been favourable for it In His beloved face, worn and pale with His forty days of temptation and fasting in the wilderness, her eyes saw a change which told plainly that His new life had begun in suffering. He looked as if He had passed through a trial which set Him apart Perhaps He found time to tell her of His hunger in the desert, and the temptation which came to Him to use His miraculous powers in order to turn stones into bread for Himself. It seems that, in some way or other, she knew that, like Elijah and Elisha, the great prophets of olden times, He could, and would, work miracles as a sign to the people that He came from God; and she felt all a mother’s eagerness that He should at once manifest His glory.
So when there was no more wine she turned to Him, hoping for some open proof to the friends about her that He possessed this wonder-working power. Besides, she had been accustomed to turn to him in every trouble, in any trifling, household difficulty; casting all her cares upon Him, because she knew He cared for her. So she said to Him, quietly, yet significantly, ‘They have no wine.’ Some of Elisha’s miracles had been even more homely; he had made the poisoned pottage fit for food, and had fed a company of people with but a scanty supply of barley-cakes. Why should not Jesus gladden the feast and save His friends from shame, by making the wine last out to the end?
A few days before our Lord had been in the desert, amid the wild beasts, with the devil tempting Him. Now He, who was to be in all things one with us, was sitting at a marriage feast among His friends; His mother and kinsfolk there, with His new followers; every face about Him glad and happy. It was not the first marriage He had been at, for His sisters, no doubt, were married, and living at Nazareth; and He knew what the mortification would be if the social mirth came too suddenly to an end. He cared for these little pleasures and little innocent enjoyments, and would not have them spoiled. The miracle He refused to work to satisfy His own severe hunger He wrought for the innocent pleasure of the friends who were rejoicing around Him. There were six water-pots of stone standing by for the use of the guests in washing their hands before sitting down to the table, and He bade the servants first to fill them up again with water to the brim, and then to draw out, and bear to the ruler of the feast Upon tasting it He cried out to the bridegroom, ‘Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; but thou hast kept the good wine until now.’
So Christ changes water into wine, tears into gladness, the waves and floods of sorrow into a crystal sea, whereon the harpers stand, having the harps of God. But He can work this miracle only for His friends; none but those who loved Him drank of that wine. It was no grand miracle of giving sight to eyes born blind, or raising to life a widow’s son. Yet there is a special fitness in it He had long known what poverty, and straitness, and household cares were, and He must show that these common troubles were not beneath His notice; no, nor the little secret pangs of anxiety and disappointment which we so often hide from those about us. We are not all called to bear extraordinary sorrows, but most of us know what trifling cares are; and it was one of these small, household difficulties the Son of Man met by His first miracle.
After this, Jesus, with His mother, and brethren, and disciples, went down to Capernaum for a few days, until it was time to go on their yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to the feast of the passover, which was near at hand. Peter and Andrew were living there, and might join them in their journey to Judea; though they do not seem to have stayed with our Lord, but probably returned after the passover to their own home until He considered it a fit time to call them to leave all and follow Him.
CHAPTER III.
THE FIRST SUMMER.
For the first time Jesus went up to Jerusalem with His little band of followers, who knew Him to be the Messiah; and His cousins, who did not yet believe in Him, but were apparently willing to do so if He would act as they expected the Messiah to act. If He would repeat His miracle on a large scale, and so convince the mass of the people, they were ready enough to proclaim Him as the Messiah.
Would not John the Baptist be there too? He as a priest, and as a prophet, would no doubt be looked for, as Jesus afterwards was, at the feast of the passover. He must have had a strong impetuous yearning to see Him, who had been pointed out to him as the Lamb of God that should take away the sin of the world. Maybe He ate the Paschal Supper with Jesus and His disciples. We fancy we see him, the well-known hermit-prophet from the wilderness, in his robe of camel’s hair, with its leathern girdle, and his long, shaggy hair, and weatherbeaten face, following closely the steps of Jesus, through the streets, and about the courts of the Temple, listening to His words with thirsty ears, and calling himself ‘The friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth Him, rejoicing greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice.’ It was the last passover John the Baptist would ever celebrate; though that he could not know.
Upon going up into the Temple, Jesus found the court of the Gentiles thronged with sheep, and oxen, and doves, animals needed for the sacrifices, but disturbing the congregation, which assembled in the court of the women, by their incessant lowing and cooing. Moneychangers were sitting there also; for Roman coins were now in common use instead of the Jewish money, which alone was lawful for payment in the Temple. No doubt there was a good deal of loud and angry debate round the tables of the money-changers; and a disgraceful confusion and disorder prevailed. Jesus took up a scourge of small cords, and drove out of the Temple the noisy oxen and sheep, bidding the sellers of the doves to carry them away. The tables of the money-changers He overturned; and no one opposed Him, but conscious of the scandal they had brought upon the Temple they retreated before Him. ‘Make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise,’ He said. To Him it was always His ‘Father’s house;’ and before He could manifest forth His glory, His Father must first be glorified. The disciples, looking upon His face, remembered that it had been written, ‘The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.’
But the priests and Levites of the Temple, to whom this traffic brought much profit, were not so easily con-science-pricked as the merchants had been. They could not defend the wrong practices, but they came together to question the authority of this young stranger from Galilee. If John the Baptist had done it, probably they would not have ventured to speak, for all the people counted him a prophet But this was a new man from Galilee! The Jews held the Galileans in scorn, as only little better than the Samaritans. ‘What sign shewest Thou,’ they ask, ‘seeing that Thou doest such things? The things were signs themselves; the mighty, prevailing anger of the Lord, and the smitten consciences of the merchants, if they had not been too blind to see them. Jesus gave them a mysterious answer, which none could understand. ‘Destroy this temple,’ He said, ‘and in three days I will raise it up.’ What! were they to pull down all they most prided in, and trusted in: their Temple, which had been forty and six years in building! They left Him, but they treasured up His words in their memories. The disciples also remembered them, and believed them, when the mysterious sign was fulfilled.
But Jesus did not seek to convince the people without signs, and signs which they could understand. He worked certain miracles in Jerusalem during the week of the feast, which won a degree of faith from many. But their faith was not strong and true enough for Him to trust to it, and He held Himself aloof from them. What they looked for was an earthly king, who should plot and conspire for the throne; and the Roman soldiers, who garrisoned the strong fortress which overlooked the Temple, would not have borne the rumour of such a king. There was at all times great danger of these expectations reaching the ears of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, who was not a man to shrink from needless bloodshed. For the sake of the people themselves Jesus did not commit Himself unto them.
Amongst those who heard of the miracles He had wrought was one of the Pharisees, a member of the great religious committee among them called the Sanhedrim. His name was Nicodemus, and he came to our Lord by night, to inquire more particularly what He was teaching. Jesus told him more distinctly than He had yet done what His new message to the Jews and to the whole world was:
