The Gospel of St. John Part 2

It is evident, then, I think, that we shall never enter into the force of this wonderful sentence, which has exercised more power over eighteen centuries, than perhaps any which was ever spoken or written, if we take it apart from the context of John the Baptist's life and of his preaching. All have felt that the preacher must have meant those to behold the Taker-away of sin, who had come confessing their sins, and to whom he had spoken of the remission of sins; that upon others the words must have fallen as dull, dead words, in which they had no interest. Is it not equally true that the words, '_sin of the world_,'

must have been connected by them with what they had heard of One who was in the world, and whom the world knew not? and with what they had heard of a light which lighteneth every man who came into the world, and of a darkness that had not comprehended it? I do not mean that this discovery to each man of his own darkness, this perception of a light near him which he had resisted, this conviction in each man that his sin _was_ the sin of the world, were of themselves sufficient to unfold the infinite mystery which lay in the Baptist's words. I say of them, what I said of the verse, '_The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, as of the only-begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth_;' all this Gospel is written to expound them. We must decipher them by degrees, as the Apostle and Evangelist himself deciphered them; he will lead us along with him, if we are content to follow. And do not let us be chary and timid in the demands we make upon him. Let us endure no half explanations that rob us of any portion of the meaning which must be hid in such an utterance. Let us have no imperfect subst.i.tute for any syllable of it.

For the sake of our own inmost being, for the sake of our brethren, we want the whole meaning in its fullest strength. If we are told that there is One who takes away _sin_, we must not be content that He should be shown to take away some accident or consequence of sin. If He is said to take away the sin of the _world_, we must not be told that the world is a metaphor for a few individuals. We must ask why He who takes away sin is called a _Lamb_,--why he is called the Lamb of _G.o.d_? If a lamb is a.s.sociated in our minds with innocence and purity, we must learn how that idea is fulfilled in _this_ Lamb. If it was connected in the mind of every Jew with the sacrifice of the Paschal feast, we must ask how this Lamb includes whatever is expressed in that sacrifice and that feast? I do not antic.i.p.ate St.

John's answers to these demands; but as he has himself excited them, I am sure he will prove himself to be an honest and a G.o.d-inspired man, by telling us how they were satisfied for him, how they may be for us.

One thing more he must tell us also, and may G.o.d open our hearts to receive his instruction! John the Baptist says, that he had come baptizing with water, in order that He might be manifested to Israel who would baptize with the Spirit. Here is evidently the turning-point of the two dispensations; here the teaching of John melts away into the teaching of Jesus; here the witness of the servant is changed for the witness of the Son. Seeing, then, that St. John takes so much pains to mark this transition; seeing that the office of Christ, as the Baptizer with the Spirit, is evidently that which he will especially dwell upon in the after portions of his Gospel,--let us not doubt, but earnestly believe, that what we have heard respecting the Word will be a preparation for this more especially Christian lore, provided we have not only heard with our outward ear, but have suffered the light which is s.h.i.+ning now, as it shone of old, to penetrate our consciences and hearts, and to turn them from their own darkness to the G.o.d who dwelleth in perfect light, in whom is no darkness at all.

DISCOURSE IV.

THE LAMB OF G.o.d AND THE SON OF G.o.d.

[Lincoln's Inn, 3d Sunday in Lent, February 24, 1856.]

ST. JOHN I. 46.

_And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see._

I made no attempt to explain the verse which I took for my text last Sunday. I merely endeavoured to show you how it was connected with those which preceded it. I was sure that it would receive abundance of light from those which come after it. A series of ages, I said, had confessed the force of the words. We must take care that we do not allow the strength of any one of them to evaporate in our hands.

