A large accession of guests in such a humble home might easily be supposed to make a famine in the provisions, and so we read, And when the wine failed £—either from this cause, or from the poverty of the hosts, whose willingness and welcome were larger than their means, or by reason of an advanced stage in the festival—the mother of Jesus saith to him, They have no wine.
£ The simple presence of the Lord and of his mother, of such guests as these. at a wedding feast, is a Divine rebuke of all that morbid asceticism which crept from Essenism and Orientalism into the Christian Church, of all that false pietism and fancied purity which made marriage a contamination, and exalted virginity to an unnatural elevation.
The tender hearted interest felt by the blessed mother of the Lord in the condition of the hosts, and her tone of authority towards the διάκονι, are eminently natural; her tacit request for help, though she does not specify the way in which the help should be given, implies on her part something of presumption in indicating to our Lord the course he should adopt.
A question of great interest arises—What did she mean by her appeal? Bengel suggested that Mary simply intended: "Let us depart before the poverty of our hosts reveals itself." This makes Christ's reply an acceptance of her hint; but along other lines the rabbis were accustomed to say that wine and life were in the mouth of a rabbi (see Geikie's 'Life of Christ,' 1:475; Wunsche, in loc.
). We are expressly told that this is the beginning of signs, and therefore we have no right to conclude that, previous to this, in the home at Nazareth, Jesus had been accustomed to conquer fate and master poverty and compel circumstances by miraculous powers for his own or for his mother's support.
We know that it was a temptation of the devil that he should perform some such miracle for his own sustenance, and that he had sternly suppressed the suggestion of the evil one. The mother must have known his powers, and must have known his mind on this very matter.
What did she suggest? Was she thinking mainly of the need of wine, or firstly and chiefly of the honour and glory of her Son? She supposed that a moment had arrived when he should by some royal act assert his imperial rights, and give an order which would be obeyed as that of Sovereign Prince.
Precisely the same spirit prevailed always in his home and among his disciples—an eager desire that he should manifest himself to the world (cf. John 7:4-6). The disciples did not lose it on the night of the Passion, or the eve of the Ascension (John 14:22; Acts 1:6).
If this was the real meaning of the remark, "They have no wine," it becomes singularly interesting to observe the method of our Lord. The request for a supply of additional solace and refreshment was complied with.
The suggestion to show himself to the world was as resolutely withheld. There was no pomp, no claim, no self-assertion; there was quiet, boundless, affluent love. The glory of Divine love was manifested, the need was satisfied; but the impression was not intended to go beyond the hearts of those beings who would partially understand it, at the right time.