Miracle at the Wedding in Cana
A different kind of miracle.
Study tips for understanding this story:
Read the story in the New American Version of the bible before reading this post.
See this link for an overview of the spiritual meaning of the story.
Click on all the links in this post.
Some links go to related teachings and some links go to bible verses where you will notice that some words are highlighted, and others are not. Clicking on the highlighted words in the verses will take you to the definitions of the original Greek words of the text. Knowledge of these definitions is critical to understanding of the story.
Remember that bible verse words that are not highlighted are filler words added by bible editors to make it more readable by English readers. These words interfere with understanding of the story and do not contribute to spiritual understanding.
Don’t get discouraged if you don’t understand right away. This is deep, challenging stuff. Take a break. Think about what you have read, then come back again. You won’t be disappointed if you don’t weary in welldoing
Was the event at Cana a physical miracle, or does it have a hidden meaning?
To understand this story, it is critical to know that the word “miracle” is not found in the original Greek text. The chapter heading “Miracle at Cana” found in some bible versions was added by bible editors and publishers to promote their biased, religious interpretation of the event. By suggesting that the event was a miracle, they violated God’s commands not to add to his words and grossly distorted the meaning of the story.
The word “miracle” does appear elsewhere in some bible versions. But, even when miracle is found, it is a wrong translation of the Greek word Dunamis which is translated many other ways (e.g., ability, might, powers, strength) many more times than it is translated as miracle.
When dunamis is translated as miracle, it distorts the real meaning of the Greek word “dunamis” which is most often translated as “God’s might,” “God’s power,” or “God’s strength.” This tells us that we should think of the events at Cana as a story about God’s spiritual might, God’s spiritual power and God’s spiritual strength — not as a physical miracle.
Why the Cana event was not a miracle.
There are several reasons why we should not think of the event at Cana as a physical miracle.
First, if it was a physical miracle, it was, by definition, not a spiritual event. The transformation of water to wine, if it really happened, would be a physical miracle — not a spiritual event with spiritual meaning and purpose that could train readers in righteousness.
Religious people always make the mistake of interpreting bible stories literally. That is why they interpret the Cana wedding story as a report of a miraculous, impossible, unnatural, unexplainable physical event. This satisfies their desire to be entertained by magic, but does nothing to teach, correct, or train in righteousness.
Second, interpreting the event as a physical miracle violates what God says about faith. Physical things and events which can be seen are not matters of faith which cannot be seen. Therefore, it must be said that interpreting the Cana event as a physical miracle is a matter of believing religious teaching about events that can be seen — not a matter of true faith in God’s spiritual power and presence in our hearts.
Third, when we interpret the event as a physical miracle, we totally miss God’s desire to teach us about his spiritual might, power and strength. This is what happens when we fail to understand that the entire bible, including this story, is full of Symbols, Signs, Types, Parables, Allegories, Copies, and Shadows.
Fourth, physical miracles cannot happen because nature’s laws cannot be broken or altered. Bible miracles are the fanciful imaginations of religious people who don’t understand biblical symbolism. Failure to understand biblical symbolism leads to belief in miracles, magic and religion. True understanding of biblical symbolism leads people to heart-to-heart intimacy with God and an ability to interpret the spiritual meaning of bible mysteries.
Fifth, God does not do physical miracles because, if he did, he would break natural laws he established.
Finally, God only works in the invisible, spiritual realm of our hearts. Changing hearts is the one and only kind of miracle he does. He does not do miracles in the visible, physical world. This is very different from religion which works openly and visibly in the physical world. This difference is what God is referring to when he says his ways are not man’s ways.
What really happened?
Spiritual miracles cannot be observed with natural senses because they happen in the heart which only God can see. The spiritual miracle of changing hearts can only be done by God. No human person, not even Jesus, can change hard hearts to clean, pure hearts.
We read in the story that Jesus and the servants participated in the miracle, but they didn’t make it happen. Jesus’ role was to tell the servants what to do. The servants’ role was to obey by pouring water into waterpots.
None of this makes any sense unless we understand the symbolism of water and waterpots. Water symbolizes God’s spoken word and waterpots symbolize hearts that are full of God’s spoken words. This story, therefore, symbolizes God using his spiritual power to create New Covenant disciples by writing his laws (i.e., his words) on their hearts.
When we understand this symbolism, we will also understand that the act of filling waterpots with water is a picture of God’s servants pouring God’s words into the hearts of people who have ears receptive to hearing God’s words in their hearts.
When we interpret this story symbolically instead of literally, we see that God uses the imagery of a physical miracle to communicate the truth about spiritual miracles that happen in hearts. And we see God using humans like Jesus and other servants to change hearts — but it is always God who performs the transformation.
God always uses his spiritual power to change hearts and never uses it to change physical things. Almost anyone can be taught how to do a magic trick like changing water to wine. But only God can change an evil, impure heart to a clean, pure heart. This is what the wedding in Cana story is all about.
Religious teachers wrongly teach that Jesus performed a physical miracle because they read the bible literally and interpret the event as a magic show performed by Jesus — not a spiritual event that displays God’s spiritual power by changing hearts.