Some have been surprised that John should speak of a _Lamb_ who beareth or taketh away the sin of the world. Was there not another image which would present itself more naturally to a subject and a student of the law of Moses? Might not the scapegoat, upon whose head the priest's hands were laid, over whose head the sins of the people were confessed, be said more strictly to bear away sins than the Paschal Lamb? Did not the scenery by which John was surrounded far more naturally recal the animal who went away into a land not inhabited? Why should the man whose food was locusts and wild honey go to a feast for his emblem? Why should the preacher in the wilderness think of the _Paschal_ feast, which belonged to the city and the family?

A modern preacher would attach great weight to these considerations.

As a rhetorician, he would be careful to choose the topics which are most likely to impress his immediate audience. There can be little doubt that among (what he would call) the types of the Old Testament, the scapegoat would seem to him far the most impressive. I am not drawing too much upon your reverence for the man who was 'more than a prophet,' if I ask you to believe that he may have had reasons, almost as good, for his course. Some of these we may see more clearly hereafter; one of them, I think, we may divine now. The disciples whom John was addressing had heard his call to repentance, had received his baptism of repentance. They had the sense of a sin close to themselves, _in_ themselves. To men who have this awakened consciousness, sin presents itself as a present burden; as such, the most ignorant, the most simple, feel it and speak of it. We often fancy that the conscience of poor men only responds to palpable pictures of future torments. Mult.i.tudes of religious tracts and books, Romish and Protestant, are composed upon this calculation; they are written _for_ the people. There is one English religious book written _by_ a man of the people, by one who had endured all possible antic.i.p.ations of future misery himself, the habits of whose school would have led him to press them as the most powerful motives upon others. The genius of the book has been confessed of late years by scholars; its power has been felt by peasants in this land, and in all lands into the language of which it has been translated, almost since it issued from the writer's gaol. To what is the _Pilgrims Progress_ indebted for this influence? Certainly to the strength with which the feeling of evil, as an actual load too heavy to be borne, is brought home to its readers. It is the man groaning with the burden upon his back, whom rich and poor sympathise with, whom each recognises as of his own kindred, who is suffering something which is incommunicable, and yet which every other man is suffering from, or has suffered from, or should suffer from. So it is with the tinkers and ploughmen of England, when they are aroused out of their sensual sleep; so it was with the fishermen and publicans who were gathered about the Jordan. They knew they had a burden, an actual burden, upon them. John's baptism had given them a pledge and witness that it might be taken from them. Already it seemed to be lightened; sometimes they could think they were free from it. How could they be delivered from it altogether? To confess themselves to G.o.d was an infinite relief; they rose up happier men. But did the confession really ascend to G.o.d?

Was it possible in deed and truth to approach Him? Was there nothing to intercept the communion? Was there any one who could interpret them to Him, and Him to them? Was there any one who knew what they were feeling? Was there any one who could bear the burden that was crus.h.i.+ng them, not into an uninhabited land, but into the very presence of G.o.d?

For was not this burden, after all, a sense of separation from a Being to whom they ought to be united, apart from whom they could not live?

Had not the light which had come from Him into their hearts brought this discovery with it? The scapegoat contained, no doubt, a deep lesson to those who pondered it well; but it was not _this_ lesson--it was not one which those could take in who were feeling sin as an inward torment pressing upon their hearts. The Paschal _Lamb_ spoke of a deliverance from bondage; it spoke of a deliverance as coming from G.o.d; it spoke of an offering to G.o.d. The thoughts which the name suggested might not be distinct; they might be hard to reconcile with each other. But the cravings which it met, though importunate, were also apparently contradictory. It awakened hopes; the satisfaction of them might come hereafter.

But if John had merely spoken of an animal, let it have what a.s.sociations with Jewish or with human feeling it might--let it be the aptest symbol in the world--the impression upon disciples who had been stirred in the inmost depths of their souls as his had been, would have been a very faint one. It was because he pointed to an actual Man, and said of Him, '_Behold the Lamb of G.o.d_,' that he spoke with power. Those who were suffering from a burden might desire to cast it upon G.o.d, might doubt if any one but He could sustain it. But who could understand their grief, who could feel its pressure, except a Man? All their sympathies and wishes pointed to a Man. Yet hitherto John had discoursed of a Light and of a Word. To that message their hearts had replied. It was that which had effected all the change within them. Was he now altering the tone of his preaching? Was he beginning to tell them of some one of whom they had not heard before?

