WEEKLY REFLECTION Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. You are familiar, I’m sure, with that old saying about what every bride should have at her wedding. Does it apply to the story you just heard about the Wedding Feast at Cana?
Well, with a bit of imagination I think we can see a connection. Something old: the fact itself of a wedding.
Already in the Bible throughout the Hebrew Scriptures we have read of weddings, people coming together with God’s blessing to begin a new life and family. Something new: what Jesus does and what it means are something new. More about that in a minute. Something borrowed: the power of God manifested in Jesus to relieve the embarrassment of this newly married couple.
Something blue: well, here we really have to use our imagination, and perhaps a bit of fancy as well: the Mother of Jesus was there and artists through the centuries have always pictured her dressed in a robe of blue.
Believe it or not, in spite of appearances to the contrary, the story you just heard is not really about a wedding. It’s about Jesus: who he is and what he has come to do.
In the Old Testament banqueting, feasting is often a metaphor or symbol for Messianic times. Beyond that it is a sign of the idyllic time when all people will be drawn together to God’s holy mountain where they will live in peace and harmony, where there will be no more wars or training for wars. Swords will be turned into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Instruments of war will become farming tools to produce life rather than death, and everyone will feast on an abundance of good food and fine wine.
Jesus, too, often used the image of a banquet to talk about the kingdom of God, even a wedding feast to symbolize the heavenly banquet to which all are invited.
Bishop Fulton Sheen reflects on the words of the wine steward about saving the good wine until last: “The world generally gives its best pleasures first; afterward come the dregs and the bitterness. But Christ reversed the order and gave us the feast after the fast, the Resurrection after the Crucifixion, the joy of Easter Sunday after the sorrow of Good Friday” (“The Life of Christ”).
John the Evangelist tells us that Jesus performed this first sign at a wedding feast. At his mother’s request he provided wine in abundance, fine wine, and in this way showed he was the promised Messiah, that in him the messianic times had begun. Jesus is the Messiah promised by God, and more than the Messiah, he will be Son of God is a very special way. He will indeed himself be God.