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The Interim
Wedding of Cana is sort of the public debut of Jesus. It has always been the reading that begins Epiphany, which seems to be when the doors opened for the 30-year-old Son of God. And it was often the opportunity - at least in my training - to toss the sermon that Sunday into the deacon’s lap.
 It sort of breaks through the unknown into the known. John the Baptist had been announcing the coming of the Lord, but he was tired of people thinking he was the Messiah to come. Even the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem had sent scouts of a sort (priests and Levites) to find out who he was. And I‘m sure John tired of repeating “I am not the Messiah” as they tried to guess who he was - Aire you Elijah? a Prophet (the Jewish loved prophets) - so they would believe. John explained “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness so make straight the way of the Lord’ as Isaiah had said would happen. Now the Pharisees showed up. They needed to know and were curious as to why was he baptizing when he was not the Messiah nor a Prophet.
Up to now, since his parents found the young Jesus in the synagogue talking with rabbis, Jesus passed through puberty, and I wonder if he was studious spending hours in the libraries about history and faith and whatever material was stored there. Were there libraries or synagogues where he studied? Was he like a pledge or student following around the great thinkers, the rabbis, Koheins, Levis Tzaddiks who studied and recorded the Jewish history, those which are rarely mentioned? Or was he plowing corn in a field working with cattle or oxen or sheep learning their attitudes and manners, since sheep became such a part of his lesson to his followers. What was it like to be a boy - did he know who he was? He had amazed the scholars with his knowledge - and yet that horrified his parents who knew he was the son of God, but didn’t want anyone else, I surmise, to know about it yet, so the youth could grow up and learn and experiment life by being a youth and not surrounded by press, people, etc. Miracles were probably bridled until he was baptized, and maybe only Jesus knew that.
So, John, who came first and chose life in the wilderness, explained humbly to his followers, what we know today, “I baptize with water.” But he explained the one after him (more important than him) would do the right baptism, so to speak. Whether it calmed the inquiring minds, one doesn’t know. But, probably with relief, the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and I’m sure, jumping for joy within his heart, he raised up and told the crowds here comes the one who will take away the sins of the world. Even though, it seems to me, John probably knew Jesus since their mothers were cousins and both carried the boys in their wombs at the same time. There must have been a connection, though that reality is passed over. But John is the messenger and he had to shout out to the crowds and convinced them that at this moment without doubt here was Jesus, the Son of God. John’s proof was that
when he had the honor of baptizing Jesus, he, and all those around him in that moment, saw the Spirit of the Lord come down from heaven as a dove and remained on Him as he came up from the waters in which he was baptized. John said, so to speak, trust me, this man will baptize not with water in a river, but with the Holy Spirit and there is no doubt that He is for sure God’s Chosen One.
For the next few days, Jesus began to bring apostles into his, I would say, gang. First, he met Andrew, then Simon Peter, Simon Philip, and Nathanael. It was a small group at first. And their first major outing was on the third night when Jesus and those disciples, already binding with him, attended a wedding in Cana. Jesus’ mother Mary attended with them. This is really the first recorded outing of Jesus, and he was already 30 years old. It was, so to speak, the beginning of his ministry, but also the beginning of the end, since you and I know what happened three years later.
Although Jesus may have done miracles before this night, it was the first time it was publicized and was part of the beginning of his public ministry. At the wedding feast, when a server saw that the wine was dwindling, about to run out and only water was left, he must have commented to Jesus’ mother Mary who was distraught by what an embarrassment it would be if the wine had run out at this lovely wedding. Jesus was not in the mood to start miracles yet but Mary, just in case, ordered the servants to do whatever her son requested. I guess Jesus said to fill up the jugs with water. And soon those giant jugs of water contained once more the top-of-the-line wine, sufficient to continue the fiesta. The master of the banquet had no idea where it came from, but not taking a chance of losing it, he tasted it and passed it around. It was so delicious that the servers were shocked that the best wine was being served at the end of the fiesta. In John 2, the author declared that what Jesus did in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. Then he and his team and his mother went to Capernaum for a few days, probably to rest before the ministry began.
When I was studying for a master’s in art history, I spent two summers hoofing it in the museums and churches of Europe. And it was here that I saw what my favorite piece of art has been - the 1562 Mannerist-styled painting The Wedding Feast at Cana by a favored Venetian artist Paolo Veronese, noted for his enormous banquet scenes. It is 22.3 feet tall by 32 feet wide and is just plain huge taking up a whole wall in the Louvre Museum. When I walked around a corner and saw it, I fell into its trance and the beauty of it, the colors, the figures, and Jesus is yet a tiny figure among the guests but there is sort of a feeling of royalty in its participants sitting around a C-shaped table that is also used, of course, in depictions of the Last Supper. It is interesting that the humble Jesus and his mother Mary were geared as the disciples and guests in their best attire, and it is said this was the beginning of the idea of the Eucharist.
The celebration was said to be in Galilee but there are the usual arguments among biblical scholars and archaeologists as to what village was the site - possibly Kafr Kanna, an Arab town which is today seven miles northeast of Nazareth where Jesus was raised in the home of his mother Mary. Lebanese Christians, Melkites or Greek Catholics believe it happened in the southern Lebanese village of Qana. Biblical scholars must argue, it seems. All remnants are gone, except artists’ versions of what it probably resembled. And nothing is left but the possible existence of those big ceramic jars which held the water that Jesus turned into wine and was also useful to hold water to wash feet or the dishes after the party was done.
There have been many interpretations of this wedding scene by artists - from a simple group of his disciples to a massive group in and around an open space in Italy where people of all sorts of dress and personality seem to having been enjoying the wedding fiesta. My questions is where these all the friends of Jesus from his life in Nazareth? There really was a minimum of disciples yet because this was the first public outing recorded since Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Most of those soon to be rounded up would have been at labor, catching fish or whatever trade they had.
Great artists Tintoretto and Gerard David and Martin de Vos filled their canvas with men and women of different eras in their version of the wedding feast. But Veronese mixed sacred and the profane, religious, and secular, theatrical, and mundane with a fancy courtyard of Doric and Corinthian columns. He used as musicians playing lutes and stringed instruments images of himself playing the viola da gamba, Jacopo Bassano on the flute, Tintoretto on the Violin, and Titian dressed in red playing the violoncello. And there was the bride and groom at one side, and an array of royalty that included Emperor Charles V, Eleanor of Austria, Francis I of France, Mary I of England, Suleiman the Magnificent, Cardinal Pole, a dog and a cat and other celebrities which had nothing to do with the time when Jesus celebrated this marriage and began his miracles. Oh, and there was an animal being slaughtered which symbolized the sacrifice of our Jesus, the Lamb of God. This painting is truly a fiesta.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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