He removes that suspicion at once. The old sentence recurs again, but with a variation: '_This is He of whom I said, After me cometh a_ MAN _which is preferred before me; for He was before me_.' He goes on: '_And I knew Him not_.' This a.s.surance jars with some of the thoughts which pictures that are dear to us have awakened in our minds. We can hardly separate the infant Christ from the infant Baptist. We feel as if the reverence expressed in the words, '_His shoe's latchet I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose_,' had begun in the earliest years of their sojourn upon earth, and had been maturing ever since. I rather fancy we weaken the effect which we might derive from the artist's symbols, by endeavouring to give them an historical value to which they can certainly make no pretension. It is not that these pictorial traditions are based upon pa.s.sages in the other Evangelists, and that they are only at variance with St. John.

St. Luke speaks of Jesus as being taken by His parents into Galilee after His circ.u.mcision. He speaks of John being in the deserts until the day of his showing to Israel. St. Matthew interposes the flight into Egypt between our Lord's nativity and His dwelling at Nazareth.

Both surely favour, rather than contradict, the strictest interpretation of the saying, '_I knew Him not_.' I do not say that we are absolutely obliged to adopt that strictest interpretation. But we are, I conceive, obliged to conclude that no external acquaintance or relations.h.i.+p had the least effect upon John's knowledge of Jesus, in that character in which He was revealed to him at His baptism. The Apostle is evidently very anxious to impress us with _this_ conviction. Few as are the words of his old Master which he reports, these are emphatically repeated. It belongs, I think, to the very design of this Gospel, to show us that John came to testify, first, of the Light of the world, then of that Light as manifested. '_That He should be manifested to Israel_,' he says in the next verse, '_therefore am I come baptizing with water_.' That He might be revealed as what He is; that through His flesh the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father might s.h.i.+ne forth; that the inward eye of men might be purged to behold Him in His true character and in His true relation to them,--this has been the end of my preaching, and of the outward rite that accompanied it.

'_And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him. And I knew Him not: but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of G.o.d._' That there should be an outward sign visible to the eye, a Dove lighting upon the head of a Man,--that there should be a Voice speaking to Him,--this is a great scandal to many readers and critics in our day. 'Are not these,' they say, 'the ordinary tokens of mythical narratives? Are they not what always awaken our suspicion in the records of the Old World or of the Middle Ages?' Yes, brethren, in the Old World and in the Middle Ages, men alike felt the need of outward signs to testify of inward realities.

They felt it because they _were_ men, separated from each other by place, by customs, by language, by religion,--but alike in being men; alike in their conviction that there must be an outward world which they could see, and an inward world which they could not see. It is equally true that in the Old World and in the Middle Ages, the sensible thing was confounded with the spiritual, the sign was subst.i.tuted for the thing signified; and that hence arose all kinds of superst.i.tion and idolatry. It is true, also, that in those days and in later days--in _these_ days most especially--people create for themselves a middle world, neither sensible nor spiritual, in which there are no signs, because there is nothing to be signified; in which there are only forms and abstractions of the intellect, some of which are distinguished as religious forms, some as ethical or philosophical, pleasant to the vanity of those who have need of nothing, and can keep themselves alive by talking and disputing, but vague, unreal, utterly tormenting to men who are seeking a home and a father. St. John does not dwell in this limbo of vanity. He is _like_ the writers of legends, in so far as he a.s.sumes that there are signs, and that there are realities which correspond to the signs. He tells us that when G.o.d was about to reveal the greatest of all realities to the spirits of men, He vouchsafed a sign of it which was discernible by the eye. He is _unlike_ the writers of those legends, in so far forth as they rested in signs, or forgot in the signs that which they denoted. The Dove is to him the sign of a Spirit, which would enable Him in whom it dwelt without measure, to rule his own senses and the world of sense. The Voice was a witness that a Man who had flesh and blood was really and actually the Son of G.o.d.

