jesus with His newly made disciples after He returned to Galilee at the opening of His public ministry. There He met His mother after separation following His baptism and temptations in the wilderness, and He did not shun the social life of His countrymen. Mary still saw Him as the same tender son, yet marked by that conflict and by the dignity of His mission, while His disciples identified Him as the long-awaited Messiah foretold in the law and the prophets.
The occasion was a Jewish wedding feast where the supply of pure juice of the grape failed at a late hour and could not be replaced. Its absence was unusual and caused perplexity and regret, threatening embarrassment to the hosts. Mary, who had a prominent part to perform as a relative at the feast, told Jesus the wine had failed, hoping He would suggest something to relieve the difficulty. Her words carried a hidden request to One to whom all things were possible that He should relieve the need.
That request sprang from glad assurance that her long-cherished hope that Jesus is the Messiah was true, mingled with a fond mother's natural pride. She hoped He would reveal His glory and show that He was the Messiah and take Israel's throne and be placed before the Jews in the position He should occupy as honored of God. Her hope rested on evidence she had treasured about Him and was renewed by the disciples' testimony, and in pride of heart she wanted Him proved before the wedding company.
The setting was His first sign at a wedding feast, where He used His power to add to the guests' joy. It shows His sympathy with people and His desire to minister to their happiness, and His blessing honored the relationships of human life. His pleasure in innocent happiness at the Jewish feast helped break down Jewish prejudice.
Meaning of Jesus Reply
His word for His mother was not cold, distant, or disrespectful, and it was no rebuke. In that culture it was a respectful form of address, and His tone and look and manner carried love and honor toward her. His question drew a boundary around her directing of His action, for her maternal authority to direct Him had ended. Family relationship gave her no special claim to direct His work, to determine His actions, or to guide how He used His power. His work would proceed according to the time appointed for it and His Father's will alone, free from personal considerations, human direction, and human sympathy, and no earthly tie could hold Him back from it.
His declaration that His hour had not yet come meant He acted or waited according to a divine plan established before His earthly life, with the Father guiding Him step by step. He had kept His divine power hidden and waited thirty years in obscurity and humiliation, and He was in no haste to act. He refused to be hurried into display or to use a miracle to convince people, but acted at the right moment. The appointed hour was the future time to be honored and glorified as King, while His appointed lot then was to be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, coming not then as a king. This answered Mary's hope that He would reveal Himself as Messiah and take Israel's throne, and the same answer met His brothers when they urged Him to appear publicly at the feast. The hour was set by God's plan for Him to offer Himself for the sins of humanity, and as it drew near He went willingly to Jerusalem to face persecution and death without changing His course to save Himself.
The answer did not discourage Mary. She took His words as encouragement and remained assured He would do something to help in the perplexity. Trusting His wisdom and power and leaving the matter to His choice, she then told the servants to do whatever He said.
Mary and Divine Authority
His earthly relation to Mary as her submissive son had ended, and He now stands to her as her divine Lord. That kinship gave her no authority to direct His ministry and no special claim upon His divine power, for His work proceeds by His Father's will and not by earthly relationship or human sympathy. Being His mother did not raise her to His level or secure her future, but she stands on the same ground as the rest of mankind. Her only hope, like that of all people, is to believe in Him as Redeemer and yield Him implicit obedience.
To exalt His mother as equal with the Son is delusion. Human sympathies and family claims must no longer affect Him, whose mission is to the world. He would not use His divine power to satisfy the wish that He prove His status before the guests. He remained devoted to His mission and would not be drawn away from His work even by His mother, for the needs of the sick and suffering called Him to labor for them.
Wine Provided and Symbolized
The wine He made out of water and set before the guests was pure, clarified, fresh juice of the grape in its natural state, the new wine found in the cluster in which is a blessing, with not one particle of fermentation. It was not fermented, adulterated, or intoxicating liquor, but unfermented and unfermenting wine, a wholesome and refreshing drink. Its effect brings the taste into harmony with a healthful appetite.
The provision symbolizes salvation, in which the water represents baptism into His death and the wine represents His blood shed to purify the world and cleanse sin. The miracle illustrates that the pleasures of the world fade into weariness and disappointment, while He gives lasting joy and fresh blessings in abundance. What He provided was better wine than had been served before.