If religious teachers had clean, pure hearts, they would understand that it was the servants who handled the water — not Jesus. They would understand that the story symbolizes God’s spiritual power at work in the hearts of people. This should cause us to reconsider the trust we place in the teachings of religious leaders.
The story also teaches us about obedience to God’s spoken words. When the servants listened to what Jesus said, and did what Jesus told them to do, they believed that Jesus was a true prophet who spoke for God. Then, even though they did not know what the outcome of their obedience would be, a spiritual miracle happened. They demonstrated true faith.
In their hearts, the servants knew that Jesus had no personal, human authority or power to do a miracle. But they did know that Jesus spoke God’s words for God. It must be said, therefore, that, in effect, the servants listened to God’s words spoken by a human man called Jesus. And it must be said that, because they trusted/believed that God spoke through Jesus, they did what Jesus told them to do as an act of obedience to God’s words. When they obeyed, a spiritual — not physical — miracle happened.
Another important element of the story is that a human person (i.e., Jesus) trusted that God had anointed him with the authority and power to speak on his behalf to people who cannot hear God’s spiritual voice because they have hard hearts. Not only did he trust, but he obeyed what he heard God say.
Hard hearts are the obstacles that God encounters when trying to communicate with people who cannot hear his spoken voice. This condition describes the wedding guests. Although they readily drank the old, relatively tasteless wine (i.e., words) of religious leaders, they eagerly welcomed and drank (i.e., listened to) the new, better, spiritual wine that represents God’s spoken word.
Because of their obedience, Jesus and the other servants made new wine available to the guests. Those who drank that new, better tasting wine would experience God’s power when he changed their hearts. When they drank, their hearts were filled with God’s words.
Before drinking the new wine, wedding guests could not hear God’s spoken voice and actually rejected hearing God’s voice by choosing to listen to the voices of religious leaders. God changed their hearts so that they would want to obey his commands to listen to his voice, and then stop listening to religious leaders so that they could hear his voice clearly.
Because religious people trust the voices/words of their beloved religious leaders, they do not think such a change is necessary. Nor are they convinced that they would want to make the change even if God commanded it. The story tells us how God uses his servants to accomplish such a radical, unthinkable change of mind and heart. Transformation like this was, and still is, necessary because religious people, contrary to God’s commands, always choose to listen to false prophets. People who listen to religious leaders cannot hear God’s voice because God talks in a unique spiritual language that only New Covenant disciples can understand.
Because true prophets like Jesus and the servants in the story can hear and understand God’s spiritual language, and can speak in human languages, they are uniquely equipped and empowered to translate God’s words into human words that religious people can understand. This is what messiahs do: They mediate between God and man by translating God’s spiritual language into human language. Mediating (i.e., translating) spiritual language to human language is what Jesus did at Cana after God anointed him as a messiah. In fact, mediating between God and man is the only thing that he did throughout his entire ministry.
When human messiahs like Jesus and the servants speak with Godly authority and other humans trust that the words they speak are actually God’s words, and then obey those words, God does spiritual miracles in the hearts of those who trust and obey God’s words. Those who obey what they hear will stop listening to false prophets and, from that point on, will stop practicing religion and listen only to God’s voice.
The tasteless, cheap wine first served at the wedding party symbolizes the spiritually empty words of religious leaders. Their words/teachings are symbolized as Fruit of Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The better, tasty, spiritually energized wine served later represents God’s words which are symbolized as the Fruit of Trees of Life. The differences between the two wines represent the radical differences between life and death which are explained by the Old/First Covenant (death) and the New Covenant (life.)
The event is a sign of God’s glory — not of Jesus’ ability to do a physial miracle by manipulating natural laws.
Verse 11 of the wedding story tells us that the event was a sign of God’s glory:
This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.
It important to note that the highlighted words are the original Greek text and that the words that are not highlighted are filler words added by bible editors and publishers to communicate their theological beliefs to readers. Thus, when we omit the words added by men, the text would read like this:
This beginning signs Jesus did Cana Galilee manifested glory, disciples believed
Study Tip: See this link for understanding of belief.
This verse tells us how the story of the wedding at Cana should be interpreted:
Because this event happened right after Jesus was baptized, it was the first sign that demonstrated to the world that he was anointed (i.e., baptized) as a messiah to speak for God.
What Jesus did was sign of God’s spiritual glory — not a physical miracle.
The wedding event of transforming water to wine symbolically previews and anticipates all the things all messiahs would eventually say and do to manifest God’s glory (i.e., spiritual might, power and strength) after they are anointed by God to speak for God.
Credit for the transformation of water to wine goes to God — not to Jesus or any other messiah who serves God.
When God’s spiritual might, power and strength are revealed to Old/First Covenant religious people — past, present and future — who understand the symbolic meanings of the event, those who have ears to hear God’s spoken voice (i.e., New Covenant disciples) will know/believe experientially that he is speaking to their hearts. And when that happens, they will choose to stop listening to religious leaders with their natural ears and instead choose to listen to God’s spoken voice in their hearts. They will, in effect, choose life over death and blessing over cursing.
These are the lessons the wedding in Cana story teaches those who have spiritual ears to hear.