The Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, C January 20, 2019
Fr. Albert St. Peter’s, New Iberia
Have you noticed this ring I wear on my left hand? My wedding ring; a reminder that I am married, not to an single woman, but the Church. Priests marry the Church, so to speak. And like marriage between a man and a woman, my marriage is a sign of something else, something much deeper. It is a sign of what happens in eternity.
Yes, we all know that heaven is the great happy place we want to go to when we die, but what is it like, really? Jesus begins his public ministry saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent and believe in the Gospel,” but what is this kingdom, exactly? Well, there are some things we won’t know until the end, but we can learn a great deal if we pay attention to the King of that kingdom.
Even more than what he teaches, that King – Jesus Christ – reveals himself to us especially through his actions. I’ve already mentioned his first proclamation, but here we see another first: the first miracle. And it’s not what you might expect after hearing “repent.” He turns water into wine at a wedding. And the Gospel tells us that Jesus “revealed his glory” in this miracle; That it was the beginning of faith in the disciples. By believing in the king and seeing his glory, we can begin to understand his kingdom – our eternal reward.
So, just what does this reveal, that Jesus likes wine? Well, he does, there’s something much more subtle and sublime at play here. In Scripture, wine is used as a symbol of joy, of celebration. And Jesus makes a lot of wine, 180 gallons. So, Christ has come to bring abundant, overflowing joy. But just what are we joyful about? A wedding.
This is a hint, an allusion to what Jesus is all about. Yes, Jesus Christ is our savior. Yes, he is our Lord. Yes, he is our king. But, Jesus is also the divine bridegroom. This miracle is not just some side story. It points us to the very heart of who Jesus is and why we even exist: Because God wants to marry us.
The entire history of the universe leads up to this same reality: God’s proposal to humanity. God makes man in his own image, male and female he makes them. The union of man and woman is meant to teach us something about God. And scripture consistently makes the comparison of God as a Husband and his chosen people as their bride. In every marriage, Men are meant to help reveals God’s offer of love and Women to help reveal the loving response to that love. Plus, this union brings new life – a sign that union with God brings us life.
And that is just on the sixth day of creation. Then God has a seventh day. The number seven, in Hebrew, is the same word for forming a covenant. Now that human beings exist – with intelligence and free will, God can have a relationship with all of creation with humanity as the representatives. It’s a marriage and humanity is the bride. Hence, breaking the covenants is like adultery against God.
But God did not give up. His plan is hinted at in the old covenants and prophets. Isaiah speaks of the city of Zion – a symbol for the Church – and says. “As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.” God re-presents his proposal to all of humanity
Then the Son of God becomes man – the perfect union of humanity and divinity, but the Incarnation is just the beginning. This wedding is in John’s Gospel, whose famous first words are, “In the beginning” like the first words of Genesis. Between “the beginning” and this wedding, John presents a progression of time: the next day, the next day, the next day… on the third day. Can you guess what these days add up to?
This wedding is the seventh day of the new creation, the redemption and restoration of the old creation. But rather than resting, God is celebrating the union of man and woman, and bringing a whole lot of wine too. Like the first creation, the new one features marriage as a sign of God’s love, but it gives us more than that. At this wedding is the virgin mother and the unmarried savior – signs of something more.
Which is why priests are not usually married to an individual woman. Like Christ’s presence at the wedding, the presence of the unmarried priest reminds couples that marriage is temporary – it ends with death. In heaven, we will be like Christ: not married to each other. Marriage is not about the couple itself. All marriages have the awesome responsibility and honor of showing the world how much God loves them. Your persevering, life-giving love as a family is to remind us of God’s persevering, life-giving love for humanity. And Scripture continues to use husbands as the symbol for God with wives as symbols of the Church. It’s just one reason marriage must be between a man and a woman – to keep God’s revelation and symbolism intact. It’s also why only men can be priests – they are symbols of Christ the bridegroom married to the Church, the bride.
These signs and symbols are written into creation from the very beginning, but they are not the point. In the Kingdom of Heaven, the King – Jesus Christ, God Himself – gets married! And we, the Church, are the royal bride. The sign of marriage gives way to the reality. Rather than be a symbol of union with God, both men and women are united to God himself. Unmarried priests and religious remind us that we all end up unmarried in heaven because we are “married” to God.
So often we think of Christ just as a teacher, or just as the guy who died for us. Jesus teaches so we can know him the way a wife should know her husband. Jesus dies for us to show us how far married love should be willing to go. Jesus wants to marry humanity, but humanity tortures and kills him. Yet he endured this willingly because the love he wants is worth even the worst possible suffering and death.
And that’s part of our marriages too, the cross. I have to carry it in mine as you have to carry it in yours. But do not be afraid of it! The same man who calls us to that cross, calls us to the wedding feast. The same man who brings trials also brings wine. Not just any wine, but the best wine. The wine that transforms our sorrows to joy as God transforms wine into blood so that we can be united to Him.