Abundance and Blessing
Do you know that feeling you have had when you are part of a celebration? Everything is decorated the mood is light, the food is delicious and people feel relaxed and joyful. One might have had a difficult day, with lots of work, but amid the party, all of that is set aside. We love occasions like that.
The wedding banquet is one of the images in the Hebrew scriptures that typifies the hope for a secure land, with the people of God present and intact. The First Reading and the Psalm appointed for this Sunday hold those themes of blessing and abundance; everyone’s thirst is quenched. The people are as fulfilled in God as the wedding couple is at their celebration. Notice the satisfaction extolled in this portion of our psalm:
Psalm 36:8-10
8 They feast upon the abundance of your house; *
you give them drink from the river of your delights.
9 For with you is the well of life, *
and in your light we see light.
10 Continue your loving-kindness to those who know you, *
and your favor to those who are true of heart.
In the Old Testament lesson for Sunday, pay attention to the sense of something wonderful and new replacing the previous era of defeat and desolation. There is a sense of an age of light dawning: a new name is given, and a crown is made ready:
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62:1-5)
These are scripture lessons that set up one of the traditional images of Epiphany, the presence of Jesus, his mother, and his disciples at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. This wedding ties Jesus’s abundance-miracle of water-into-wine to this message: In Christ, something brand new, sweeping, and covenantal is happening. If the Isaiah passage is about the restoration of Israel within the land of promise, the miracle at Cana is about Jesus ushering in a fulfilling, new holy covenant.
Epiphany is the theological name for the ways God manifests divine glory and revelation to the people of the earth. In this miracle, the abundance of wine makes the divine identity of Jesus shine forth such that the disciples begin to realize the nature of his power and significance. Astounded, they believe in him profoundly. John opened his gospel with the remarkable proclamation that the Word had come into the world in the birth of Jesus. This Incarnation changed everything with the abundance of grace: ‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth…From his fullness, we have all received, grace upon grace.” (John 1:14, 16) These lines from the prologue of John are fulfilled over and over in the striking content of the rest of his gospel. Our Gospel Reading this Sunday is a prime example:
The wedding which had run out of wine, finds in Jesus they have wine of matchless quality, and in greater quantity than ten weddings could deplete. Can you and I take stock of the abundant life that Jesus offers to us? He names it in John 10:1, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Our life in Christ shines out like the dawn and our salvation like a burning torch. Indeed, we feast upon the abundance of God’s house. With Christ is the well of life, and in his light, we see light.