To have made intoxicating wine would have been contrary to all His teachings and example, and the Bible nowhere sanctions the use of intoxicating wine. He Himself had warned that wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging and deceives, He never places before men what would tempt them but teaches to bring the lower nature into subjection, and His whole life was an example of self-denial to break the power of appetite. He suffered in behalf of humanity the severest test in the forty days' fast in the wilderness to break the power of appetite over man, including the free use of intoxicating liquor. As the Angel who led Israel He spoke the law from Sinai, prohibited those in holy office from using wine so they could judge clearly between common and sacred, do justice, teach His statutes, and refuse bribes, told the wife of Manoah to drink no wine or strong drink because her son should be a Nazarite, and told Zacharias that the unborn John should drink neither wine nor strong drink. The object of the miracle was to bring the perverted taste of the governor of the feast to a healthy condition by leading him to acknowledge that this wine was superior in quality to any he had tasted. The charges made to excuse sin that He was a Sabbath-breaker and wine-bibber are false and are refuted by His declaration that He kept His Father's commandments and by His whole life of temperance and self-denial, for had He been a wine-bibber He could not have been a perfect offering and the virtue of His blood would have been of no avail, and He did not contradict His own teaching at Cana.
The miracle gives no sanction for the use of fermented wine, for He never by word or act sanctioned fermented wine, as shown by His use of neither leavened bread nor fermented wine at the sacramental service. The unfermented wine He provided is the same wine used by Him and His disciples in the first communion, which should always be used on the communion table as the only proper symbol of His sacred blood, because the sacramental service is designed to be soul-refreshing and life-giving with nothing connected to it that could minister to evil. It shows only fresh grape juice is fit to keep and use in the home and that intoxicating wine, liquor, and tobacco that confuse the brain and destroy strength are to be excluded in order to honor God with clear minds and full capabilities. The wine was harmless in itself, but the miracle did not make fermented wine safe or cancel the prohibition against wine and strong drink for John.
Honor for Marriage and Society
His presence and action at Cana sanctioned marriage as a divine, holy institution He Himself had formed and established. By attending He showed veneration for the law of God and taught obedience to its precepts, while through all His subsequent ministry He paid the marriage covenant marked respect by using it to illustrate important truths. He affirmed marriage as sacred when joined with purity, holiness, truth, and righteousness, showing that marriage is not forbidden, honoring the marriage relation, accepting the ordinance, and being present with blessing when a couple unite. This high endorsement is linked to the teaching that spouses are to respect and cherish one another and that shared belief should unite them in Him, and it affirmed the influence of the family, which He came to restore, purify, and ennoble, so that a Christian family shaped by grace can be a symbol of the family in heaven.
His presence shows it is right to gather for a pleasant occasion, for He welcomed people's happiness, visited them in their homes, and sought to turn their thoughts from care and trouble to God's goodness and love, teaching the way of salvation wherever people were open to receive it. Social in nature, He accepted invitations among learned and noble as well as poor and afflicted, with elevating and instructive conversation. His sanction of innocent happiness gave no license to dissipation, revelry, intemperance, self-indulgence, folly, or worldly levity, while He rebuked Pharisaic pretentious piety and senseless exactions.
He used the occasion to meet people and reach them with good, engaging ordinary social life rather than withdrawing into strict seclusion. He joined the mixed festal gathering with no shadow of worldly levity marring His conduct, met people where they were in order to reach all classes, and thereby broke down social and religious exclusiveness and made His mission accessible as Redeemer of the world. He sought men at their daily vocations, showed unfeigned interest in their temporal affairs, carried instruction into households bringing whole families under divine influence in their own homes, and sought them in public streets, private houses, boats, synagogues, shores of lakes, and marriage feasts. His willing attendance and generous conduct and precious teachings honored those present, enshrined Him in their hearts, and gave them opportunity to become acquainted with Him and know His character.
His presence there revealed a genial, beneficent, generous character and liberal mercies, the opposite of Pharisaical bigotry, reserve, exclusiveness, icy chilliness, and self-righteous desire for pre-eminence. Critics who condemned Him for attending displayed the contrast between His life and teachings and the Pharisees' narrow, condemning, self-righteous ideas. His example rebukes withdrawal from the world and requires His followers to adopt the same broad, kind, generous plans of action, not to shun society or renounce social communion and hide religion to escape contamination, but to seek society to bestow heavenly benefits received from God with special stewardship toward the poor, lest golden opportunities to enlighten and benefit humanity be lost.
