NOTES for Joh 2:1-12

The Lord is under no obligation to do anything for us. That is precisely the meaning of His words addressed to Mary. And if we believe in Him so firmly? And if we love Him so deeply? It does not matter. His Mother loves and believes no less than we do (in fact, far more). But the Lord tells Her that He is already doing for people (including the bridegroom and the bride, and His Mother, and us) the most terrible work of His life - He mentions the "hour" that has not yet come; He later uses this expression to speak of His death on the cross. Who could bring himself to demand anything of Him after what He has done?

But does He not want our joy, our happiness? After all, He came to give us life abundantly (John 10:10), and He often compared His Kingdom to a joyful wedding feast. And six hundred liters of the best wine at a poor couple's wedding - is that not abundance? But this is His desire and His gift; on our side there can only be gratitude, and perhaps a quiet hope for His miracle, which we can learn from the One who said, "Whatever He tells you, do it."

What is this "glory" that Jesus revealed when He performed the miracle at the wedding feast in Cana (John 2:11)? If we remember what happened on Mount Tabor on the day of the Transfiguration (see Luke 9:28-36), it becomes clear that this is something the world, "under normal circumstances," cannot contain. In those moments Christ reveals what He is, what His divine nature is like. The manifestation of God's glory is always a miracle, taking place despite the laws of nature. In the Transfiguration His appearance changes; His face becomes radiant like the sun. When crowds gather around Him, only a couple of small fish and a few loaves are needed to feed them. In Cana, water becomes wine. Wine. Bread. It reminds you of something, does it not? Indeed, through all these manifestations of His glory, Christ gradually prepares people for what lies ahead: at the Last Supper the bread becomes His flesh, and the wine becomes His blood... And He, sharing Himself with us - His disciples - leads us to what is perhaps the central miracle: the Resurrection. This is the chief blessing through which "all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Acts 3:25). That means us too.

When reading the Gospel according to John, an impression of a certain strangeness of what's taking place arises not once. Every conversation isn't talk exchanges usual to us, but, rather, the course of events, which, as in life, is not really so easy to discover the severe logic. It's like this in this small passage. Jesus answers to Marie's natural message (and not a request) by an enigmatic and misty sentence; It cannot mean after all:"what's your business in it?!", even if it sounds, as an objection. And after that, Marie, instead of continuing the conversation with Jesus, turns rather to other people and asks them to listen to Jesus, as if His decision was already taken and She knows it.

These "excavations" however allow us in logic "to reconstruct" the plenitude of the mutual understanding between the Son and the Mother and plunge us in a way in the depth of Their cordial link. Marie brings human problems to the Son, and She doesn't have to ask anything, because She knows that His love is not less. And Jesus, knowing that Marie understands Him, doesn't say: "Now I shall do it", - instead invites Her to share with Him the burden of the forthcoming way: "You understand indeed what means that I begin to do miracles!" And Marie, without saying "yes", makes per saltum the following step: She's with Him; She calls people to trust Jesus.

John describes the wedding at Cana of Galilee using the messianic wedding-feast symbolism traditional for his time. This symbolism has roots in deep antiquity. Even before the Babylonian captivity, among the pre-exilic prophets, especially Hosea, descriptions of God's relationship with His people began to appear using family and marital symbolism: God is the husband, Israel the faithful, or more often unfaithful, wife (the word "Israel" is feminine in Hebrew, so this image caused no surprise among those who heard the prophet). Later, with the development of the messianic tradition, the image of the wedding hall and solemn wedding feast appears, with the Messiah as the bridegroom. Here too Israel becomes the bride, and at the table are the chosen ones from the people of God, those whom the Messiah Himself chooses for His feast as invited, honored guests.

There are many parables in the Gospel that play in one form or another on the image of the messianic wedding feast. Jesus often used this image in conversations with His disciples and in public preaching. John, however, turns the familiar plot in an unconventional way. He treats an ordinary wedding in an ordinary Galilean house, where Jesus is present incognito, as a messianic feast. He does not announce His messiahship (just as He does not announce it aloud in other cases), and who He is is known only to those who trust Him and who have been initiated into His mystery at least to a small degree.

One of those initiated was His Mother. She always knew that Her Son was not an ordinary man, even when He had not yet manifested Himself in any way as the Messiah. She understood this when She turned to Him during the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee. Perhaps She thought that it would cost Her Son nothing to perform a miracle at any moment He Himself wished. But He answers Her: what is that to Me and to You, Woman? My hour has not yet come.

God has His own plan, and the life of the Kingdom has its own logic. The breath of the Kingdom is always near, but its action cannot be used by a person at any moment, as if by the wave of a magic wand. Jesus will nevertheless turn the water into wine. An ordinary wedding feast with His participation will become a messianic feast. But not when it is convenient for people; rather when the moment determined by Him Himself and by His Heavenly Father arrives. For it is His feast and His Kingdom.

Jerusalem. The Temple. Walls. Stones. How much they had seen! "Before their eyes" the future Mother of God was raised. Soon after His birth her Son was brought here. This is where He appears as a boy. The grown Christ comes here too. Here He teaches and heals. When you understand how much was revealed to these stones, Christ's words stop sounding surprising: if people stop praising Him, the stones will do it for them (see Luke 19:40), and God can raise up children for Himself from stones (see Luke 3:8).

For some reason, one thinks these stones must have been carefully chosen. They were used to build the Temple of the Living God, to whom everything best belongs. But over the years even the stones must have darkened, the Temple faded, and faith grown dim. And then the Owner Himself of this holy place comes and, though He turns everything upside down here, in reality puts everything back where it belongs: trade to the world, and the Temple to God. For this, among other things, He was later lifted up by that same world on the place called the Skull.

And in today's reading from the Book of Acts we see that the disciples really are not greater than their Teacher (see John 15:20). They do the same thing He did: they use the Jerusalem Temple for its proper purpose. The sick should not receive alms at the Temple, but healing. We too would do well to take up a broom and go clear the rubble in our own heart, the new Temple of the Living God.

Temple trade in Gospel times had long been an established tradition. The temple courtyard could not do without traders: city dwellers had nowhere else to get either animals for sacrifice or everything else needed for observing the temple ritual. And the presence of traders, of course, made life easier for the overwhelming majority of pilgrims.

Of course, from the point of view of the Torah such trade was not entirely lawful, but loopholes in the law were found, and the trade continued, and continued under the most respectable pretexts. And when a certain Prophet appeared in the temple courtyard and demanded an end to the sacrilege, everyone naturally had a question: who was He to oppose something with which the overwhelming majority of His fellow believers had made peace? In reply He speaks figuratively to those around Him about His death and His resurrection.

What is this? A witness to His messiahship? Yes, of course, first of all that is exactly what it is, although at that moment even the apostles did not understand this witness in such a form. But it is also a reminder: in the life of the Kingdom there are no compromises. Even when they are convenient and suit everyone except God.

The issue here is not some special severity, but the fact that any compromise touching spiritual life destroys that life completely. In our world, not yet transformed, compromise means giving up a part for the sake of the whole or for the sake of another part of it. In the Kingdom, compromise means giving up the life of the Kingdom in all its fullness, because the Kingdom is indivisible. Here it is impossible to give up one thing for the sake of another, and if you give up anything, even the smallest thing, you lose everything. Such is the path of righteousness, the path of salvation, and such is the Kingdom. All or nothing. There is no other way.