"Behold His Reward is Before Him"

It is not a hard task to draw connections between the Old and New Testaments for God destined that we receive His Living Word, whole and complete, devoid of fragmentation. For this reason, the Old and New Testaments often directly collate to one another. One such example is the prophecy of Isaiah 61-62 and the revelation of the Son of Man at the wedding at Cana in the Gospel of John.

“Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him’” (Isaiah 62:11). At the wedding at Cana this prophecy is limitedly fulfilled. For centuries the Lord had promised His people a savior. From the first moments of our fall into sin, God has “proclaimed to the end of the earth” that He will save us from our sin. He had promised to send us our Savior and Messiah to redeem the world. It is at the wedding at Cana that Jesus first reveals Himself to the entire people of Israel. The beauty of the miracle at Cana is that without using words Jesus reveals the miraculous power He possesses as the Savior. At the wedding at Cana, however, Jesus does not reveal His true saving power. This is saved for the moment of our salvation on the morning of the Resurrection. Rather, the wedding at Cana is a foreshadowing of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection.

In their human limitedness, the disciples at Cana (see John 2:2) believe that their messiah will be a man of great power, someone to set them free of their earthly oppressors—the Romans. They think that if Jesus is to reveal Himself in a miracle then their enemies will be terrified at the power He possesses. They fail to realize that the true reward is with him. Thus when Mary approaches Jesus and asks Him to resolve the problem of the wine run dry, the disciples must have been excited. They must have thought to themselves, “Here is our chance to show those Romans that our God is with us. Just wait until they see what he can do.” To the disciples it must have looked like the opportunity to reveal their secret weapon had at long last come. It is for this reason that Jesus responds, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” In addressing Mary as “woman,” He universalizes the statement and extends it to the entire crowd. In her grace, however, Mary knows that a miracle at Cana would not be a revelation of the true saving power that her son possesses. In her faith, she tells the servants to listen to what Jesus has to say and follow accordingly. In the events that follow, Jesus uses the miracle at Cana as an example to His disciples of what His true saving power will be.

In the context of the Old Testament, it is easy to make the assumption that the savior will give plenty of rewards—earthly treasures and blessings—to those who believe in Him. This is how the disciples at Cana read the Old Testament passage from Isaiah. With the New Testament, we can see that this is not what is means. The miracle at Cana shows that the true reward and recompense for our sins is before Christ always—until His death. The true reward and recompense is that through the Passion and Resurrection we reap the benefits of Christ’s suffering. Like water poured into jars of purification (John 2:6), through Christ we are transformed into new and superior wine, ready to be served to the bridegroom (see Isaiah 62:5). In this context, Isaiah 62:11 is fulfilled in its entirety, for “behold his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.”