It was the marriage in Cana of Galilee. All connected with the account of it is strictly Jewish - the feast, the guests, the invitation of the stranger Rabbi, and its acceptance by Jesus. Any Jewish Rabbi would have gone, but how differently from Him would he have spoken and acted! Let us first think of the scenic details of the narrative. Strangely, we are not able to fix with certainty the site of the little town of Cana. [1739] But if we adopt the most probable indentification of it with the modern pleasant village of Kefr Kenna, [1740] a few miles north-east of Nazareth, on the road to the Lake of Galilee, we picture it to ourselves as on the slope of a hill, its houses rising terrace upon terrace, looking north and west over a large plain (that of Battauf), and south upon a valley, beyond which the hills rise that separate it from Mount Tabor and the plain of Jezreel. As we approach the little town through that smiling valley, we come upon a fountain of excellent water, around which the village gardens and orchards clustered, that produced in great abundance the best pomegranates in Palestine. Here was the home of Nathanael-Bartholomew, and it seems not unlikely, that with him Jesus had passed the time intervening between His arrival and the marriage,' to which His Mother had come - the omission of all mention of Joseph leading to the supposition, that he had died before that time. The inquiry, what had brought Jesus to Cana, seems almost worse than idle, remembering what had passed between Him and Nathanael, and what was to happen in the first sign,' which was to manifest His glory. It is needless to speculate, whether He had known beforehand of the marriage.' But we can understand the longing of the Israelite indeed' to have Him under his roof, though we can only imagine what the Heavenly Guest, would now teach him, and those others who accompanied Him. Nor is there any difficulty in understanding, that on His arrival He would hear of this marriage,' of the presence of His Mother in what seems to have been the house of a friend if not a relative; that Jesus and His disciples would be bidden to the feast; and that He resolved not only to comply with the request, but to use it as a leave-taking from home and friends - similar, though also far other, than that of Elisha, when he entered on his mission. Yet it seems deeply significant, that the true Israelite' should have been honoured to be the first host of Israel's King.'
And truly a leave-taking it was for Christ from former friends and home - a leave-taking also from His past life. If one part of the narrative - that of His dealing with His Mother - has any special meaning, it is that of leave-taking, or rather of leaving home and family, just as with this first sign' He took leave of all the past. When he had returned from His first Temple-visit, it had been in the self-exinanition of voluntary humility: to be subject to His Parents.' That period was now ended, and a new one had begun - that of active consecration of the whole life to His Father's business.' And what passed at the marriage-feast marks the beginning of this period. We stand on the threshold, over which we pass from the old to the new - to use a New Testament figure: to the marriage-supper of the Lamb.
Viewed in this light, what passed at the marriage in Cana seems like taking up the thread, where it had been dropped at the first manifestation of His Messianic consciousness. In the Temple at Jerusalem He had said in answer to the misapprehensive question of His Mother: Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?' and now when about to take in hand that business,' He tells her so again, and decisively, in reply to her misapprehensive suggestion. It is a truth which we must ever learn, and yet are ever slow to learn in our questionings and suggestings, alike as concerns His dealings with ourselves and His rule of His Church, that the highest and only true point of view is the Father's business,' not our personal relationship to Christ. This thread, then, is taken up again at Cana in the circle of friends, as immediately afterwards in His public manifestation, in the purifying of the Temple. What He had first uttered as a Child, on His first visit to the Temple, that He manifested forth when a Man, entering on His active work - negatively, in His reply to His Mother; positively, in the sign' He wrought. It all meant: Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?' And, positively and negatively, His first appearance in Jerusalem [1741] meant just the same. For, there is ever deepest unity and harmony in that truest Life, the Life of Life.