Evening Prayer 2-7-11

Reading:
John 2:1-12

The Wedding at Cana

The first miracle of Jesus is found in the context of a wedding. During this great celebration it was noted that the wine was almost out.  So Mary, Jesus' mother, asks Jesus to do something. Jesus answers her that it is not His time yet, however, He does perform the miracle.  This would be because He has to comply with the commandment of Honor your father and mother. 

The servants fill the jugs to the brim and then Jesus tells them to take it to the master of the feast.  He fines that it is the best wine that he ever had.  He can not believe that after they had drank for so long that the groom would bring out the best.  However, the groom did not know about this miracle. 

Jesus changing water into wine at a wedding is a sign of the multitude of blessings that Jesus is ready to shower upon a man and a woman who enter into holy matrimony.  In this event, a man and a woman are made one flesh, just as Christ and His Church are one.  It is meant to show that mystical union between Christ and His Church.  The changing of water into wine can allude to the two great Sacraments of Baptism, which makes us one in Christ and the Eucharist which allows to share in the body of Christ.  Christ in marriage performs a miracle of turning two flesh into one.  In doing so God will continue to bless the marriage that will foster and use the Sacraments to allow for reconciliation with each other and ultimately reconciliation with God as we are given forgiveness in these Sacraments.

May we all pray for a continued movement to uphold the traditional marriage of one man and one woman and may we also pray for families to be a haven of blessing as they draw on God in the Sacraments and the Gospel so that husband and wife may live together until their lives end.