(Hom. xxi. [al. xx.] 1) Our Lord being known in Galilee, they invite Him to a marriage: And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee.
(Hom. xxi. 1) They invite our Lord to the marriage, not as a great person, but merely as one they knew, one of the many; for which reason the Evangelist says, And the mother of Jesus was there. As they invited the mother, so they invited the Son: and therefore, Jesus was called, and His disciples to the marriage: and He came, as caring more for our good, than His own dignity. He who disdained not to take upon Him the form of a servant, disdained not to come to the marriage of servants.
(Hom. xxi. 1, 2) But how came it into the mother's mind to expect so great a thing from her Son? for he had done no miracle as yet: as we read afterwards, This beginning of miracles did Jesus. His real nature, however, was beginning now to be revealed by John, and His own conversations with His disciples; besides that His conception, and the circumstances of His birth, had from the first given rise to high expectations in her mind: as Luke tells us, His mother kept all these sayings in her heart. (Luke 2:51) Why then did she never ask Him to work a miracle before? Because the time had now come that He should be made known. Before He had lived so much like an ordinary person, that she had not had the confidence to ask Him. But now that she heard that John had borne witness to Him, and that He had disciples, she asks Him confidently.
(Hom. xxi. [al. xx.] 2) That He greatly venerated His mother, we know from St. Luke, who tells us that He was subject unto His parents. For where parents throw no obstacle in the way of God's commands, it is our duty to be subject to them; but when they demand any thing at an unseasonable time, or cut us off from spiritual things, we should not be deceived into compliance.
(Hom. xxi. [al. xx.] 2) And for another reason, viz. to prevent any suspicion attaching to His miracles: for these it was proper should be asked for by those who wanted them, not by His mother. He wished to show them that He would perform all in their proper time, not all at once, to prevent confusion; (xxii. [al. xxi] 1). for He saith, Mine hour is not yet come; i. e. I am not yet known to the persons present; nay, they know not that the wine hath failed; let them find out that first; he who perceives not his want beforehand, will not perceive when his want is supplied.
(In Verb. Dom. Serm. xli) Let the proud man blush to see the humility of God. Lo, among other things, the Son of the Virgin comes to a marriage; He who, when He was with the Father, instituted marriage.
(Tr. viii. c. 4) What marvel, if He went to that house to a marriage, Who came into this world to a marriage. For here He has His spouse whom He redeemed with His own blood, to whom He gave the pledge of the Spirit, and whom He united to Himself in the womb of the Virgin. For the Word is the Bridegroom, and human flesh the bride, and both together arc one Son of God and Son of man. That womb of the Virgin Mary is His chamber, from which he went forth as a bridegroom. (Ps. 19:5)
(Tr. viii. c. 5) Some who derogate from the Gospel, and say that Jesus was not born of the Virgin Mary, try to draw an argument for their error from this place; for, how, say they, could she be His mother to whom He said, What have I to do with thee? Now who is it who gives this account, and on whose authority do we believe it? The Evangelist John. But he himself says, The mother of Jesus was there. Why should He say it, unless both were true. But did He therefore come to the marriage to teach men to despise their mother?
(de Symbolo Serm. ii. c. 14. [5]) To mark a distinction between His Godhead and manhood, that according to His manhood He was inferior and subject, but according to His Godhead supreme, He saith, Woman, what have I to do with thee?
(Tr. viii. c. 9. et seq. sparsim) Or it was because our Lord as God had not a mother, though as man He had, and the miracle He was about to work was the act of His Divinity, not of human infirmity. When therefore His mother demanded a miracle, He, as though not acknowledging a human birth, when about to perform a divine work, said, Woman, what have I to do with thee? As if He said, Thou didst not beget that in Me, which works the miracle, My Divinity. (She is called woman, with reference to the female sex, not to any injury of her virginity.) But because thou broughtest forth My infirmity, I will acknowledge thee then, when that very infirmity shall hang on the cross. And therefore He adds, Mine hour is not yet come: as if to say, I will acknowledge thee when the infirmity, of which thou art the mother, shall hang from the cross. He commended His mother to the disciple, when about to die, and to rise again, before her death. But note; just as the Manicheans have found an occasion of error and pretext for their faithlessness in our Lord's word, What have I to do with thee? in the same way the astrologers support theirs from the words, Mine hour is not yet come. For, say they, if Christ had not been under the power of fate, He would never have said this. But let them believe what God says below, I have power to lay it (my life) down, and I have power to take it again: (John 10:18) and then let them ask, why He says, Mine hour is not yet come: nor let them on such a ground subject the Creator of heaven to fate; seeing that, even were there a fatality in the stars, the Maker of the stars could not be under the dominion of the stars. And not only had Christ nothing to do with fate, as ye call it; but neither hast thou, or any other man. Wherefore said He then, Mine hour is not yet come? Because He had the power to die when He pleased, but did not think it expedient yet to exert the power. He was to call the disciples, to proclaim the Kingdom of heaven, to do marvellous works, to approve His divinity by miracles, His humility by partaking of the sufferings of our mortal state. And when He had done all, then the hour was come, not of destiny, but of will, not of obligation, but of power.
(Hom. 2d Sund. after Epiph.) His condescension in coming to the marriage, and the miracle He wrought there, are, even considering them in the letter only, a strong confirmation of the faith. Therein too are condemned the errors of Tatian, Marcion, and others who detract from the honour of marriage. For if the undefiled bed, and the marriage celebrated with due chastity, partook at all of sin, our Lord would never have come to one. Whereas now, conjugal chastity being good, the continence of widows better, the perfection of the virgin state best, to sanction all these degrees, but distinguish the merit of each, He deigned to be born of the pure womb of the Virgin; was blessed after birth by the prophetic voice of the widow Anna; and now invited in manhood to attend the celebration of a marriage, honours that also by the presence of His goodness.
(in loc.) Nor is it without some mysterious allusion, that the marriage is related as taking-place on the third day. The first age of the world, before the giving of the Law, was enlightened by the example of the Patriarchs; the second, under the Law, by the writings of the Prophets; the third, under grace, by the preaching of the Evangelists, as if by the light of the third day; for our Lord had now appeared in the flesh. The name of the place too where the marriage was held, Cana of Galilee, which means, desire of migrating, has a typical signification, viz. that those are most worthy of Christ, who burn with devotional desires, and have known the passage from vice to virtue, from earthly to eternal things. The wine was made to fail, to give our Lord the opportunity of making better; that so the glory of God in man might be brought out of its hiding place: And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine.
She represents here the Synagogue, which challenges Christ to perform a miracle. It was customary with the Jews to ask for miracles.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee?
There is an activity of God displayed throughout creation, a wholesale activity let us say which men refuse to recognize. The miracles done by God incarnate, living as a man in Palestine, perform the very same things as this wholesale activity, but at a different speed and on a smaller scale. One of their chief purposes is that men, having seen a thing done by personal power on the small scale, may recognize, when they see the same thing done on the large scale, that the power behind it is also personal – is indeed the very same person who lived among us two thousand years ago. The miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see...
God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and, with the aid of the sun, to turn water into a juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus every year, from Noah’s time till ours, God turns water into wine. That, men fail to see. Either like the Pagans they refer the process to some finite spirit, Bacchus or Dionysus: or else, like the moderns, they attribute real and ultimate causality to the chemical and other material phenomena which are all that our senses can discover in it. But when Christ at Cana makes water into wine, the mask is off. The miracle has only half its effect if it only convinces us that Christ is God: it will have its full effect if whenever we see a vineyard or drink a glass of wine we remember that here works He who sat at a wedding party in Cana.
Here it is worth while to enquire whence it came into His mother's mind to imagine anything great of her Son; for He had as yet done no miracle, since the Evangelist says, This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee. John 2:11
2. Now if any say that this is not a sufficient proof that it was the beginning of His miracles, because there is added simply in Cana of Galilee, as allowing it to have been the first done there, but not altogether and absolutely the first, for He probably might have done others elsewhere, we will make answer to him of that which we have said before. And of what kind? The words of John (the Baptist); And I knew Him not; but that He should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come, baptizing with water. Now if He had wrought miracles in early age, the Israelites would not have needed another to declare Him. For He who came among men, and by His miracles was so made known, not to those only in Judæa, but also to those in Syria and beyond, and who did this in three years only, or rather who did not need even these three years to manifest Himself Matthew 4:24, for immediately and from the first His fame went abroad everywhere; He, I say, who in a short time so shone forth by the multitude of His miracles, that His name was well known to all, was much less likely, if while a child He had from an early age wrought miracles, to escape notice so long. For what was done would have seemed stranger as done by a boy, and there would have been time for twice or thrice as many, and much more. But in fact He did nothing while He was a child, save only that one thing to which Luke has testified Luke 2:46, that at the age of twelve years He sat hearing the doctors, and was thought admirable for His questioning. Besides, it was in accordance with likelihood and reason that He did not begin His signs at once from an early age; for they would have deemed the thing a delusion. For if when He was of full age many suspected this, much more, if while quite young He had wrought miracles, would they have hurried Him sooner and before the proper time to the Cross, in the venom of their malice; and the very facts of the Dispensation would have been discredited.
How then, asks some one, came it into the mind of His mother to imagine anything great of Him? He was now beginning to reveal Himself, and was plainly discovered by the witness of John, and by what He had said to His disciples. And before all this, the Conception itself and all its attending circumstances had inspired her with a very great opinion of the Child; for, said Luke, she heard all the sayings concerning the Child, and kept them in her heart. Why then, says one, did not she speak this before? Because, as I said, it was now at last that He was beginning to manifest Himself. Before this time He lived as one of the many, and therefore His mother had not confidence to say any such thing to Him; but when she heard that John had come on His account, and that he had borne such witness to Him as he did, and that He had disciples, after that she took confidence, and called Him, and said, when they wanted wine, They have no wine. For she desired both to do them a favor, and through her Son to render herself more conspicuous; perhaps too she had some human feelings, like His brethren, when they said, Show yourself to the world John 17:4, desiring to gain credit from His miracles. Therefore He answered somewhat vehemently, saying,
Perhaps his mother, as mothers do, incited him to perform a miracle, wishing that the greatness of her son would be revealed—and thinking that the lack of wine offered the right occasion for the miracle.