Fruit and Practical Application
As His first miracle, the turning of water into wine confirmed the disciples' faith and stood as testimony to them that He was the world's Redeemer. That miracle prepared the way for His cordial welcome in Galilee when He returned from Judea. Reports of His other miracles and of His cleansing of the temple also increased their interest in Him as the expected Deliverer. The news spread through all that region even to Jerusalem, and the priests and elders heard with wonder and searched with new interest the prophecies pointing to the coming of Christ, with intense anxiety to know the aim and mission of the new unassuming Teacher who did what no other man had ever done.
Family love, though sacred, must not pull anyone away from serving God. It must not be allowed to draw people away from God's service or to influence His mission.
A claim to holiness or to God's promises is not enough without obedience. Those who would follow Him must be grounded upon the principles of truth, understanding what the Bible teaches in regard to faith and sanctification through the truth. So established, they cannot be moved to take false positions on the doctrine of holiness but illustrate in their lives the practical workings of this heaven-given principle and are able to distinguish between the genuine and the spurious.
The turning of water into wine provides an image for His working with a mother closely connected with Him in her loving, God-fearing ministry. He transforms ordinary home life and the common water of life and common experiences of the home into a heavenly blessing, the wine of heaven, and a work of lasting spiritual value. With Him in the home the family can become like Eden, a Bethel, and a symbol of the family in heaven. Her home missionary work is thus given infinite worth that endures through all eternity.
His providing wine teaches that the Lord provides for human needs and necessities. The heavenly Provider can guide His people in preparing suitable and best foods for different times and occasions. The food business for supplying human necessity is one of the Lord's own instrumentalities, for He does not leave His people in ignorance but teaches them the preparation of foods.
At the wedding at Cana the supply of wine failed and Mary told Jesus in hope He would relieve the difficulty and reveal Himself as the Messiah to take His throne. His reply was not cold or disrespectful but a respectful form whose tone carried love, while it set a boundary that her maternal authority to direct His actions and use of power had ended and His work must follow His Father's will and appointed time alone. His hour had not yet come because He acted according to a divine plan established beforehand, having waited thirty years in obscurity and refusing to be hurried into display, with His glorification as King and His offering for sin still future while His present lot was humiliation and sorrow. Mary did not take the answer as refusal but as encouragement that He would help, trusting His wisdom and leaving the matter to Him when she told the servants to do whatever He said. The wine He then provided was pure fresh juice of the grape with no fermentation, and His presence and gift honored marriage as a divine institution and showed His sympathy with innocent human happiness and social life.
Setting at Cana Wedding
The saying belongs to the wedding at Cana in Galilee, a family gathering attended by Jesus with His newly made disciples after He returned to Galilee at the opening of His public ministry. There He met His mother after separation following His baptism and temptations in the wilderness, and He did not shun the social life of His countrymen. Mary still saw Him as the same tender son, yet marked by that conflict and by the dignity of His mission, while His disciples identified Him as the long-awaited Messiah foretold in the law and the prophets.
The occasion was a Jewish wedding feast where the supply of pure juice of the grape failed at a late hour and could not be replaced. Its absence was unusual and caused perplexity and regret, threatening embarrassment to the hosts. Mary, who had a prominent part to perform as a relative at the feast, told Jesus the wine had failed, hoping He would suggest something to relieve the difficulty. Her words carried a hidden request to One to whom all things were possible that He should relieve the need.
That request sprang from glad assurance that her long-cherished hope that Jesus is the Messiah was true, mingled with a fond mother's natural pride. She hoped He would reveal His glory and show that He was the Messiah and take Israel's throne and be placed before the Jews in the position He should occupy as honored of God. Her hope rested on evidence she had treasured about Him and was renewed by the disciples' testimony, and in pride of heart she wanted Him proved before the wedding company.
The setting was His first sign at a wedding feast, where He used His power to add to the guests' joy. It shows His sympathy with people and His desire to minister to their happiness, and His blessing honored the relationships of human life. His pleasure in innocent happiness at the Jewish feast helped break down Jewish prejudice.
Meaning of Jesus Reply
His word for His mother was not cold, distant, or disrespectful, and it was no rebuke. In that culture it was a respectful form of address, and His tone and look and manner carried love and honor toward her. His question drew a boundary around her directing of His action, for her maternal authority to direct Him had ended. Family relationship gave her no special claim to direct His work, to determine His actions, or to guide how He used His power. His work would proceed according to the time appointed for it and His Father's will alone, free from personal considerations, human direction, and human sympathy, and no earthly tie could hold Him back from it.
