102.  The visit to Cana seems to have found a place in the fourth gospel, because there the new disciples discovered in their master miraculous powers which were to them a sign that he was in truth God’s anointed.  It is probable that at the time of this miracle the disciples thought only of the power and the marvel, yet the sharp contrast between John’s ascetic habit and Jesus’ use of his divine resources to relieve embarrassment at a wedding feast must have impressed every man among them.  Their minds, however, were as yet too full of Messianic hopes to leave much room for reflection.  They were content to have a sign, for in the view of Jesus’ contemporaries signs were essential marks of the Messiah (John vi. 30; vii. 31; Mark viii. 11).  They did their reflecting later (John ii. 22).

103.  Miracles are as great a stumbling-block to modern thought as they were a help to the contemporaries of Jesus.  The study of Jesus’ life cannot ignore this fact, nor make little of it.  It is fair to insist, however, that the question is one of evidence, not of metaphysical possibility.  Men are wisely slow to-day to claim that they can tell what are the limits of the possible.  If the question is one of evidence, it is in an important sense true that the evidence for miracle in the life of Jesus is appreciable only when that life is viewed in its completeness.  The miracles attributed to Jesus may be studied, however, for the disclosure which they give of his character, and of his relation to common human need.  So it is with this first sign at Cana.  Jesus had just heard the call to be Messiah, and in his lonely struggle in the wilderness had given a loyal answer to that call, and had set out to do his Father’s business in his Father’s way.  He who by the Jordan still carried the marks of struggle, so that the Baptist saw in him the suffering Saviour of Isaiah liii., now returned to the ordinary daily life in Galilee, and as a guest at a wedding feast he commenced that ministry of simple human friendliness (Matt. xi. 19; compare Mark ii. 15-17; Luke xv. 1, 2), which set him in sharp contrast alike with John’s asceticism and with the ritualism and pedantry of the Pharisees.

104.  His human friendliness is all the more worthy of note, inasmuch as on his return to Cana Jesus did not take up again the old relations of life as they existed before his baptism.  This is clear from his reply to his mother when she reported the scarcity of wine (John ii. 3-5).  While it is true that the title by which Jesus addressed Mary was neither disrespectful nor unkind (John xix. 26), the reply itself was a warning that now he was no longer hers in the old sense.  A new mission had been given him, which henceforth would determine all his conduct, and in that mission she could not now share.  Here is one of the many indications (compare Mark iii. 21, 31-35; Luke ii. 48) that Mary did not understand her son nor his work until much later (John xix. 25;