John the Baptist has still more to declare concerning signs, and that which they signify. He had baptized with _water_. The water had spoken in language clearer than any which can be put into letters, of cleansing, of purification. Those who had received it had come to it because they were sure that they needed the blessing of which it testified. They had come because they believed, more or less clearly, that G.o.d had ordained the rite, and that He alone could bestow the blessing. But the preaching of repentance for the remission of sins had made them aware that the evil was in a region which the water could not reach. Had it, then, been all a delusion? Was this rite, new at least for Jews, a mere phantasy, less powerful even than the rite of circ.u.mcision which had not prevented them from being treacherous to each other, and from blaspheming the name of G.o.d? Was the stern speaker of truth a mere mocker, trifling with the consciences which he had himself aroused? If his baptism was from himself, he was. If it was bearing witness of One who had come to men in past days, and given them power to become sons of G.o.d, the baptism was good because it was His sign and instrument. But the sign of what? Surely the sign of some process that was taking place in the spirits of men. And if so, would not that process be declared whensoever He was declared? Would not the baptism thenceforth be the a.s.surance that a power adequate to the purification of that which was defiled, to the restoration of that which was decayed--adequate to the renewal of the whole man--was bestowed by Him who had in all times given those who received Him power to become sons of G.o.d? '_Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, the same is He which shall baptize with the Holy Ghost._'

'_Again, the next day after, John stood, and two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as He walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of G.o.d._'

The words, '_which taketh away the sin of the world_,' are not repeated, at least not in the best ma.n.u.scripts. They had been spoken once. Now the Lamb of G.o.d had been connected with a new and higher name. John had borne record that this was the _Son_ of G.o.d. All the dignity and wonder of the former t.i.tle were attached to Him still.

There was an awe about _this_ which must have made the disciples wonder, but yet which attracted them. '_They heard him speak, and they followed Jesus._' The story of their intercourse is most simple.

There is no mysterious concealment; there are no surprising incidents.

'_Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto Him, Rabbi, (which is, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest Thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day; for it was about the tenth hour._' What is there in such a record to detain us for an instant? Only _this_, brethren; it is the beginning of the history of Christendom, of the whole new world. This meeting of these two men--one of whose names we do not know, the other whom we do know to have been a Galilaean fisherman--with Jesus of Nazareth is the first step in a movement which has in some way or other changed the life, polity, relations of mankind. If it is so, we may consider with ourselves, in some quiet hour, _why_ it is so? Perhaps we may find some other explanation than that which St. John gives--that the Man to whom these disciples came was the Light of men, and that He proved, by contact with those who had least light of their own, that He was _their_ Light. Or perhaps we may find that interpretation, on the whole, the best: and then we shall not seek further, but lay that to heart.

The three next verses bring us a step further in the history; they are still of the same character. '_One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus.

And when Jesus beheld him, He said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone._'

We found how hard it was for the Pharisees to make out a conception of the Christ, though they pored continually over the Scriptures, and had a series of interpreters to a.s.sist in divining the sense of them. And here this unlettered fisherman--unlettered probably in the strictest sense--boldly tells his brother that he has found the Christ. He is sure that he has. He can bid him come and see whether it is a mistake.

'What fanatical confidence!' every scribe would have exclaimed--nay, did exclaim--as soon as he learnt what these fishermen were believing.

