ere intimation of a few minutes' delay before granting her request,
became the most solemn watchword of His life, marking the stages by
which He drew near to His death. "They sought to take Him, but no man
laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come." So again and
again. From the first He knew what would come of His manifesting His
glory among men. From the first He knew that His glory could not be
fully manifested till He hung upon the cross.

Can we wonder, then, that when He recognised in His mother's request the
invitation from God, though not from her, that He should work His first
miracle and so begin to manifest His glory, He should have said, "My
thoughts are not yours; Mine hour is not yet come"? With compassion He
looked upon her through whose soul a sword was to pass; with filial
tenderness He could only look with deep pity on her who was now the
unconscious instrument of summoning Him to that career which He knew
must end in death. _He_ saw in this simple act of furnishing the wedding
guests with wine a very different significance from that which she saw.
It was here at this wedding feast table that He felt Himself impelled to
take the step which altered the whole character of His life.

For from a private person He became by His first miracle a public and
marked character with a definite career. "To live henceforth in the
vortex of a whirlwind; to have no leisure so much as to eat, no time to
pray save when others slept, to be the gazing-stock of every eye, the
common talk of every tongue; to be followed about, to be thronged and
jostled, to be gaped upon, to be hunted up and down by curious vulgar
crowds; to be hated, and detested, and defamed, and blasphemed; to be
regarded as a public enemy; to be watched and spied upon and trapped and
taken as a notorious criminal"--is it possible to suppose that Christ
was indifferent to all this, and that without shrinking He stepped
across the line which marked the threshold of His public career?

And this was the least of it, that in this act He became a public and
marked character. The glory that here shed a single ray into the rustic
home of Cana must grow to that dazzling and perfect noon which shone
from the cross to the remotest corner of earth. The same capacity and
willingness to bless mankind which here in a small and domestic affair
brought relief to His embarrassed friends, must be adapted to all the
needs of men, and must undauntedly go forward