Miracles of Our Lord | Page 3

rejoicings with perfect sympathy, for, whatever suffering
might follow, none knew so well as he that--
"there is one Who makes the joy the last in every song."
The assertion in the old legendary description of his person and habits,
that he was never known to smile, I regard as an utter falsehood, for to
me it is incredible--almost as a geometrical absurdity. In that glad
company the eyes of a divine artist, following the spiritual lines of the
group, would have soon settled on his face as the centre whence
radiated all the gladness, where, as I seem to see him, he sat in the
background beside his mother. Even the sunny face of the bridegroom
would appear less full of light than his. But something is at hand which
will change his mood. For no true man had he been if his mood had
never changed. His high, holy, obedient will, his tender, pure, strong
heart never changed, but his mood, his feeling did change. For the

mood must often, and in many cases ought to be the human reflex of
changing circumstance. The change comes from his mother. She
whispers to him that they have no more wine. The bridegroom's
liberality had reached the limit of his means, for, like his guests, he was,
most probably, of a humble calling, a craftsman, say, or a fisherman. It
must have been a painful little trial to him if he knew the fact; but I
doubt if he heard of the want before it was supplied.
There was nothing in this however to cause the change in our Lord's
mood of which I have spoken. It was no serious catastrophe, at least to
him, that the wine should fail. His mother had but told him the fact;
only there is more than words in every commonest speech that passes.
It was not his mother's words, but the tone and the look with which
they were interwoven that wrought the change. She knew that her son
was no common man, and she believed in him, with an unripe,
unfeatured faith. This faith, working with her ignorance and her fancy,
led her to expect the great things of the world from him. This was a
faith which must fail that it might grow. Imperfection must fail that
strength may come in its place. It is well for the weak that their faith
should fail them, for it may at the moment be resting its wings upon the
twig of some brittle fancy, instead of on a branch of the tree of life.
But, again, what was it in his mother's look and tone that should work
the change in our Lord's mood? The request implied in her words could
give him no offence, for he granted that request; and he never would
have done a thing he did not approve, should his very mother ask him.
The thoughts of the mother lay not in her words, but in the expression
that accompanied them, and it was to those thoughts that our Lord
replied. Hence his answer, which has little to do with her spoken
request, is the key both to her thoughts and to his. If we do not
understand his reply, we may misunderstand the miracle--certainly we
are in danger of grievously misunderstanding him--a far worse evil.
How many children are troubled in heart that Jesus should have spoken
to his mother as our translation compels them to suppose he did speak!
"Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come." His
hour for working the miracle had come, for he wrought it; and if he had
to do with one human soul at all, that soul must be his mother. The
"woman," too, sounds strange in our ears. This last, however, is our
fault: we allow words to sink from their high rank, and then put them to

degraded uses. What word so full of grace and tender imagings to any
true man as that one word! The Saviour did use it to his mother; and
when he called her _woman_, the good custom of the country and the
time was glorified in the word as it came from his lips _fulfilled_, of
humanity; for those lips were the open gates of a heart full of infinite
meanings. Hence whatever word he used had more of the human in it
than that word had ever held before.
What he did say was this--"Woman, what is there common to thee and
me? My hour is not yet come." What! was not their humanity common
to them? Had she not been fit, therefore chosen, to bear him? Was she
not his mother? But his words had no reference to the relation between
them; they only referred to the