Le nozze di Cana segno della traslazione messianica. Gesù oltre il Battista: lo sposo e il martire

The Gospel of John singles out the wedding in Cana as «the beginning of the signs (ἡ ἀρχὴ τῶν σημείων)». Jesus’ first miracle highlights the passage from the ancient economy of Judaic purification (water) to the new economy, inaugurated by the redemptive incarnation of the Only Begotten Son (the miraculous new good wine), who is «God in the beginning (ἐν ἀρχῇ)». This new economy will find its accomplishment in the «hour» of Jesus’ death and return to the Father. Moreover, the Cana pericope stands also out as a messianic translatio, the result of conflicts between rival communities: Jesus’ miracle demonstrates that the alleged messiahship of John the Baptist, symbolized by the old wine that has run out and by the bridegroom in Cana, mere spectator of an event that surpasses his understanding, is no more. John, the Prophet of God, is downgraded to a ‘martyr’/ witness of the transcendent divine power of the God Incarnate, the one and only eschatological «bridegroom», before whom the charismatic- penitential economy of the Baptist («the friend of the bridegroom») is sacrificed as an imperfect approximation.