This homily is part of our Apres Ski series of Saturday Eucharists that All Saints, Collingwood, hosts during the ski season here (though this season is pretty terrible, thanks to climate change). During this series, we’re reflecting on the church’s traditional Epiphany readings and on how they teach us about God’s glory as reflected in Christ. I’m enormously indebted to Fleming Rutledge for the ideas in her book, Epiphany, the Season of Glory, from the Fullness of Time series published by IVP. MP+
Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. (Jn 2.11)
If you’ve been to a wedding recently, you’ll have noticed that our social practices and customs around weddings have changed. Churches have been largely replaced by wedding venues in picturesque locations. Clergy as officiants have largely been replaced by a friend or family member with a temporary license from the state. And the nature of refreshments offered to the guests has changed as well.
Last summer Joy and I were invited to a wedding at a winery just north of Barrie. Among the treats on offer were attractive glass boxes full of carefully rolled cannabis cigarettes for the guests to enjoy, and by late in evening the air outside was quite fragrant. I thought it was unusual, but cannabis is of course legal now, and one of the criteria of a successful wedding is that the hosts are generous and the guests are relaxed and happy.
It’s tempting to understand our gospel story, the Wedding at Cana, in the same way, that Jesus wants to help the hosts, please his mother, and make the guests happy. Thus, the water jars are filled to the brim and when the steward tastes the miraculous wine, he declares that it is “the good wine”. As an aside, I leave it to you to decide if we have served equally good wine at our reception following our eucharist tonight!However, as Fleming Rutledge notes in her wonderful short book on Epiphany, we should not sentimentalize this story (“how nice that Jesu wanted everyone to be happy”) but rather see it in the spirit of Epiphany, as a manifestation of Christ’s glory.
The Wedding at Cana has long been associated with the season of Epiphany. In the old Book of Common Prayer, it is the gospel reading for the Second Sunday After the Epiphany, though today the Revised Common Lectionary offers us other choices. In the traditional Epiphany gospel readings, the Wedding at Cana follows the Baptism of Jesus, and this is deliberate. At the Baptism, God the Father is the actor, and declares that Jesus is his beloved Son. At the Wedding, it is God the Son who is the actor, and by the miracle of the wine he shows that he is indeed the Son who is one with the Father. The point of what Jesus does at the wedding is not to make the guests happy, but to reveal the Father’s glory, and the revelation of glory is a key theme of the season of Epiphany.
That the miracle happens at a wedding feast is also deliberate. Rutledge notes that the wedding feast reminds us of the heavenly banquet, the Messianic feast, that the prophets speak of. Isaiah spoke of a time of hardship when there was “an outcry in the streets for lack of wine” (Isa 24:11) but he also promises a day of wonderful abundance:
6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear.
7 And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations;
8 he will swallow up death for ever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 25:6-8)
So the Son’s actions at the Wedding are not just an act of kindness but also a revelation of Jesus’ glorious purpose: to be the Saviour who brings abundance and joy, who brings all people together and who frees us from death and pain. Think of this story as a first instalment in the glory of the Resurrection, when we see the Son’s glory most clearly.
Finally, some more quick thoughts about weddings. The Wedding at Cana is one of the traditional gospel lessons recommended for the Christian celebration of marriage. Our ideas of marriage in the church have deep roots in scripture, going back to the Song of Songs in the Hebrew Scriptures, and finding fulfilment in the idea of Christ as the Bridegroom. The old Prayer Book marriage rite mentions that marriage signifies “the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church” (BCP 564). So, just as we hope and pray that marriage unites two people and changes them for the better, so Epiphany calls us to welcome Christ into our church and into our lives, so that we may grow closer to him and thus reflect his glory.
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