THE WEDDING AT CANA; THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

 THE WEDDING AT CANA

THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Epiphany, or “manifestation” celebrates three revelations; the visit to Christ’s crèche by the Magi – representative of the revelation of the Saviour to the gentiles; The baptism of the Lord in the River Jordan, where John the Baptist revealed the Lamb of God – the Sacrifice; And the Wedding Feast at Cana – where Christ reveals Himself as the Bridegroom.

The Gospel is John 2.7,8,9,10-11, the Communion passage providing as follows:

"The Lord saith: Fill the water-pots with water and carry to the chief steward. When the chief steward had tasted the water, he saith to the bridegroom: Thou hast kept the good wine until now. This first miracle did Jesus in the presence of His disciples."

To understand the role of Jesus as the bridegroom, one must fully comprehend the relationship between God and the people of Israel in the ancient Jewish tradition, a covenant which was far more than a contract – explained by Brandt Pitre as follows:

“From an ancient Jewish perspective, the one true God-‘the LORD’ or ‘He Who Is’ (Hebrew YHWH) (Exodus 3:15) - is not just the Creator. From an ancient Jewish perspective, the God of Israel is also a Bridegroom, a divine person whose ultimate desire is to be united with his creatures in an everlasting relationship that is so intimate, so permanent, so sacrificial, and so life-giving that it can only be described as a marriage between Creator and creatures, between God and human beings, between YHWH and Israel.” (1)

In Jewish tradition, the wedding of God and Israel is consummated through sacrifice and worship, a connection of particular importance in relation to the manifestation of the Christ, as it is Jesus who will unite mankind to God through an act of sacrificial worship. (2)

That is, at the time of Christ, the Jewish people were not just waiting for the kingdom of God or the coming of the Messiah or the restoration of the twelve tribes. Above all, they are waiting for the coming of the Bridegroom of Israel who will forgive their sins and unite Himself to them in an everlasting marriage covenant.

Epiphany celebrates and commemorates the revelation of the Baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist. It was he who said:

"I am not the Messiah but I have been sent before Him. He who has the Bride is the Bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices with joy because of the voice of the bridegroom. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase but I must decrease. (John 3: 28-29)" (3)

In revealing Christ to the world publicly in such a way, this statement of John the Baptist is a reference to the prophecies of Jeremiah 33: 10-11, 14-17: 34, where the prophet connects the voice of the bridegroom with the future Davidic king.

“There shall be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride….

In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring forth for David’.

The wedding at Cana is set at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, it’s purpose to reveal Him as the Divine Bridegroom come in person to fulfill the prophecies of a new marriage covenant. (4)

In the Gospel reading of today, the Blessed Mother says to Jesus, “They have no wine” – a statement that, as observed by Dr Pitre, is

reflective of the prophecy of Isaiah which describes the people of Israel's desire for the wine of salvation:

‘The wine mourns, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh….No more do they drink wine with singing…There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine’ (Isaiah 24:7. 9, 11).

The implications of such allusion, according to Dr Pitre, are enormous, “for the prophecy does not end with Israel running out of wine. In response to the people’s lack of wine, Isaiah prophesies that the Lord Himself will respond by giving them, at some point in the future, a very special feast of wine:

‘On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all people a feast of fat things, a feast of fine wine, of fat things full of marrow, of fine wine well refined…He will swallow up death forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces and the reproach of his people will be taken from all the earth.' (Isaiah 25: 6-8) (5)

Three features of this passage, termed ‘the Messianic Banquet,” are expounded by Dr Pitre: “It will be a sacrificial banquet of wine. That is what Isaiah means when he talks about ‘fat things’ and ‘fine wines’. In the Jewish Temple, both the fat of the sacrifices and fine wine were offered to God as bloody and unbloody sacrifices (see Leviticus 3:16; 23:13). Second, it will be a universal banquet, for both Israel and the Gentiles. That is what Isaiah means when he says that ‘all people’ will be invited. Third….it will be a banquet that will undo the effects of the Fall of Adam and Eve, for by means of God’s banquet, death itself will be ‘swallowed up’, and the sins of the redeemed will be taken away.”

Dr Pitre observed: “Note that in the Gospel passage, when the steward tastes the water that has become wine he does not call Jesus over to thank him, because he has no idea that the wine was provided by him. Instead the steward calls over the ‘bridegroom’…..in order to praise him for having saved the ‘good wine’ for last (John 2: 9-11). The irony is that it is the bridegroom’s responsibility to provide the wine, but it is Jesus who has actually done so. (6)

That is, the manifestation, or Epiphany, on this occasion is that of the Bridegroom whose arrival had been anticipated by Israel. “When Mary implicitly asks Jesus to provide wine for the wedding, she is not just asking Him to solve a potentially embarrassing family problem. In a Jewish context, she is also asking Him to assume the role of the Jewish Bridegroom.”

Note further, that it is Mary, the new Eve, who initiates the Salvific act, just as it was Eve who initiated the Fall.

“If Mary’s implicit request is not just about the wine at Cana, but also about the wine of Jewish prophecy, then the implications of Jesus’ actions run even deeper. For,.. …in Jewish Scripture, it is God Himself who provides the wine of the banquet of salvation. And even more, in Jewish Scripture, it is God Himself who is referred to as ‘the Bridegroom of His entire people (Isaiah 62: 4-6).”

That is, the very first public act of Jesus’ ministry, the changing of water into wine, the action of Jesus taking on the role of the Jewish bridegroom, and the fact of the miracle, points to the suggestion, not only that he is the Messiah, but that the prophecies of the Divine Bridegroom are being fulfilled in Him. (7) That is, that He is God, come to His people in consummation of the marriage between them. The image of wine, carried through to the Last Supper, bears the blessing which institutes the miracle of the changing of the wine into His blood.

The Lamb of God, the Sacrificial Victim, is sacrificed in the Passover ceremony; Passover has four periods when wine is drunk in order to complete the ceremony. Jesus, at the time of his arrest in the garden, had consumed three only - the Passover requirements had not been fulfilled. It was only on the Cross, with the consumption of the vinegar provided by the Roman soldier, that the Passover was completed by the final consumption of wine.

The image of wine, carrying through to His final words on the Cross: "I thirst", and “It is consummated”, thus signifies the completion of the Passover Sacrifice, the consummation of the marriage, when the sponge soaked in vinegar is given by the Roman soldier to Christ crucified as Sacrificial Victim, the Lamb of God introduced by John the Baptist.

(1) Brandt Pitre “Jesus the Bridegroom, the Greatest Love Story ever told”, Image, New York, 2018, at p. 8.

(2) ibid., at p. 27.

(3) ibid., at p. 29.

(4) ibid.

(5) ibid., at pp. 40-41.

(6) ibid., at pp. 44-45.

(7) ibid.