Homily notes: 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Fr Brendan Byrne SJ 9 January 2025

By providing for the wedding at Cana superior wine in abundance, Jesus reveals himself to be the true Bridegroom of Israel. This wedding is a revelation of God’s presence among his people in this loving way.

LECTIONARY READINGS
First reading: Isaiah 62:1-5
Responsorial Psalm:  95(96):1-3, 7-10. 1
Second reading: Corinthians 12:4-11
Gospel: John 2:1-11
Link to readings

It is surely one of wonderful things about the Fourth Gospel that after the exalted theological statements of the Prologue (1:1-18) we move so soon, as in today’s Gospel, into the story of the presence of Jesus and his mother at a wedding (2:1-11). From “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God” to “There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee”: from the divine work of creation to a Galilean village of no particular note at all – and to an event as humanly homely as a wedding where the wine runs out.

The sequence stems from the incarnational thrust of John’s Gospel. At the centre of the Prologue we read: “The Word was made flesh, he lived among us (literally, “pitched his tent among us”), and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as only Son of the Father, the fullness of grace and truth” (1:14). At the end of the wedding story, the evangelist comments in regard to Jesus, “He let his glory be seen, and his disciples believed in him” (2:11). The reference to “glory” makes the connection. The point is that the glory of God, of which the Israelites had a distant and terrifying glimpse at Mt. Sinai (Exod 19:16-25; 24:16-18; 40:34), is now, because of the Incarnation, displayed and made accessible to human beings in the person of Jesus – specifically, in such human occasions as a village wedding where the wine runs out. God has “pitched his tent among us’ in this remarkable sense.

TRUE BRIDEGROOM
This means that what is really important in the Cana episode is not so much the miracle itself – Jesus’ miraculous provision of wine ­– but what the miracle, as a “sign” in the Johannine sense, reveals concerning the presence of God. At a Palestinian wedding responsibility for providing wine devolved upon the bridegroom. That is why at the end of the episode the “steward” (we would call him the “MC”) asks the bridegroom why, contrary to best practice, he has not served the best wine first but kept it to the last (vv. 9-10). In making this criticism, the steward reveals ignorance of the true source of this “best wine”; he thinks it came from the bridegroom. But we know who the real provider was: namely, Jesus.

By providing for this wedding superior wine in abundance, Jesus reveals himself to be the true Bridegroom of Israel. He fulfils in this way the promise beautifully expressed in the First reading, taken from Isaiah (62:1-5). God speaks of his relationship with Israel as that of a bridegroom to his bride:

You shall be called “My Delight”
and your land, “The Wedded”;
for the Lord takes delight in you
and your land will have its wedding …
as the bridegroom rejoices in his bride,
so will your God rejoice in you.

So, what is really happening here in this simple village wedding at Cana is a revelation of God’s presence among his people in this loving way. The Catholic tradition has long found in the Cana miracle a foundation for the sacramental understanding of marriage. We call marriage a “sacrament” because in the human commitment and love that it celebrates and seals it functions as a sign disclosing the presence and faithfulness of God.

This wedding at Cana is the first of the two occasions where the Mother of Jesus appears in John’s Gospel (the second presents her standing at the foot of Jesus’ cross [19:25-27]). Despite her Son’s initial rebuff (a characteristic of the Johannine Jesus [see 7:1-10; also 4:48; 11:5-6]), she urges the servants to “Do whatever he tells you” (vv. 4-5). These servants are in some respects the heroes of the episode. At her prompting, they act in faith and so become immediate witnesses to the miracle: the transformation of mere water into “the best wine” (v. 9b). Miracles do not precede faith and give rise to it. Rather, those who are prepared to act or “walk” in faith (like the Royal Steward in the second Cana miracle [4:50]) are the ones who really “see” miracles – see them, that is, as disclosures of the divine presence, the “glory” of God, in ordinary human reality.

BUILDING A COMMUNITY
The Second reading (1 Cor 12:4-11) develops Paul’s sense of each and every believer as a person to whom the Holy Spirit has communicated a distinct gift for the building up of the community. Believers do not build up the community. That is the work of the Spirit, operating through the gift given to each one. Leadership in the Christian community involves helping each one to discern and develop their gift, and then seeing that all work in harmony – much as all the instruments in an orchestra, under the baton of the conductor, make their contribution to the one harmonious sound.

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