The Wedding at Cana (c. 1563), Paolo Veronese
Human nature is a funny thing. Though it may seem vastly different depending on the region of the world or the historical era, there are certain aspects of human culture that are common to any place or time. Take, for example, the ritual of a wedding. Every human culture celebrates weddings, and there are always two parts to any wedding: the ceremony and the celebration.
As a priest, I’ve been involved in quite a few weddings. I’ve noticed that there’s a somewhat humorous dichotomy to our contemporary American wedding culture. On the one hand, the ceremony is always very planned out, very choreographed – sometimes with lots of pomp and circumstance and even tension. Everyone behaves very proper and dignified. But after the ceremony? It’s time to party! All these people who were acting very sophisticated a few minutes before are now ready to throw down. The ties and jackets come off, the libations flow, and before you know it, Grandma is out on the dance floor. I’ve learned that’s usually the opportune moment to excuse myself.
Don’t get me wrong – if done in moderation, all of this is perfectly fine. After all, people come to a wedding to celebrate! They come to celebrate love – how two people have come together to form something new – and that feeling of love overflows into joy and exuberance. In the Gospel today, the people attending the wedding in Cana were certainly enjoying themselves. They were .... well, partying, but the intensity of their joy had led to a serious problem. The wine had run out.
On the one hand, we can interpret this story in a rather straightforward manner. The wedding at Cana is set in the Gospel of John at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, just after he has called his disciples but before he has really begun teaching and preaching. Indeed, as we heard, Jesus tells his mother that his hour has not yet come – he’s not yet ready to reveal who he is, to show his power and attract attention to himself. And yet, Mary persists and Jesus is persuaded. He performs the miracle of changing the jars of water into wine and so the party is able to continue. It’s a good reminder for us of why prayer through Mary is so important for us – then and now, Jesus has a special fondness for fulfilling the requests of his mother and all who appeal to her.
There is also a deeper, more hidden meaning to this story. Throughout the Bible, the writers of Scripture use the imagery of marriage – the love between spouses, the wedding banquet – to symbolize the intense, faithful love that God has for humanity. The prophets write about how God and humanity are divorced, in a sense, from each other by mankind’s sinfulness, but that there will come a time when God will restore his people and take them to himself like a beautiful bride.
We hear this in the first reading – Isaiah writes to the people: “you shall be called “My Delight,
and your land “Espoused”…. As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.” Though the chosen people of God had rejected the Lord’s plans for them time and again, he was not going to give upon them – even more, he was going to fashion them into something wonderful and beautiful, like a bride on her wedding day.
Unlike the other three Gospel writers, John never speaks of miracles; instead, he refers to the signs of Jesus. In a sense, they’re the same thing – the changing of water into wine can be seen as both a miracle and a sign. But perhaps thinking of them as a sign is the better way, because it takes the emphasis off of what is being done and instead puts it on who is doing it. Jesus performs various signs as a way of showing who he is and why he has come.
In this light, what Jesus does in the Gospel reading today takes on a new meaning. By changing the water into the wine, he shows his power to transform – not just the elements of the wedding celebration, but we ourselves, our very nature. He is the Savior who has been sent to restore humanity, he is the God who has come to raise up his people – in him, the divine and the human are forever reconciled and brought into union. He is the heavenly Bridegroom come to claim his Bride.
The transformation of water into wine at Cana allowed the celebration of the wedding to continue, taking on a new and joyous exuberance since it was “the good wine.” The transformation that God has worked in humanity through Jesus is a far, far greater cause for exuberant celebration. Though we have been far from God, he can bring us back to himself; though we have failed to live as his children, he wishes to restore us to a new and greater glory. Indeed, even more he has endowed us with his own power – gifts of wisdom and faith and prophecy and mighty deeds through the Holy Spirit, as the epistle tells us. Through our baptism in Christ, we share already in the ability to let each moment of each day – though seemingly ordinary or unremarkable – to be transformed into something greater, a cause for rejoicing, like water into wine, because of the knowledge of the love that God has for us.
My friends, the union of God and man in Jesus is something that profoundly affects us, indeed transforms us, since he shares that same union with us. Though human, we have been recreated in Christ and participate now in his divine life. His is a love that forgives but also transforms – his is a love that gives us reason to rejoice but then asks us to share that joy with others, each in our own way, according to the gifts God has shared with us.
As we begin a new year, a new semester, a new season in the life of the Church, it’s worthwhile I think to reflect upon the immense outpouring of love that Jesus offers and to consider how we are responding to it at this moment. Let us look for the ways that God wishes to show us his power in our daily life – not through loud miracles perhaps but through small signs – that we may be constantly reminded that we have a celebration to join in, a wedding feast of the divine and the human – present now, but especially in eternity – that awaits us.
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