Marriage at Cana
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The Marriage at Cana or Wedding at Cana is an event reported by the Gospel of John but not by any of the Synoptic Gospels. John reports that Jesus was attending a wedding in Cana with his disciples for the Jewish rite of purification. When the hosts ran out of wine, Jesus' mother (unnamed in John's Gospel) told Jesus, "They have no more wine." Jesus replied, "Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come." Jesus' mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you" (John 2:3-5). Jesus ordered the servants to fill the empty containers with water. When they had done so, Jesus told them to draw out some of it and take it to the chief waiter. After tasting the water that had become wine and not knowing what Jesus had done, he told the bridegroom that he had departed from the custom of serving the best wine first by serving it last (John 2:6-10). This was the first miracle of Jesus and it was performed to reveal his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him (John 2:11).
This miracle of Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of John, occurs immediately after Jesus has told Nathanael at John 1:50 that "You shall see greater things than that". To denote Jesus' miracles mentioned in his Gospel, John uses the Greek word semeion meaning "sign", or ergon meaning "work", instead of the term for miracle which the synoptics normally use: dynamis - meaning "act of power".[1] The event is the first of the seven miraculous signs by which John attests Jesus's divine status, and, around which he structures his Gospel.
This could be seen as the Gospel of John's deliberate fulfilments of prophecies in the Old Testament, such as Amos 9:13-14 and Genesis 49:10-11 about the abundance of wine that there will be in the time of the messiah, and the messianic wedding festivals mentioned in Isaiah 62:4-5. Some Christians see the event as having genuinely been foretold, while skeptics see John as deliberately creating or twisting events to fit the prophecies. A number of scholars have argued that John's account of the Cana Wedding also reflects the Synoptic Gospels' parable of New Wine into Old Wineskins.
The story has had considerable importance in the development of Christian pastoral theology, since the theory that Jesus was invited to a wedding, attended and used his divine power to save the celebrations from disaster, are taken as evidence of his approval for marriage and earthly celebrations, in contrast to the more austere views of the Pauline epistles as found, for example, in 1 Corinthians 7. It has also been used as an argument against Christian teetotalism (see Christianity and alcohol), and in Roman Catholicism, the Wedding at Cana is one of the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary.
[edit] In popular culture
The song Drive by the American band Incubus references the events during the Marriage at Cana.
The song A Little's Enough by the American band Angels and Airwaves references the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine. "Like turning water into wine. The children ran to see. The parents stood in disbelief. The earth itself then came alive. Like God was coming home to say..."
[edit] References
- ^ Brown 339.
[edit] See also
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Marriage at Cana
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| Preceded by Temptation of Christ |
New Testament Events |
Succeeded by Temple Cleansing of John 2:13–22 |
