Waiting in a Row to be Filled

with a Miracle

To the church in the diaspora[1]

January 14, 2007, Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 62: 1-5 I Corinthians 12: 4-11 John 2: 1-11

Introduction

Eastern Epiphany

Epiphany is a Greek word meaning a manifestation, and in the Eastern Church Epiphany embraces four specific manifestations in the Lord’s life: 1) His birth when an angel of the Lord led shepherds to an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger (Lk 2: 1-14). 2) His baptism when the Spirit descended upon him like a dove, and a voice came from the heavens and declared, “You are my beloved son on whom my favor rests” (Lk 3: 21-22). 3) His presentation to Gentile astrologers when they were led by a star which came to rest over the manger where the infant lay (Mt 2: 1-12). 4) His first miracle worked at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee when the wine was running out, and Jesus revealed his glory by changing the water in six earthen jugs into the finest wine (Jn 2: 1-11).

The miracle of Cana

A free-styling translation of the Cana miracle from the Living Bible reads,

The wine supply ran out during the festivities, and Jesus’ mother came to him with the problem. “I can’t help you now,” he said, “It isn’t yet my time for miracles.” But his mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Six stone water pots were standing in a row there; they were used for Jewish ceremonial purposes and held perhaps 20 to 30 gallons each. Then Jesus told the servants to fill them to the brim with water. When this was done he said, “Dip some out and take it to the master of ceremonies….” “This is wonderful stuff!” the master of ceremonies exclaimed. “You’re different from most! Usually a host uses the best wine first, and afterwards, when everyone is full and doesn’t care, then he brings out the less expensive brands. But you have saved the best for last” (John 2: 1-11).

The meaning of Cana

There are some miracles which are easy to believe. A young father easily delights in the miracle of his son’s birth. In the summertime especially, I easily delight in the daily miracle of the sun rising out of Lake Michigan, splashing its shining glory over a sheet of glass. Under the picture of a magnificent rose, a caption reads, “For those who love, miracles come easily.”

Other miracles like changing five loaves and two fishes into enough food to feed five thousand people is a bit harder to believe ((Mt 14: 13-21). It’s also difficult to believe in a miracle which changes the water in six earthen jugs (each holding 20 to 30 gallons of water) into an ocean of 120 or 180 gallons of wine. That was a miracle worked not to alleviate some human suffering but simply, it seemed, to come to the rescue of an embarrassed host and to slake the thirst for celebration at a wedding party.

It’s not enough to simply defend a miracle as miracle; we must also defend it as meaning. If all we do is simply defend the Christmas miracle of Mary’s virginal conception of Jesus as a miracle and not also its meaning, we don’t defend much at all. At the end of the day, the meaning behind that Christmas miracle of Mary’s virginal birth of Jesus is not that when God the Father decided to send his Son into the world, God decided to do it “decently” (i.e. virginally). That’s not meaning. That’s nonsense. That is, in fact, an offense to every mother and father who bring their children into the world the way God ordained them to, i.e., secundum naturam. The religious meaning behind the Christmas miracle is that Jesus is not the gift of Joseph and Mary to us but the gift of the Father in heaven. That’s meaning, indeed! It gives us no offense; in fact, it helps us to believe the miracle and to see Jesus as a gift from heaven.

The same is true with the Cana miracle which converted 120 gallons of water into an ocean of 120 gallons of fine wine. We can defend Cana as miracle with all our might, but if we haven’t found a sizeable meaning for such a sizeable miracle we haven’t defended much at all.

A friend’s mystic find at Cana

A friend of years past--an immigrant from Estonia—has a mystic fascination for the gospels and especially for the story of the wedding feast at Cana. She goes far beyond it as mere miracle. At Cana she discovers 120 gallons of meaning, and she drinks deeply of it! At Cana she discovers many nuggets of gold. Over the years she has written me at least one hundred letters with many mystical messages, some of them difficult to decipher. I did not answer any of the letters (what do you write to a mystic?). I did, however, save them all (you don’t throw nuggets away). In a letter dated January 23, 1980, (just about this time of the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time) she writes a mystical scenario for Cana.

