Weddings between a man and woman are often joyous occasions. They celebrate the union of one man and one woman who leave their parents to become one flesh, to become one in purpose, to aid one another in life, in the blessings of parenthood, until death parts them.
It is worthy to be celebrated but when it comes to the celebration: who usually does the planning? Usually the bride, maybe with some help from their mother, sister, or friends. Sometimes the groom gives ideas and may help with some planning. The pastor should be the one directing the parts of the ceremony and service, but most often it is the bride who picks out the clothing and chooses the flowers, the decorations, the reception meal and other of the many details. The expense of the celebration has in our culture anyway, generally been that the father of the bride would pay but, now in these days, it is often a shared expense.
The wedding and its celebration is only a one day event, maybe two if you include the rehearsal. This all is interesting because as maybe some of you know, in the Old Testament and at the time of Jesus some of these things were different.
For example, almost everything from the arrangement of the marriage contract, including a pledge of money to the bride’s parents, to the secure provision of a house and income for the married couple was on the shoulders of the groom. Whatever celebration was going to accompany the wedding often involved providing food and wine for the wedding guests for more than a few days quite often up to a week, and it was the groom who shouldered the cost.
He also would be the one to plan and purchase everything necessary and hire a steward to distribute those items throughout the feasting. His reputation was at stake, not only to the community invited but also to his new bride and her family. If he failed in providing enough for the guests, it would be shameful. It would reflect badly upon him as a bad planner, a bad provider, a breaker of promises for his bride and he would be seen as potentially untrustworthy in future dealings with those in that community.
Yet, where is the perfect bridegroom? A Bridegroom who has it all together. Who is prepared for His bride in order to take care of her and give of himself completely for her from the moment of betrothal and beyond? All of us can look around, but we shall not find it here on earth. The meaning here actually goes beyond earthly marriage. The theological meaning of this text is for all us married or unmarried, young or old. For it is talking about our relationship to God as well as to our neighbor.
How many of us have been good and faithful planners? How many of us have made plans to be better but have not followed through? To treat our neighbor with care and concern as we should, but added “I’ll start tomorrow” and then forget about it. Or maybe we say: “next week I will start taking the sermon to heart and not just let it disappear once the pastor says: Amen.” Then we do anyway. How about: “I will not put anything before my love of God…” and yet, we end up putting our family, our pride, our lusts, our weaknesses, our comfort as our god and priority over and above God in our daily lives? When we put faith in ourselves or the things of this world, we are not planning well for the future. We are not showing ourselves to be trustworthy or faithful to God. We waste our time and take for granted God and all He does for us. We have His name placed upon us, but we shamefully destroy that reputation by our back-biting, our gossip, our mistreatment of those within the Christian community and even those in the world. We have been unfaithful as members of the union between God and mankind that He has tried to establish by His redemption. We do not deserve His love.
But then why did Jesus choose a wedding celebration as the location for His first miraculous sign? Often in Scripture, God is portrayed as a bridegroom and Israel as a bride, a very unfaithful and wicked bride, but a bride whom the bridegroom redeems again and again from her unfaithfulness. Could it be that this miracle at a wedding in Cana was foreshadowing the day of God’s marriage fulfillment with His people through Christ? Yes. As God spoke in Isaiah: “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married: for the Lord delights in You…as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”
Yes, as the perfect groom who has plotted and planned and made the perfect calculations for marrying His beloved bride, God planned to send forth of Himself, Jesus, the Christ to redeem you and all who would believe. That wedding at Cana points to Himself as the truer bridegroom who provides beyond our need and even our wants. Despite our unfaithfulness along with unfaithful Israel, He pays the price to redeem us from our first father, the devil, by paying with His own blood the contract of our sin. The groom lays down His life at the cross for His bride so that she may live rather than receive the full measure of her trespass. The church, His bride is not beautiful to outsiders and the world, nor according to our sin, but to God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the church is the most beautiful thing in all creation, that which will be restored to her full beauty that is due her at the end of time when believers shall receive the gifts of His resurrected body and all shall become one in purpose and faith.
Jesus is your perfect caretaker and caregiver. When Christ was crucified and His side was pierced what poured forth from His side? Water and blood. He uses the power of water and His blood to wash you and redeem you as members of His bride to be made beautiful according to His righteousness. He has used His Word of command, and the water of purification in Holy Baptism to give you His royal name: to bring you into the unity of faith into communion with God.
As St. Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter 5: “Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
Now you in Christ Jesus are reckoned without blemish, spot, or wrinkle, already decked out in the celebratory garments of Christ’s righteousness. This we received in Holy Baptism, and this is the power and the garment we receive anew by faith when we are returned to Him by repentance and absolution.
The blood which He shed He then gives in the wine during the wedding feast of victory in the Sacrament of the Altar. Therefore, we celebrate that God has not discarded us, but has redeemed us to be His own, to live before Him even now in righteousness and purity. He has a plan for you, a plan for salvation and eternal life in Him.
Let us then eat, confess, and praise His name and rejoice. The bridegroom comes even this day to His bride and we rejoice in His plan for our salvation, soaking in the generosity of His grace, receiving His power to remain faithful to Him as He is to us.
That is the significance of the 6 stone water jars used for the miracle of water changed to wine. These jars were used for the Jewish rite of purification. The making the impure, imperfect, the sinner, pure and whole again. These jars held between 20 and 30 gallons for a total of 120-180 gallons, which Jesus said to be filled to the brim. More than was needed, and it was of the best wine, the finest.
The Lord provides for you the finest wine and gives you grace and grace aplenty for all believers to provide for the cheer and strength of our spirits and bodies. His Word of Law and Gospel which speak His Love, His Divine Service which expresses that love to us from the cross… This is our gladness, for in Jesus Christ we, the Church are not forsaken, but declared God’s delight. We are married to Him, He is faithful to us. He gives us the power to be faithful to Him by His Holy Spirit, to continue to manifest and witness His love to the world around us. Your God now rejoices in you, let us now rejoice in Him. Then in the right and perfect time according to God’s plan we will be brought to the home that the Bridegroom Jesus Christ has prepared for us to live with Him in His joy and love for ever after. Amen.
Pr. Aaron Kangas