Second Sunday after Epiphany; 16 January 2022; Epiphany 2C (RCL); Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11.
John doesn’t waste details for the sake of verisimilitude the way a modern novelist might. For years, I’ve read this miracle story and never paused to wonder why John would set it at a wedding. It just seemed like the kind of detail that made sense in first century Galilee. But John doesn’t waste details.
In addition, John begins this story with the phrase, “On the third day.” Again, for years, I’ve just read past that detail. We have two stories beginning before this one with the phrase, “On the next day,” so clearly this is just the third day. But John could have written again, “On the next day,” but he didn’t. He wants us to think forward to the resurrection. Does he have in mind the marriage feast of the lamb?
There are some other details that give us a hint of his meaning. Jesus’ response to his mother is rather rude: what to me and you, woman? John only uses the word γυνή (gyne) several times in his Gospel. Here, and then the woman at the well (women and water jars), at the foot of the cross, and then when Mary Magdalene encounters him in the garden. The abruptness of his response here should have us listening to such abruptness again.
The story of the woman at the well is a love story. All of the patriarchs met their wives at a well, when the women provided water. So clearly the marriage feast here is not a wasted detail. And when Jesus is on the cross, he again (for the only other time in John’s Gospel) addresses his mother as “woman.” Woman, behold your son. And to his disciple, “Behold your mother.” And standing there is a stone jar of sour wine, from which he receives a drink.
It would have been impossible to contract a marriage with a sacrifice and the meal it produced. Sacrifice establishes kinship, and a new kinship is coming into being at a marriage. And the sacrificial feast would have required wine. At the cross, Jesus establishes a new household between the disciple whom he loved and his mother; but this was not a happy occasion, hence the sour wine.
The wedding at Cana, with reference to the third day, is a tremendously happy occasion. Those six stone jars together hold between 120 and 180 gallons of water. That’s a lot of really good wine. The party is going to last for days. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and the resulting feast (see chapter 6) will establish a new kinship that will result in a whole lot of delight.
Elsewhere in John’s Gospel, water stands in for the Spirit (see 7:37-39). On the evening of the resurrection day, Jesus breathes the spirit over his disciples, giving them power to forgive sin, which is an essential element of any kinship group (given to the high priest on the Great Day of Atonement) for readjusting relationships, and cementing the identity of the group.
The Isaiah passage also references marriage. The kinship established is between God and God’s people and their land. The land and the people will be fruitful, and one of the images used most often for fruitfulness in the OT is the vineyard (and doesn’t Jesus say, “I am the vine”?). What would it look like for us to delight in God and one another, and for God to delight in us? The imagery in these lesson might almost make us blush.