The Beginning Of His Signs A Reflection on John 2: 1-11 For The Church of Jesus Christ Incarcerated January 14, 2007 By Philip D. Ropp

The gospel according to St. John tracks the journey of Jesus to his destiny at calvary through a series of seven dramatic signs.  Each of these signs is a miraculous deed that serves to reveal the true nature and identity of Jesus in a progressively more wondrous, profound and significant way.  By the time the last of these signs is reached, the astounding and deeply moving resurrection of Lazarus from the dead, Jesus has transitioned from the deliverer of the Jews, to messianic king of all Israel, to the Christ -- the transcendent Son of God Incarnate and Savior of the human race. The Passion narrative that follows these seven signs casts the shadow of the cross back to John the Baptist's original acclamation of Jesus as the sacrificial "Lamb of God," while the miracle of the resurrection makes the opening gambit of this mighty gospel echo to the bottom of the collective human soul: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."      The first of these signs is the subject of our gospel reading:  The changing of the water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana. It is here that Jesus accepts his fate and begins the long and winding road that leads through the dusty hills of Palestine to that final passage through the gates of the holy city, Old Jerusalem.  It is the road to rejection, humiliation, condemnation, degradation, tortuous suffering and an ignominious death at the hand of pagan tormentors.  It is a road that begins, innocently enough, at the wedding feast of friends whose names are lost to time, in a nondescript village that meant little more in its own day than it does in ours.  Yet it is here that the cup is passed to our Lord.  The same cup that he will one day offer up to his Father and ours with one final and futile plea: "Take this from me."  But it is at Cana that he accepts the Father's cup and receives it, at the same time, from his mother's hand.      So, "When the wine ran short," and, "the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.'" We shouldn't wonder at his answer, "'Woman, how does your concern affect me?'" There can be little doubt that Jesus spoke these words in the vernacular of his native tongue, for it is a common expression in the Hebrew Scriptures and it is more accurately translated, "What is this to me and to you?"  In the books of Hosea and Second Kings this expression is taken as a denial of common interest.  In the  books of Judges, Second Chronicles and First Kings, it is an expression of outright contempt.  In modern English it is softened to a question of concern. However, through the Greek window of the gospel we are given a glimpse into the original language that allows us a sense of the anguish that passed between mother and son at this simple statement of fact, "They have no wine."      And, so, neither should we wonder at Jesus' next words, "My hour has not yet come." Grammatically preferable, and supported by the earliest Fathers of the Church, was the reading of this phrase as a question: "Has not my hour now come?"  And the answer to this rhetorical question burning in the Sacred Heart of the Son and piercing the Immaculate Heart of the Mother is an unequivocal, "Yes."  At that moment, in that throng of revelers oblivious to the event of cosmic and eternal consequence that is happening in their midst, the Christhood is accepted by Jesus and with it the knowledge that with his first hour now come, his last hour is now guaranteed. And his mother, in this instant of realization of what is taking place, becomes the Blessed Mother of us all when she lets go of her little boy and gives him to eternity and the world that through him we might be saved.  And so she knows that the time has come. And so she accepts the child that she has raised as the Lord that has come to save.  And in so doing, she accepts all of us that would ever call him Lord as children of her own, and gives to us the same advice that she gives to the servers present there at Cana, "Do whatever he tells you."      The command he gives to them is the same as he issues to you and me:  If we fill the jars of our earthly existence to the brim with the living water that he has to offer, he will transform our lives and fill us with a joy that is as rich and fulfilling as the world's best red wine.  And when we, in turn, love and trust in him enough to offer this wine of life back up to him, he transforms it into his saving Precious Blood, and it is poured out for us and for our salvation.  And so we are cleansed of our sins, and when our time here is ended, we pass through the gates of the holy city, New Jerusalem, and walk the golden streets of eternity with our Savior and our God.  And, as we are told by this same John in the book of Revelation, "He will wipe every tear from (our) eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, (for) the old order has passed away" (Rev. 21:4).      Sadly for us, this old order has yet to pass away.  But the hope and promise of his coming kingdom and the glory of that holy city, that New Jerusalem where sin and suffering are no more, is present with him tonight in the miracle of the Eucharist.  For that moment when he enters us with his Real Presence and we become one with him, we are freed from these earthly bonds. And we are released from the shackles of our sin. And we are given the fleeting taste of that future we will share with him in his eternal city: that New Jerusalem where pain and sin exist no more.  Wherein our past lives, we have drunk the inferior wine that runs dry before it satisfies, we know that in the life to come, he has set a table for us with that superior wine that fills us with life and causes us to thirst no more.       So when we break the holy bread together and experience in it the miracle of Christ with us; when we, for that brief moment, encounter him and walk the golden streets that will, one day, lead us home to the tree of life he tends for us; let us take just a moment to remember:  This is but the beginning of his signs.

John 2: 1-11 1 1 On the third day there was a wedding 2 in Cana 3 in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." 4 4 (And) Jesus said to her, "Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come." 5 His mother said to the servers, "Do whatever he tells you." 6 5 Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. 7 Jesus told them, "Fill the jars with water." So they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he told them, "Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter." 6 So they took it. 9 And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, "Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now." 11 Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs 7 in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.