Should not most of us say the same if we spoke our minds? For what had Andrew to convince him? He had seen none of the miracles upon which we say the evidence of Christ's mission rests. We may be sure that he had not heard Jesus say that He was the Christ; for He scarcely ever did say so. And on what, then, was his faith grounded, that faith which England has accepted for somewhat more than a thousand years? I do not know, unless the Light of the world made him feel that He was the Light of the world--unless the King of men made him feel that He was his King. But I also do not know, brethren, upon what your faith and mine is founded--on what the faith of all the men that have believed during the last eighteen hundred years has been founded--upon what the order and civilization of all the earth has been founded, except it be upon that same revelation of a Light and of a King, which made Andrew say these words to his brother Simon.

And now He who has received this name from a disciple, bestows a name upon a disciple: '_Thou art Simon; thou shalt be called a Stone_.' The creatures were brought to the first Adam, that he might say what was the name of each. If this was the second Adam, He could say to any one of His human creatures, 'That is thy name; understand by it what is the work I have given thee to do.' Simon Peter, after many perplexities and falls, did learn fully the meaning and force of his new name. He declared to the Jews at Pentecost, he declared to Cornelius the heathen, that Jesus had been proved to be both Lord and Christ. A society of Jews and Gentiles grew up which recognised Jesus as its Corner-stone. Lest they should fancy that he or any mere man could be a rock or resting-place for them, he wrote an Epistle specially to show that his Master is the Corner-stone, elect, precious, on which men are builded together a spiritual house; that such a spiritual house cannot be overthrown; that any spiritual house which is built on any weaker foundation, which has any other stone or rock, must be destroyed.

'_The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph._' Philip does not go in search of the Lamb of G.o.d, as those did who heard John speak. Jesus is said to find him, and to speak the words, 'Follow me,' which he obeys. The effect is the same as in the former case--only Philip is, perhaps, a little more courageous: he speaks confidently of this as the Person to whom all the holy men of old were pointing. He speaks so even while he makes the offensive announcement, 'He is Jesus of _Nazareth_, the son of Joseph.' From what place the new teacher came, was nothing to the young disciple. He had proved Himself to him to be the King over his heart. Whose son He was called was nothing. In the most living sense He must be what John had called Him--the Son of G.o.d.

Hereafter doubts and questions might arise upon these points; the Prophet's words respecting the city of David might have to be reconciled with this apparently Galilaean origin of the new Teacher; explanations might be given respecting His parentage. For Philip all this was premature and unnecessary. The deepest knowledge must come first; the other would follow when it was wanted.

The same truth forces itself upon us still more mightily in the answer of Nathanael to his friend: '_Nathanael said to Philip, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see_.

_Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Nathanael saith unto Him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus saith unto Him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered and saith unto Him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of G.o.d, thou art the King of Israel._'

Nathanael, who was apparently a Galilaean, might not have the same prejudice against Nazareth which would have been natural in an inhabitant of Judaea. But there is another prejudice, often hinted at by our Lord, which is quite as hard to overcome. Can a prophet appear in _our_ neighbourhood, close to us? Must he not come upon us from some more sacred region? The Galilaeans, who were despised by others, must have learnt to despise themselves. All their habits of mind must have prepared them to expect that Jerusalem, or some place near it, would be the seat and birthplace of the great King. There was, therefore, at least as much ground for doubt and unbelief in this man's mind as in that of any learned scribe. Nevertheless he comes, and he is hailed a genuine Israelite, an Israelite without guile. The first t.i.tle might seem only to claim the dweller in any part of Palestine as of the same stock, a true child of Jacob; but that which is joined to it marks out the man himself as a wrestler with G.o.d--one who had sought to purge his soul from deceptions--one who believed that G.o.d desired truth in his inward parts, and would make him to know wisdom secretly. It was a wonderful commendation; but what was the warrant for it? Till then Nathanael supposed that his face had not been known to the speaker; how much less his heart. _Had_ they met for the first time? Had he never sat and kneeled beneath the fig-tree, the favourite place of secret devotion to the pious Israelite? Had he never wrestled for light to himself, for blessings to his country? for the scattering of its worst enemies--which were also his own--covetousness, pride, falsehood? for the revelation of its promised Deliverer? '_There, before Philip called thee, I saw thee_;--I had conversed with thee.' Nathanael heard and wondered; there was no more debating within him about Galilee or Judaea, Nazareth or Bethlehem. A flood of light was poured into his soul, not through c.h.i.n.ks and apertures in the prophetical oracles, but from the clear heaven where G.o.d dwelt. 'Rabbi, Thou art He whom I have sought after with cries and tears, that none but Thou hast known of. Thou hast often been with me before. I behold Thee now. Thou art the Son of G.o.d; thou art the King of Israel.'