The wedding party at Cana, she says, is the world-–people marrying, giving in marriage, eating, drinking, and making merry. And that’s OK. If we tell the story from the viewpoint of the headwaiter or the bridegroom everything seems perfectly fine. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. In fact everything seems to be getting better and better, especially the wine. At the end of the day all rejoice because the best wine had been saved for last.

But if we tell the story from another point of view, then a cloud appears. Suddenly we begin to see the wine is running out. In the kitchen we see the servers are weeping. Suddenly we see a Guest we hadn’t noticed before amidst all the merry-making, and we hear his mother saying, “Do whatever he tells you.” (There’s always a mystical cloud and mystical tears in her writings.)

In another letter dated the very next day, January 24^th 1980, she’s still drinking from 120 gallons of meaning, and she writes another scenario for Cana.

Then suppose we told the story of the wedding at Cana from the viewpoint of the bride who is not even mentioned in the account of John. You presume that if there was a wedding and if there was a bridegroom there must have been a bride. Suppose the bride is one who’s just been married to a good man named Joseph. And she is dancing one of those wild Jewish things when everybody joins hands and you go round and round. (We danced it at Mark’s and Kathy’s wedding. It’s a lot of fun.) And the bride is having a good time. But then something begins to distract her. She sees a single stray cloud on the horizon on a clear summer sky! It’s a stroke of sadness which always mingles with human gladness.

I’m never quite sure what my mystic friend is saying. But I can guess. In both scenarios there is a cloud. Perhaps a mystic is a person who sees sadness in the midst of gladness and also sees gladness in the midst of sadness. In her second scenario my friend sees the bride as Mary, the spouse of Joseph and future mother of Jesus. But what is that “single stray cloud on the horizon on a clear summer sky” which the dancing bride suddenly sees amidst all the merry-making? Is it a foreshadowing of the suffering that a son to be born of her would have to undergo? Is it a fore-shadowing of the old man Simeon‘s words to Mary when she brought her Infant into the temple for purification, “This child is destined for the fall and the rise of many in Israel…. And a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk 2: 34-35).

In yet another brief letter my friend is still drinking in meaning at Cana. She writes,

Those l50 gallons of water which Jesus changed into wine were tears! It's a nugget I stumbled upon on one of my lonely hunts. And so, you see, if we all eat, drink and are making merry now, if we all laugh now, there won't be any water for Jesus to change into Wine. And that means that tomorrow we all shall cry and die.

Then she alludes to the ocean of mystical tears she has shed in her life. (Mystical tears are the tears we shed but don’t know exactly why we shed them.) She writes,

Some of us, then, it seems are called to weep now and fill the water jugs. And so I weep because, don't forget, there are 150 gallons to be filled to the rim.

Our mystic find at Cana

There is the mystic in all of us, and it wants to be summoned. There is the mystic in all of us, and it is not content simply with a raw miracle of 120 gallons of water in six earthen jugs changed into 120 gallons of wine just to relieve the embarrassment of the host and to satisfy the thirst for celebration at a wedding. The mystic in us is not even content with the miracle as proof positive for the Church’s emphasis on the intercessory power of Mary. In another letter dated January 17, 1980, my friend is again at Cana, and she writes as a P.S., “I once heard a priest preach a sermon on the wedding at Cana. He seemed to be making the point that Jesus was concerned about such little things like wine at a wedding and like the embarrassment of the host at its running out. And he seemed to make the point that his mother, too, was concerned about such little things.” She sees something more sizeable in Cana.

There is the mystic in all of us which searches for a sizeable meaning for such a sizeable miracle as Cana, and we go hunting for it this morning. Perhaps this is what we find: