This beginning of miracles

The Saviour’s first recorded sign miracle is memorable for several reasons. For a start, it was low key. It had none of the razzmatazz of the arena; the Son of God did not hire a stadium for a healing campaign or blitz the area with glossy self-promoting posters. Indeed, the setting was the insignificant and still unidentified Cana, rather than the prestigious capital of Israel, the city of the great king. The manner of the Lord’s activity was wonderfully quiet, v. 9; there was no show or performance to appeal to the flesh. Instead, all was marked by sublime unostentatiousness, for only the servants, disciples, and presumably Mary knew that a miracle had taken place at all.

Second, like everything the Lord did, it was genuine. Performed in the context of normal daily life (at a wedding, by a pool, on a hillside, on a lake, in the street, at a cemetery) His signs were devoid of all the shady features of showmanship. Further, they were free from any suspicion of trickery, for at Cana the Lord Jesus never even handled the water pots.

Third, it was verifiable. It could be put to the test and investigated; in fact the Lord encouraged it, vv. 8-10, making sure that an unprejudiced, expert witness testified to the excellence of His work, Matt. 8. 4; John 20. 27. This contrasts with the blasphemous nonsense of transubstantiation and with the fraudulence of many so-called healing miracles. A real work of God will stand up to the most robust examination. Those who claim to be saved must demonstrate the reality by changed lives, 8. 30-32.

Fourth, it was economical. The Lord of glory condescended to use lowly human instruments, thus teaching the principle that in all Christian service we are to do what we can while He alone does the impossible. And how dutiful were those servants! They obeyed the Lord’s words without question. After all, who was He to give orders in someone else’s house? But Mary’s advice must have struck home, ‘Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it’, 2. 5. They therefore obeyed without delay and without stinting, filling the pots ‘to the brim’, v. 7. Their total surrender to what must have seemed an absurd command stands as a model of godly obedience to the word.