2 "On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.”So they took it. 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him."
John 2:1-11
Mary's words to our Lord gives us a pertinent lesson on prayer. She did not know what Jesus would do in the situation of need that arose, nor did she presume to tell Him what to do. All she did was to put the facts before Him: 'They have no wine'. Sometimes this is as much as we can do in prayer. The water pots in 6 stand as a symbol of the old economy, the whole Old Testament ritual as such, and what John is saying is that the old ritual with its symbol of water is passing away and a new is taking over, symbolised by wine. It was the new wine of the kingdom of God that flowed on that wedding day. We may also link this with the distinction drawn by John the Baptist in the previous chapter between water-baptism and the baptism of the Spirit, for the thought is the same. The dispensation of 'water' was not meaningless, but its power was limited and partial. The old dispensation was one of promise, the new is one of fulfilment. The old was therefore suggestive, symbolic, preparatory, a shadow, while the new is the reality to which all the shadows point. All this inclines us to see something of significance even in the opening phrase, 'the third day', for inescapably the new order is associated in its fullness with Christ's resurrection on the third day. The signs always point forward to the climax in His death and resurrection. And, watching this simple, gracious miracle at Cana, John and his companions suddenly realised it had this deeper significance, that it was saying something to them all about the purpose of His coming.