And then came a promise and a.s.surance of a mightier blessing, of a fuller revelation hereafter to him, and to mult.i.tudes unborn, '_Because I said, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou?

Thou shalt see greater things than these. And He saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of G.o.d ascending and descending upon the Son of Man_.'

'Faithful and true Israelite! the vision to thy progenitor who first bore that name shall be substantiated for thee, and for those who trust in me in lonely hours, through clouds and darkness, as thou hast done. The ladder set upon earth and reaching to heaven,--the ladder upon which the angels of G.o.d ascended and descended,--is a ladder for thee and for all. For the Son of Man, who joins earth to heaven, the seen to the unseen, G.o.d and Man in one, He is with you; through Him your spirits may arise to G.o.d,--through Him G.o.d's Spirit shall come down upon you.'

DISCOURSE V.

THE MARRIAGE FEAST.

[Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday in Lent, March 2, 1856.]

JOHN II. 11.

_This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed on Him._

The word '_Miracles_,' which our translators have adopted in this verse, gives little trouble to a reader. He thinks of some singular, glaring effect, which makes men wonder, and which they can refer to no known principle. That effect he calls a miracle. To produce astonishment is the immediate object of him who works it; to convince those who see it, and those who are told of it afterwards, that he is not subject to ordinary laws, and has the power of setting laws aside, is his ultimate object.

Such thoughts, I say, are suggested naturally enough by the word Miracle. It is otherwise with the word '_Sign_' (S?e???), which St.

John uses himself. That word is simpler in sound than the other, but it gives rise to a longer and more troublesome inquiry. Outward display, the excitement of wonder, departure from rule, have no necessary or natural connexion with it. The name drives us to the question, 'A sign of what?' And all these qualities--supposing they were present in the sign--would not help us to answer the question. In the case before us, the act of turning water into wine--in which the miracle is supposed to consist--cannot be separated from the other parts of the narrative: together they const.i.tute the sign. And to find the signification of the sign, we must have recourse to the first chapter of the Gospel; we must ask St. John himself to tell us why he has introduced it, and how it bears upon the subject of the history.

'_On the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there._' On the third day, no doubt, after the events which we were speaking of last Sunday. What were those events?

A preacher who had drawn crowds by his word, who had attached to him some devoted disciples, had spoken of One mightier than he, who was coming after him, but had been before him. He had pointed to a certain man. He had said of Him, '_Behold the Lamb of G.o.d, that taketh away the sin of the world_.' He had said that he came baptizing with water, on purpose that this person might be manifested to Israel as the Son of G.o.d, who would baptize with the Holy Ghost. Two of those who heard these words, we are told, followed Jesus. They invited others, saying that they had found the Christ. One or two more Jesus Himself called to come after Him.

What expectations were these men likely to form of their new Master?

All their deepest impressions had been received from John. Would not He whom John declared to be greater than himself exhibit all His characteristics in a higher degree? They had first seen Jesus in the desert. Might not that be His favourite home? Would not He be more of a solitary, more of an ascetic, than His predecessor? Would not He, whose origin was said to be heavenly, be more withdrawn from the things of earth, than the man who said he was not worthy to unloose the latchet of His sandal? This was a reasonable supposition. There was another, which would strike many as even more reasonable. The Christ was a.s.sociated with thoughts of royalty. He might be the very reverse of John; not one who could converse familiarly with disciples; not one who could speak words of friendly admonition to publicans and soldiers; but one who would walk aloft, a.s.serting the dignity of His descent, claiming to rule the people, impatient of even seeming to belong to them.

