O T II [C]:  Is 62: 1-5; 1 Cor 12: 4-11, John 2: 1-11 (L-16)

This week we are at a wedding where Jesus reveals his Divine power by his first miracle. Pope St. John Paul II gave us a beautiful gift when he introduced the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. The second mystery is the subject of today’s Gospel, the Wedding Feast at Cana where Jesus changed water into wine. The miracle at Cana is the first of seven “signs” in John’s Gospel.

Jesus, his mother and his disciples were guests at the wedding feast.  It is also possible that Mary was in some way related to the bride or groom and may have been serving as an assistant to the wedding director. Someone obviously slipped up on the supply of wine for the seven-day wedding celebration. And they ran short of wine.

At first Jesus seemed to refuse to do anything about the situation. But later he told the servants to fill six large stone jars with water and take some to the headwaiter. When they did so, the water had become wine, better wine than that which had run out.

As with all of the miracles and parables of Jesus, this story is rich in revelation and symbolism. The stone jars were meant for the ablutions that are customary among the Jews.  Stone jars were not used to store wine. Wine was stored in wine skins. Stone jars were used for keeping water for washing their hands and for other purification purposes.

The six stone water jars, each holding 20-30 gallons equals 120-180 gallons of wine! That's a lot of wine. An abundance of wine was an OT eschatological symbol. The abundance of God's grace is a theme that can flow out of these huge jars.

These jars were empty. The servants had to fill them with water before the miracle occurs. Jesus is not transforming the purification water that was in the jars into the wine; but he is transforming new water that has been placed in the old containers. O'Day suggests: "New wine is created in the 'old' vessels of the Jewish purification rites, symbolizing that the old forms are given new content."

C.S. Lewis said, what Jesus did at Cana (as in many of his miracles) was really no more than a speeded-up version of what he does every year on a thousand hillsides as vines silently turn water into wine. Millions of people enjoy that wine every year without for a moment recognizing the divine origin of it all.

The six stone jars filled with water are representative of the Old or Mosaic Covenant.  St. John even links them explicitly to this covenant by mentioning they were “for Jewish ceremonial washings,” i.e. for the rituals necessary to fulfill the principles of ritual purity spelled out in Leviticus and Numbers.  There are six of them, and six is almost always a symbol of limitation or defect in the Old Testament, a failure to reach seven, the number of covenant and perfection.  Furthermore, the jars are “stone,” reminding us of the covenant written on stone rather than upon the human heart (2 Cor 3:3; cf. Ezek 26:26).  They are filled with “water,” like Moses provided in the desert (Exod 17:6): water keeps you alive, but brings no joy.  Wine brings joy: (Zech 10:7, Ps 104:15). The time for ritual cleansing had passed; the time for celebration had begun.  So the contrast of jars of water with jars of wine is the contrast between Moses and Jesus, between the Old Covenant and the New: “the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

The symbolism here is that, Jesus reveals himself here as the “ultimate Bridegroom.”  The responsibility of the bridegroom at these ancient weddings was to provide the wine.  We can see that in the text, because when the MC tastes the wine, he immediately calls the bridegroom, assuming that he was the one who procured the vintage. 

Jesus is the Bridegroom who is both Son of God and the Son of David simultaneously, fulfilling the subtle nuances of the prophecies of Isaiah and of the other prophets who spoke of the renewal of God’s nuptial love for Israel in the future.

The Bible begins with one wedding, that of Adam and Eve in the garden (Genesis 2:23-24), and ends with another, the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9, 21:9, 22:17). Throughout the Bible, marriage is the symbol of the Covenant relationship between God and His chosen people. God is the Groom and humanity is His beloved bride. We see this beautifully reflected in today’s first reading, where Isaiah uses the metaphor of spousal love to describe God’s love for Israel. God’s fidelity to his people is compared to a husband’s fidelity to his wife. The prophet reminds his people that their God rejoices in them as a Bridegroom rejoices in His Bride and that He will rebuild Israel, if they will be reconciled to Him and repair their strained relationship with Him. By our Baptism, each of us has been betrothed to Christ as a bride to her Groom (II Cor. 11:2).  Baptism is the nuptial bath, the Eucharist is the Wedding Feast, where we receive the Body of our Bridegroom and unite his body with ours. 

Our faith is one of intense intimacy.  God loves us like a bride.  He “rejoices” in us, takes delight in us, each one of us individually. 

Nothing is more personal or intimate than communing with Jesus in his very Body and Blood in the Eucharist. 

But on a practical level, our reception of Jesus in the Eucharist cannot be the only aspect of our “spousal” relationship, anymore than a once-a-week embrace would suffice to make a marriage work.  The reception of Jesus our Bridegroom in the Eucharist should be part of a lifestyle characterized by daily conversation with him through prayer and the reading of His word.  

Meditating on Scripture and mental prayer make up the daily conversation of the believer with his or her Spouse, the Bridegroom Jesus.  Let’s resolve to deepen that Spousal relationship with Our Lord not only on Sunday but every day of the week, by our prayer and meditation.