The Mystery of Cana

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

January 19, 2025

Isaiah 62:1-5 Psalm 96:1-2, 2-3, 7-8, 9-10 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 2 Thessalonians 2:14 John 2:1-11

[Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/lHQ_ipSyFiA?si=mZA43mA98kYRBbWCBelow below is an edited AI Transcription of the recording from YouTube]

As Father mentioned, in today's readings that we have, we are celebrating weddings.  We're celebrating weddings.  Now who here has gone to a wedding celebration?  We've all been at a wedding.  We've been to a wedding Mass, a wedding ceremony, reception, dinner, dance, whatever.  And a lot goes into that preparation for the wedding.  We want everything to go just right.  And so, we have a story here where something didn’t go quite just right.  And it's important that we understand that, you know, there's a lot at stake, a lot that goes into this celebration.  But I don't want to talk about that.  Rather, I want to talk about the mystery that's revealed in this wedding celebration, that John is bringing out.

When we look at all of Scripture from beginning to end, Holy Scripture actually starts with a wedding, and Holy Scripture ends with a wedding.  When we look at Genesis and the creation of Adam and Eve, Adam takes Eve as his wife, calls her woman; and Scripture tells us that it is because of this reason that a man should leave his mother and father and cleaves to his wife, and the two shall become one.

And so, from the very beginning of creation, we have a wedding celebration, a wedding feast is going on here, where Adam espouses himself to Eve.  And at the end of our Bible, the book of Revelation is about the wedding feast of the Lamb.  The Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

As Father mentioned, what we celebrate here in the Eucharist is our wedding feast.  Jesus espouses himself to us.  And so, what does this mystery of today's reading from John's Gospel reveal?  Well, first of all, let's go to our first reading from Isaiah.  Now before the time of Isaiah, Hosea was a prophet who had to deal with a wife who wasn't a very faithful wife.  And so, Hosea experienced God's pain of his unfaithful people.  And Hosea from that recognizes God's love for his people.  That even though the Israelites were unfaithful, and they were exiled to Babylon, here in Isaiah we read about the people coming back and God espousing His people and loving them.  The Creator taking on His people, God and His bride, and calling them beloved.  Because God loves us unconditionally and enters into a covenant relationship with us for all eternity.

And so now we have a story at Cana.  And what's going on here at Cana, it's interesting because we have to pay very close attention to the language that is used here.  Very close attention.  In here, the first thing that jumps out, to me at least when I was reading this, it just, it boggles my mind, it says, you know, Jesus said to her, to his mother, woman.  Who calls their mother woman?  Come on Jesus, if I called my mom woman, I’d get slapped.  Was he being disrespectful?  No. He was actually honoring her and recognizing who she is.

And there's another place in which Jesus calls Mary woman.  In the same gospel of John when we go to John 19:26, at the foot of the cross, Jesus looks at his mother and the disciple John and says, “woman, behold thy son, son, behold thy mother.”  And where else do we hear the word woman?  When Adam encounters Eve for the first time, he says, “this one I shall call woman.”  So, we understand that in this language of “woman,” God is revealing to us through Jesus His son, who is the new Adam, that Mary is the new Eve.  The new mother of all creation.  And Jesus being the new Adam and Mary being the new Eve, in their Fiat have been faithful unlike the old Adam and the old Eve.  Who we now need to be reconciled with in faith.

She's not only the new Eve; she's also the queen mother.  Now, that's why she comes to Jesus.  Historically, the queen mother…  Jesus, you know, he is our King and our Lord and our Savior.  The queen mother's role is to present the needs of the people to the king. And so here we have a revelation; John is revealing to us that Mary is our queen mother.  She's presenting a need to our Lord and Savior.  They’ve run out of wine on this very important day that we're celebrating, this wedding feast.  And that's what the queen mother's role is.  To present our needs.  And so, we turn to our mother as the queen mother, to Marry, and ask her for intercession, just like here.

But it goes even further than that.  When we look at the word that John uses for woman in his gospel.  He uses a word, I'm looking at it here in Greek, gunē [goo-nay'], gunē.  And yes, though that word means woman, it also means something else:  It means wife.  And when we go to Genesis, the Hebrew word in Genesis, that Adam uses to call Eve woman, is ishshâh [ish-shaw].  And ishshâh also not only means woman but also means wife.  “I call you wife.”  And so, Mary is a symbol for us; she represents us as a church being the bride of Christ.

And so here we have Christ at this wedding celebration.  At this wedding feast.  And as the new Adam, he is presenting himself as the new groom, and giving a gift of himself to his bride, the church.  This gift of water into wine. 

But let's pay a little closer attention.  What does he use?  He uses ceremonial jars.  What are ceremonial jars?  In the Hebrew culture, ceremonial jars, because of the way they are made, they are carved out of stone and very purified, and clean.  They are filled with water, and the water in these jars are used in ceremonial washing.  In the Hebrew tradition, a washing that represents the washing away of sin, and guilt.  What a beautiful message here.  Because not only does Jesus turn water into wine at this wedding feast; this becomes a choice wine.  Then at the last supper he takes the choice wine and converts it to his blood that is spilt on the cross to sanctify us.  And so, every time we come to mass, every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we are not only celebrating the first wedding of our creation, but we are also recalling to mind the gift that Jesus gave us at the wedding of Cana, and we are also recalling to mind the wedding feast of the Lamb.  Jesus' gift to us is himself.

And just like a husband and wife say to each other when they say their vows:  Do you take for your husband?  “Yeah!”  Do you take for your wife?  “Yeah!”  And we are all excited about that!

When the Eucharist is presented to us.  Do you take me as your spouse?  Yeah!  Amen!  Jesus is espousing himself to us at the Eucharist.  He is our groom, and we are his bride.  Let us say yes to being His spouse.  To Christ.