- Isaiah 62: 1-5
After a long, unexplained silence, the Lord speaks, the Book of Isaiah reports, and it is a damn-burst! The Lord announces a “vindication” for the Lord’s people that will be the cause for a “new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.” new names: “My delight is in Her” and “Married.” The Lord will be to the people as a faithful “bridegroom.”
- Psalm 36: 5-10
The psalmist draws a black and white distinction between human crime/injustice/cheating/exploitation and the Lord’s kindness/faithfulness/judgment. “In Your light, we see light.”
- I Corinthians 12: 1-11
Paul must addresses the immediate question of how the church determines authentic interpretation. Paul insists only one Spirit inspires/motivates/animates all the varied expressions– as varied as each individual member of the church– — under just one rubric: “Jesus is Lord.”
- John 2: 1-11
After the majestic opening prologue, John’s gospel quickly offers a version of the baptism of Jesus, the identification of his first followers by name, and his first public miracle. “On the third day, (from what John does not bother to say), Jesus and his new disciple and his mother attend a weeing in Cana, a small town near Nazareth. Mary reports to Jesus that the host has run our of wine. Jesus curtly responds that that is neither her nor his concern. Furthermore, “My hour has not yet come….” Mary continues on her own and tells the servers to do whatever Jesus instructs them to do. Jesus requests six large jars, usually used for “Jewish rites of purification.” He instructs that they be filled with water. Then he tells the servers to take a tasting to the master of ceremonies. Without knowing its source, the master of ceremonies quizzes the bridegroom why the best wine has been saved so late in the party. This is the first “sign” that begins to “reveal his glory” in John’s narrative, which also marks the beginning that “his disciples believed in him.”
The creativity and inventiveness of biblical writers is truly remarkable and ought to be inspiring, too. In the Hebrew scriptures, God and God’s actions are described in such tender and nurturing images as Father, merciful judge, Mother, caregiver, and in this beautiful passage from Isaiah, as “bridegroom.” John’s narrative strikes out on its own distinctive path by beginning the public ministry of Jesus with a party where the wine flows freely. In this episode, John provides tidbits of the story he is about to tell– a limitless supply of the best wine, which is a foretaste of a sacrifice that exceeds all human rites of “purification.” This is cause for thanksgiving– Eucharist– which is its own kind of ‘intoxication’.
The imaginative writing in the Book of Isaiah produces another unforgettable image– a solicitous, caring, eager to woo and impulsive groom on his wedding night– to hint at the nature and extent of God’s love for us. That love is full of ardor, attentiveness, tenderness and passion that culminates in an act of love-making.
Choose your image, solicitous bridegroom or magnanimous source of cause for endless thanksgiving, they both present a depiction of God’s impossible/possible love, which, if we allow ourselves to become enamored/seduced never cools and pursues us with delicate but intense passion.
Olivier Clement describes the eighth century Syrian bishop and theologian, St. Isaac of Nineveh’s “icon” of “God’s crazy love for humankind…” and continues, God “…is the foolishness of love that never ceases coming…” (The Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts from the Patristic Era with Commentary, Theodore Berkeley and Jeremy Hummerstone, trans., Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1993, pp 304-306) John the gospel writer launches the public ministry of Jesus with the atmosphere of a happy, even giddy, wedding reception where Jesus makes a “foolishly” extravagant gesture that provides an extravagant supply of excellent wine.
It seems significant that in taking on the assumption of deferred gift and the ethics derived from the work of Derrida, Levinas, Marion, et.al., John Milbank returns over and over to a “complex of ideas, or characterizations of the ethical as gift exchange, marriage and resurrection.” Milbank finds an “openness to divine grace…” rather than a lack that initiates longing and obligation. (“The Winter’s Tale,” from Postmodern Theology, Graham Ward, ed., p. 122) God imagined as a an attentive, solicitous, passionate “bridegroom;” and Jesus inaugurating his ministry at a wedding reception are images, metaphors, hints that urge us to see the exact nature of God’s love.
The American poet and novelist, Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950) wrote his own version of “The Wedding Feast.” After recounting how Jesus changed the water into wine, he imagines the groom asking who is responsible for this generosity at his wedding this way:
Said the groom to the chief of the feast,
Who the wedding feast has blessed?
Said the groom to the chief of the feast,the stranger
Is the merriest wedding guest.
He laughs and jests with the wedding guests,
He drinks with the happy bride.
Said the chief of the wedding feast to the groom
Go bring him to my side.
Jesus of Nazareth came up,
And his body was fair and slim.
Jesus of Nazareth came up,
And his mother came with him.
Jesus of Nazareth stands with the dancers
And his mother by him stands,
The bride kneels down to Jesus of Nazareth
And kisses his rosy hands.
The bridegroom kneels to Jesus of Nazareth
And Jesus blesses the twain.
I go away, said Jesus of Nazareth,
Of darkness, sorrow and pain.
After the wedding feast is labor,
Suffering, sickness, death,
And so I make you wine for the wedding,
Said Jesus of Nazareth.
My heart is with you, said Jesus of Nazareth,
As grape is one with the vine.
Your bliss is mine, said Jesus of Nazareth,
And so I make you wine.
(The full poem is in his collection Starved Rock, originally published by Macmillian)
We never fully get over the true nature of God’s love as revealed fully in the First Testament and given flesh and blood in Jesus in the gospels; God’s love is “crazy” “foolish!” It is a kind of hangover from such extravagance.