His declaration that His hour had not yet come meant He acted or waited according to a divine plan established before His earthly life, with the Father guiding Him step by step. He had kept His divine power hidden and waited thirty years in obscurity and humiliation, and He was in no haste to act. He refused to be hurried into display or to use a miracle to convince people, but acted at the right moment. The appointed hour was the future time to be honored and glorified as King, while His appointed lot then was to be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, coming not then as a king. This answered Mary's hope that He would reveal Himself as Messiah and take Israel's throne, and the same answer met His brothers when they urged Him to appear publicly at the feast. The hour was set by God's plan for Him to offer Himself for the sins of humanity, and as it drew near He went willingly to Jerusalem to face persecution and death without changing His course to save Himself.
The answer did not discourage Mary. She took His words as encouragement and remained assured He would do something to help in the perplexity. Trusting His wisdom and power and leaving the matter to His choice, she then told the servants to do whatever He said.
Mary and Divine Authority
His earthly relation to Mary as her submissive son had ended, and He now stands to her as her divine Lord. That kinship gave her no authority to direct His ministry and no special claim upon His divine power, for His work proceeds by His Father's will and not by earthly relationship or human sympathy. Being His mother did not raise her to His level or secure her future, but she stands on the same ground as the rest of mankind. Her only hope, like that of all people, is to believe in Him as Redeemer and yield Him implicit obedience.
To exalt His mother as equal with the Son is delusion. Human sympathies and family claims must no longer affect Him, whose mission is to the world. He would not use His divine power to satisfy the wish that He prove His status before the guests. He remained devoted to His mission and would not be drawn away from His work even by His mother, for the needs of the sick and suffering called Him to labor for them.
Wine Provided and Symbolized
The wine He made out of water and set before the guests was pure, clarified, fresh juice of the grape in its natural state, the new wine found in the cluster in which is a blessing, with not one particle of fermentation. It was not fermented, adulterated, or intoxicating liquor, but unfermented and unfermenting wine, a wholesome and refreshing drink. Its effect brings the taste into harmony with a healthful appetite.
The provision symbolizes salvation, in which the water represents baptism into His death and the wine represents His blood shed to purify the world and cleanse sin. The miracle illustrates that the pleasures of the world fade into weariness and disappointment, while He gives lasting joy and fresh blessings in abundance. What He provided was better wine than had been served before.
To have made intoxicating wine would have been contrary to all His teachings and example, and the Bible nowhere sanctions the use of intoxicating wine. He Himself had warned that wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging and deceives, He never places before men what would tempt them but teaches to bring the lower nature into subjection, and His whole life was an example of self-denial to break the power of appetite. He suffered in behalf of humanity the severest test in the forty days' fast in the wilderness to break the power of appetite over man, including the free use of intoxicating liquor. As the Angel who led Israel He spoke the law from Sinai, prohibited those in holy office from using wine so they could judge clearly between common and sacred, do justice, teach His statutes, and refuse bribes, told the wife of Manoah to drink no wine or strong drink because her son should be a Nazarite, and told Zacharias that the unborn John should drink neither wine nor strong drink. The object of the miracle was to bring the perverted taste of the governor of the feast to a healthy condition by leading him to acknowledge that this wine was superior in quality to any he had tasted. The charges made to excuse sin that He was a Sabbath-breaker and wine-bibber are false and are refuted by His declaration that He kept His Father's commandments and by His whole life of temperance and self-denial, for had He been a wine-bibber He could not have been a perfect offering and the virtue of His blood would have been of no avail, and He did not contradict His own teaching at Cana.
The miracle gives no sanction for the use of fermented wine, for He never by word or act sanctioned fermented wine, as shown by His use of neither leavened bread nor fermented wine at the sacramental service. The unfermented wine He provided is the same wine used by Him and His disciples in the first communion, which should always be used on the communion table as the only proper symbol of His sacred blood, because the sacramental service is designed to be soul-refreshing and life-giving with nothing connected to it that could minister to evil. It shows only fresh grape juice is fit to keep and use in the home and that intoxicating wine, liquor, and tobacco that confuse the brain and destroy strength are to be excluded in order to honor God with clear minds and full capabilities. The wine was harmless in itself, but the miracle did not make fermented wine safe or cancel the prohibition against wine and strong drink for John.
