JESUS MANIFESTED HIS GLORY

II SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - John 2:1-11

The wedding at Cana is part of the great feast of Epiphany, in which we celebrate the manifestation of the divine glory of Jesus. This manifestation is presented in a threefold way: 

• the Magi saw his star and go to worship him and recognise him as the light of the world;
• Jesus is baptised in the river Jordan, being anointed with the Spirit and proclaimed as the Son of God - the Messiah;
• Jesus, present at the wedding banquet, manifests himself as the true groom who comes to wed his bride, the Church, presiding at the great feast of salvation.

“There was a wedding” (Jn 2:1) and Jesus was invited to the wedding. It might seem that he was only a guest among many other guests; however, he takes the centre stage. He is the bridegroom and he initiates the feast of salvation - the great banquet to which all peoples will be called (Is 25:6). The wedding is an event pregnant with meaning: it implies a covenant of love and it refers to the covenant between God and his people. In the first reading, Isaiah speaks of that:

“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.” (Is 62:4)

Presenting the wedding at Cana as the first sign given by Jesus, John presents Jesus as fulfilling the promise. He comes to celebrate the wedding with his people:

“as the bridegroom rejoices in his bride,

so will your God rejoice in you.” (Is 62:5).

God’s plan of salvation is to establish a covenant of love with his people. And he will be always faithful to this covenant. God will find his joy in us. 

Jesus is the groom who loves his bride, the Church, with his whole heart. According to Paul, “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 splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” (Ep 5:25-27). And at the end of the book of Revelation, the New Jerusalem is presented as “the Bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Rev 21:9).

Jesus comes to fulfil the promises and to establish a New Covenant, sealed with his blood. His love is so great that he gives his own life to redeem and sanctify his bride, the Church.

We should remember as well that Paul uses Jesus' covenant of love with his Church as the model of the covenant of love between husband and wife in marriage (see Ep 5:21-33). Marriage has always a sacred dimension in which God himself is involved. We should not diminish or put aside the dignity of marriage and its importance in God’s plan of salvation. Let us pray for all couples who dared to seal their love with a covenant guaranteed by God’s grace. May the Lord strengthen their love and protect them.