This is generally regarded as the first of Jesus’s miracles, and that’s fitting: If we understand the story spiritually, we can
see that it illustrates the purpose of his life and foretells the impact of his ministry.
Before the Lord came into the world, the Jewish faith was the key to his relationship with humanity. The Children of Israel had created and safeguarded the Word – the Old Testament – in writing, in ritual and in rules for life. Those things served as containers for knowledge about the Lord and his relationship with humankind. But the Jewish people themselves did not know anything about those internal ideas, and had, according to Swedenborg, filled their rituals with evil intentions to the point that all goodness was in danger of being choked off in the world.
So the Lord came as Jesus to close out the era of Judaism in this central role, and to launch the Christian faith in its stead. There were two elements to that process. First, the Lord needed to reveal the true meaning of the Word and the Jewish rituals. Understood in a deeper way, the Scriptures were about loving the Lord and loving other people, and being loving was far more important than slavish obedience to a bunch of rules. Second, he needed to show people – those willing to believe – that along with being human he was also divine – that he was, in fact, Jehovah in a human form. People would then be able to worship him and love him fully.
Both of those elements are, according to Swedenborg, illustrated in the story of the wedding in Cana.
Swedenborg says that water represents external ideas, true things that guide us in day-to-day life. The water pots represent the Jewish stories and rituals that contain those external ideas, used for “the purification of the Jews.” Wine represents deeper, internal, spiritual ideas, things about love and caring, the things the Lord was going to reveal to the world. The fact that it happened at a wedding illustrates the Lord’s desire to be conjoined with those who believe; the facts that the wedding was in Cana and that Jesus’s mother and disciples were there all mean that the miracle would happen for people who were ready to believe in the Lord.
The lack of wine, according toSwedenborg, shows that the receptive people did not have enough real spiritual truth (and the fact that it was inferior wine shows that it came from evil desires, not good ones). So what did Jesus do? He had the servants fill the water pots with water – external words and rituals filled with external ideas. Then he had them draw out of the pots and take their pitchers to the ruler of the feast. At some point in that process – we’re not sure what point – those external ideas were transformed into internal ones, good wine that delighted those at the feast.
This illustrates the Lord’s first mission: to reveal the loving, caring meaning (the wine) hidden inside the external forms safeguarded by the Jewish church (the water pots).
And what was the immediate result? The last verse of the story says that through this miracle Jesus “manifested His glory,” and that the disciples believed in him. The Lord’s “glory” is the blinding brilliance we would experience if we could truly understand, if we could grasp the whole truth of infinite love. To “manifest” means to show, in a stunning glimpse, that such truth does exist in the deepest levels of the Word, far beyond our capacity to understand. And the disciples, getting that stunning glimpse, believed that not only was Jesus the Messiah, he was in fact Jehovah, God incarnate. That belief illustrates the Lord’s second mission, to show people a divine human.
Like all stories in the Bible, of course, this story contains true ideas on many levels. We’re looking at it here historically, in terms of what it meant during the Lord’s life on the earth. But it’s also something we all need to experience as we grow spiritually. We inherit lots of external forms and ideas in childhood; if we look to the Lord as we grow to adulthood, we will start to be able to see the deeper, more spiritual and far more important ideas contained within those forms, ideas of loving and caring that we can make our own. And if we believe, the Lord's glory will be manifested to us as well.
Passages from Swedenborg
Apoclypse Explained n. 376
[29] The same is signified by the water turned into wine in Cana of Galilee, concerning which it is thus written in John:
In the marriage in Cana of Galilee, when the wine failed, "there were set there six water-pots of stone, according to the purifying of the Jews. Jesus said, Fill the water-pots, which they filled to the brim. Then he said unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the ruler of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast tasted the water that was made wine, he called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when they have had enough, that which is worse; thou hast kept the good wine until now" (ii. 1-10).
It should be known that all the miracles performed by the Lord, as well as all the miracles of Him recorded in the Old Testament, signified such things as pertain to heaven and the church, that is, that they contained such things within them, and that hence His miracles were Divine (see the Arcana Coelestia, n. 7337, 8364, 9051), this miracle similarly. By a marriage here, as elsewhere in the Word throughout, is signified the church; in Cana of Galilee that amongst the Gentiles; and by water is signified the truth of the external church, such as was the truth of the Jewish Church from the sense of the letter of the Word; and by wine is signified the truth of the internal church, such as is the truth of the Christian Church. Hence the Lord's making the water wine, signifies that He would make the truths of the external church truths of the internal church, by opening the internal things that lay concealed in them. By the six water-pots of stone, set after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, are signified all those things in the Word, and thence in the Jewish Church and its worship, all of which were representative and significative of things Divine in the Lord, and from the Lord, which contained things internal. Therefore also, there were six of stone, set for the purifying of the Jews, the number six signifying all, and being said of truths, stone signifies truth, and the purification of the Jews purification from sins, thus all things of the Jewish Church. For the church regards purification from sins as its all, for in proportion as any one is purified therefrom, in the same proportion he becomes a church. By the ruler of the feast are meant those who are in the knowledges of truth; his saying to the bridegroom, "Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have had enough, that which is worse; thou hast kept the good wine until now," signifies that every church commences by truths from good, but afterwards ends in truths not from good, and that still, at the end of the church, truth from good, or genuine truth, is given from the Lord.
John 2:1-11
Verse 1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:
Verse 2 And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.
Verse 3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.
Verse 4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.
Verse 5 His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
Verse 6 And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.
Verse 7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim.
Verse 8 And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it.
Verse 9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,
Verse 10 And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.
Verse 11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.