Honor for Marriage and Society
His presence and action at Cana sanctioned marriage as a divine, holy institution He Himself had formed and established. By attending He showed veneration for the law of God and taught obedience to its precepts, while through all His subsequent ministry He paid the marriage covenant marked respect by using it to illustrate important truths. He affirmed marriage as sacred when joined with purity, holiness, truth, and righteousness, showing that marriage is not forbidden, honoring the marriage relation, accepting the ordinance, and being present with blessing when a couple unite. This high endorsement is linked to the teaching that spouses are to respect and cherish one another and that shared belief should unite them in Him, and it affirmed the influence of the family, which He came to restore, purify, and ennoble, so that a Christian family shaped by grace can be a symbol of the family in heaven.
His presence shows it is right to gather for a pleasant occasion, for He welcomed people's happiness, visited them in their homes, and sought to turn their thoughts from care and trouble to God's goodness and love, teaching the way of salvation wherever people were open to receive it. Social in nature, He accepted invitations among learned and noble as well as poor and afflicted, with elevating and instructive conversation. His sanction of innocent happiness gave no license to dissipation, revelry, intemperance, self-indulgence, folly, or worldly levity, while He rebuked Pharisaic pretentious piety and senseless exactions.
He used the occasion to meet people and reach them with good, engaging ordinary social life rather than withdrawing into strict seclusion. He joined the mixed festal gathering with no shadow of worldly levity marring His conduct, met people where they were in order to reach all classes, and thereby broke down social and religious exclusiveness and made His mission accessible as Redeemer of the world. He sought men at their daily vocations, showed unfeigned interest in their temporal affairs, carried instruction into households bringing whole families under divine influence in their own homes, and sought them in public streets, private houses, boats, synagogues, shores of lakes, and marriage feasts. His willing attendance and generous conduct and precious teachings honored those present, enshrined Him in their hearts, and gave them opportunity to become acquainted with Him and know His character.
His presence there revealed a genial, beneficent, generous character and liberal mercies, the opposite of Pharisaical bigotry, reserve, exclusiveness, icy chilliness, and self-righteous desire for pre-eminence. Critics who condemned Him for attending displayed the contrast between His life and teachings and the Pharisees' narrow, condemning, self-righteous ideas. His example rebukes withdrawal from the world and requires His followers to adopt the same broad, kind, generous plans of action, not to shun society or renounce social communion and hide religion to escape contamination, but to seek society to bestow heavenly benefits received from God with special stewardship toward the poor, lest golden opportunities to enlighten and benefit humanity be lost.
Fruit and Practical Application
As His first miracle, the turning of water into wine confirmed the disciples' faith and stood as testimony to them that He was the world's Redeemer. That miracle prepared the way for His cordial welcome in Galilee when He returned from Judea. Reports of His other miracles and of His cleansing of the temple also increased their interest in Him as the expected Deliverer. The news spread through all that region even to Jerusalem, and the priests and elders heard with wonder and searched with new interest the prophecies pointing to the coming of Christ, with intense anxiety to know the aim and mission of the new unassuming Teacher who did what no other man had ever done.
Family love, though sacred, must not pull anyone away from serving God. It must not be allowed to draw people away from God's service or to influence His mission.
A claim to holiness or to God's promises is not enough without obedience. Those who would follow Him must be grounded upon the principles of truth, understanding what the Bible teaches in regard to faith and sanctification through the truth. So established, they cannot be moved to take false positions on the doctrine of holiness but illustrate in their lives the practical workings of this heaven-given principle and are able to distinguish between the genuine and the spurious.
The turning of water into wine provides an image for His working with a mother closely connected with Him in her loving, God-fearing ministry. He transforms ordinary home life and the common water of life and common experiences of the home into a heavenly blessing, the wine of heaven, and a work of lasting spiritual value. With Him in the home the family can become like Eden, a Bethel, and a symbol of the family in heaven. Her home missionary work is thus given infinite worth that endures through all eternity.
His providing wine teaches that the Lord provides for human needs and necessities. The heavenly Provider can guide His people in preparing suitable and best foods for different times and occasions. The food business for supplying human necessity is one of the Lord's own instrumentalities, for He does not leave His people in ignorance but teaches them the preparation of foods.