Seasonably comes He at length, to the beginning of miracles, even if He seems to have been called to it without set purpose. For a marriage feast being held (it is clear that it was altogether holily), the mother of the Saviour is present, and Himself also being bidden comes together with His own disciples, to work miracles rather than to feast with them, and yet more to sanctify the very beginning of the birth of man: I mean so far as appertains to the flesh. For it was fitting that He, Who was renewing the very nature of man, and refashioning it all for the better, should not only impart His blessing to those already called into being, but also prepare before grace for those soon to be born, and make holy their entrance into being.
Receive also yet a third reason. It had been said to the woman by God, In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. How then was it not needful that we should thrust off this curse too, or how else could we escape a condemned marriage? This too the Saviour, being loving to man, removes. For He, the Delight and Joy of all, honoured marriage with His Presence, that He might expel the old shame of child-bearing. For if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; and old things are passed away, as Paul saith, they are become new. He cometh therefore with. His disciples to the marriage. For it was needful that the lovers of miracles should be present with the Wonderworker, to collect what was wrought as a kind of food to their faith. But when wine failed the feasters, His mother called the Lord being good according to His wonted Love for man, saying, They have no wine. For since it was in His Power to do whatsoever He would, she urges Him to the miracle.
When Christ was present at the marriage feast, and the crowd of guests were faring sumptuously,
The supply of wine failed them, and their joy was turned into distress;
The bridegroom was upset; the cupbearers muttered unceasingly;
There was this one sad display of penury,
And there was no small clamor in the room.
Recognizing it, the all-holy Mary
Came at once and said to her son: “They have no wine,
But I beg you, my son, show that you can do all things,
Thou who has in wisdom created all things.”
We beg of you, holy Virgin, from what sort of miracles did you know
How your son would be able to offer wine when He had not harvested the grapes
And had never before worked wonders, as John, inspired of God wrote?
Teach us, how, when you had never gazed upon
And never made trial of His miracles,
How did you summon Him to this miracle?
For the question now posed to us in this matter is not simple,
As to how you said to your son: “Give them wine,”
He who has in wisdom created all things.
Let us learn the word which the mother of the God of all said to us:
“Listen,” she said, “my friends, instruct yourselves and know the mystery;
I have seen my son working miracles even before this miracle. …
“For I know that I did not know a husband,
And I bore a son—beyond natural law and reason,
And I know that I remained a virgin as I had been.
Do you, O man, ask for a miracle greater than this birth?
Gabriel came to me saying how this one would be born,
He who has in wisdom created all things.
“After my conception, I myself saw Elizabeth call me Mother of God before the actual birth; after the birth, Simeon praised me in song;22
Anna greeted me with joy; the Magi from Persia hastened to the manger,
For a heavenly star proclaimed the birth in advance;
Shepherds with angels heralded joy,
And creation rejoiced with them.
What would I be able to ask for greater than these miracles?
Indeed from them I have faith that it is my son Who has in wisdom created all things.”
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on John 2:1-4
(Hom. xxi. 1) They invite our Lord to the marriage, not as a great person, but merely as one they knew, one of the many; for which reason the Evangelist says, And the mother of Jesus was there. As they invited the mother, so they invited the Son: and therefore, Jesus was called, and His disciples to the marriage: and He came, as caring more for our good, than His own dignity. He who disdained not to take upon Him the form of a servant, disdained not to come to the marriage of servants.
(Hom. xxi. 1, 2) But how came it into the mother's mind to expect so great a thing from her Son? for he had done no miracle as yet: as we read afterwards, This beginning of miracles did Jesus. His real nature, however, was beginning now to be revealed by John, and His own conversations with His disciples; besides that His conception, and the circumstances of His birth, had from the first given rise to high expectations in her mind: as Luke tells us, His mother kept all these sayings in her heart. (Luke 2:51) Why then did she never ask Him to work a miracle before? Because the time had now come that He should be made known. Before He had lived so much like an ordinary person, that she had not had the confidence to ask Him. But now that she heard that John had borne witness to Him, and that He had disciples, she asks Him confidently.
(Hom. xxi. [al. xx.] 2) That He greatly venerated His mother, we know from St. Luke, who tells us that He was subject unto His parents. For where parents throw no obstacle in the way of God's commands, it is our duty to be subject to them; but when they demand any thing at an unseasonable time, or cut us off from spiritual things, we should not be deceived into compliance.
(Hom. xxi. [al. xx.] 2) And for another reason, viz. to prevent any suspicion attaching to His miracles: for these it was proper should be asked for by those who wanted them, not by His mother. He wished to show them that He would perform all in their proper time, not all at once, to prevent confusion; (xxii. [al. xxi] 1). for He saith, Mine hour is not yet come; i. e. I am not yet known to the persons present; nay, they know not that the wine hath failed; let them find out that first; he who perceives not his want beforehand, will not perceive when his want is supplied.