On the third day came a sign which showed how far either of these expectations corresponded to the truth. There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and Jesus was sitting there beside His mother. This is the appearance He made to those disciples who had heard Him described by such magnificent t.i.tles,--to those disciples who had learnt to look upon the desert life, the life that is withdrawn from all family relations and sympathies, as the specially holy and prophetical life.

And yet it is clearly no august regal marriage which is taking place at Cana. A homely, rustic wedding,--one in which there is feasting and merriment, but no pomp. To this He is bidden; and those fishermen who had joined Him are bidden too. They are called His disciples. They had but lately seen Him or known Him, but they are already fast bound to Him. As His disciples they go with Him, not into a far-off desert, but to a wedding-feast in a little town.

Here is surely the sign of a change,--a change the very reverse, perhaps, of what we were looking for. We are coming nearer to the common earth, to those bonds which connect the inhabitants of earth with each other, to those which touch all earthly feelings and earthly interests. The next incident surely does not weaken this impression.

The wine at the feast is said to have failed. We might easily have formed some vague notion of a festival that was different from all others, marked by no vulgar events; at least we might have wished that these should be kept out of sight--that we should not be informed of them. St. John, the divine, the theologian, does not indulge us in this wish. He is determined that we should understand it to have been an ordinary wedding-feast, at which men drank as at others. '_The mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine._' Whatever meaning we may discover in the words when we know who spoke them and to whom they were spoken, they are plain words, the announcement of the plainest fact. Some interpreters suppose that Mary only intended to say, 'Let us withdraw, that the deficiency may not be apparent.' I like their honesty, their determination to find the simplest sense they can; but if we consider what _must_ have been the intercourse between Mary and her Son for so many years; if we remember that a crisis had come in His life, which must have appeared to her the fulfilment of all her expectations concerning Him; if we remember that He was now gathering about Him a set of disciples; it surely is most reasonable to suppose that these words expressed her desire that He should, and her belief that He would, put forth some unwonted power which had been latent in Him hitherto. The old Scriptures told how Elisha had used his divine powers for the relief of ordinary necessities,--to heal, for instance, the waters which might have poisoned the sons of the prophets. Was it strange that a devout reader of these Scriptures should think that her Son might prove He had divine endowments in like manner? It belongs to the very nature of a woman, to the finest part of her nature, to think that power is best exerted in individual cases, for individual needs. What we are apt to regard as too mean and minute occasions for a divine might, she measures by a wiser and more loving rule. The distinctions of little and large are forgotten, as they ought to be, when the Eternal is in question. The most blessed of women ought to have exhibited this tendency in its highest degree. In doing so, she was not degrading Him whom she loved and reverenced most; she was judging rightly for what ends His powers on earth would nearly always be put forth.

But yet there _was_ a weakness in this feminine eagerness. There was a thought that a mere circ.u.mstance or necessity could determine the exercise of an internal energy. And this is what He appears to rebuke in the next sentence. '_Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come._' A comparison of this pa.s.sage with one in the seventh chapter of our Gospel, in which Jesus uses a similar expression to His brethren when they urged Him to go up to the feast at Jerusalem that He might make Himself known openly, shows that He designed to tell His mother that no events or outward motives could decide when it was right for Him to do a work,--that the Spirit which He had received without measure was regulating His acts--that He must be always doing His Father's business. Such an intimation, conveyed to the one who in all this world knew Him best, who had most inward sympathy with Him, was no discouragement to her faith,--rather was certain to awaken it. The power would come forth, not in obedience to her call, but to a more lofty, more divine, impulse. She could say, therefore, to the servants, without hesitation or anxiety, '_Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it_.'