This coming Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time.  ¹ On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.   ² Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”

The very sparse opening of this narrative calls a host of questions to mind. Who is getting married? Why is it that Mary, Jesus, and the disciples are all there? How is it that the wine runs short? […with only good humor intended, some suggest that as soon as the disciples showed up the wine ran out!] All these points and questions are important to the modern mind, but John is interested in the sign (semieon) of the story: water miraculously transformed into wine.

This coming Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time. In many 20^th century commentaries, I am always surprised by the tendency among some scripture scholars to seek to explain away the miraculous. More than one (but thankfully not a lot) offers that Jesus, realizing people were well inebriated already, simply ordered the jar filled with water, and then the water taken to the master of the banquet who enters into the merriment while not wanting to embarrass the bridegroom, proclaims this wine to be the best. The bridegroom becomes a silent conspirator as the word spreads – and thus the miracle is born of rumor.

This coming Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time. Our information about the details of marriage ceremonies (as distinct from marriage regulations) in first-century Judaism is very sketchy. There are later references and details about weddings, and so if one assumes the customs did not change a great deal, then perhaps we know more.

We know that marriage was preceded by a betrothal that was much more binding than our modern-day engagement. It included a solemn pledging of the couple, each to the other, and was so binding that to break it divorce proceedings were necessary. At the conclusion of the betrothal period the ceremony began with the bridegroom and his friends making their way in procession to the bride’s home. This was often done at night, when there could be a torchlight procession (such seems to be the case with the “Wise and Foolish Virgins” account.) Undoubtedly there were speeches and expressions of goodwill before the bride and groom went in procession to the groom’s house, where the wedding banquet was held. It can be assumed that there was a religious ceremony, but we actually have no details. The processions and the feast are the principal items of which we have knowledge. The feast was prolonged, and might last as long as a week (cf. Judg. 14:12).

This coming Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time in Lectionary Cycle C. In the previous post we noted that while Cycle C’s primary gospel is Luke, this reading is from the Gospel of John. Many scholars have noted that repeats the theme of Creation as he begins the narrative of the Gospel. Where the synoptic gospels focus on the events at the beginning of Jesus’ public life, John seems to assume that the reader is familiar with those accounts and calls our attention to the ways in which people respond in faith to him – yet, at the same time, unlike the other gospel writers, places the beginning events on a timeline.

Even though we are in Year C of the liturgical cycle, the first gospel proclaimed in Year C-Ordinary Time is taken from the Gospel according to John – the wedding at Cana. In many ways it is considered a type of “proto” ministry before the very public beginning at the synagogue in Capernaum. In the ancient lectionaries of the church, John 2:1–11 was read on Epiphany, a practice carried over into the Eastern church. In the modern Common and Catholic lectionaries, this text is read at the beginning of the season following Epiphany. In Catholic circles this is labeled “Ordinary Time.” In the Common Lectionary the celebration appears as the “Second Sunday After Epiphany.”