I'm getting married in the morning ........

In fact I was married in July 2018.

My new wife is a member of a local theatre group and had a role as Mrs Higgins in the musical My Fair Lady so on the day of our wedding she was off to rehearsals and I was left alone to enjoy being a newly wed.

These days marriage can be a little old hat. After all probably more people live in what used to be called sin than tie themselves together 'til death us do part' or enter into Civil Partnerships.

But Marriage's do still take place and can be enormously expensive. When my daughter was married the local publican who ran the bar in the Marquee, commented that his own daughter's marriage cost him dearly and that he was still paying for it even though she had been divorced for some years.

But Marriages do continue to take place and can be joyful occasions and full of optimism.

It is interesting that the first miracle recorded in the New Testament in the gospel of John is not included in the synoptic gospels and is on the face of it little more than a party trick at a wedding.

Nobody is healed. Nobody is raised from the dead. Nobody speaks having been unable to. No one has their sight restored.

Instead water is turned into wine. And very good wine at that. As the steward of the feast advises the Bridegroom, usually people serve the best wine first and then the poor wine but you have saved the best to last.

Of course this miracle has parts to it as we always come to suspect with St John.

In the churches marriage service the miracle is cited as a metaphor for the relationship between Christ and the Church and further that marriage is a way of life made Holy by God and blessed by Jesus' presence at the wedding at Cana in Galilee.

But there are other parts too.

When the wine fails Mary tells Jesus they have run out of wine possibly this was a family wedding, some have even speculated that it was Jesus' wedding.

But Jesus, sounding decidedly testy, asks his Mother 'What have you to do with me'?

But she advises the servants to do as Jesus tells them, not surprisingly people have commented on what Jesus may have done as he was growing up for his Mother to express such confidence in his ability to sort out a problem such as a wine shortage.

After all this is the first recorded miracle as Jesus begins his ministry.  Stories have emerged. As early as the second century one such story has Jesus making sparrows out of clay and then clapping his hands as they flew away.

But of course no-one knows and yet the story suggests that Mary clearly had some secret knowledge of Jesus' abilities and powers.

The reference in the first verse to 'the third day' carries a suggestion that John writing his Gospel is suggesting that we look forward to Jesus Death and rising again 'on the third day'.

The water is turned into wine, suggesting again that John wants his readers to understand that Jesus is the true Vine.

Jesus and the Disciples were invited guests to this wedding and so we should maybe reflect on this wedding at Cana of Galilee as a metaphor suggesting that as members of his church we are each invited by God to share in that great heavenly feast in the Kingdom we pray for in the Lord's Prayer.


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