Today’s Scripture readings gather together several close images from scripture: marriage, joy, wine and the Spirit. The presence of God’s Spirit is always associated with joy. A wedding feast is an occasion of joy, and an essential element of the joyfulness at Biblical wedding feasts is wine. We see the near panic that sets in at Cana when the steward discovers that the wine is running out, and the relief when this turns out not to be so. We see the expressions of joy and love that are expressed on such occasions, too: “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” In the Book of Revelation, the coming of the New Jerusalem, the establishment of the eternal home of God’s people is described in these terms: “The marriage-feast of the Lamb has come, and the Bride has made herself ready…the Spirit and the Bride say “Come!”
There is something very touching about a wedding: the young groom standing in the aisle, waiting radiantly to receive his bride as she approaches; the smiles and easy laughter as people recall that day in their own lives. And, of course, the wine that flows and makes the simplest of remarks amusing. Such is the joy which flows from such an occasion that even the time worn old jokes, without which no wedding is complete, are received with good will and humour. Whether it is the drinks that draw uncle Bertie or not, the joy and the jokes still seem him at his best, his most humourous.
God saw his people of the Old Covenant, Israel, as his bride. He sees his new people, the Church, as a bride. And always the image is one of joy and gladness. But the core of Christian joy is, of course, the outpouring of God’s Spirit. It is a joy that not even adversity can overcome. “For even if the fields stand empty of grain and the barns stand empty of cattle, yet I will rejoice in the Lord,” says the prophet Habakkuk”. It is God who brings us through those terrible times; it is still God who causes rain to fall. The same God who turned the disaster if the wedding feast into joy by serving the best wine last will bring rain to our troubled country, and turn desperation into joy. Keep on asking God to intercede for an end to our current drought!
Fr Phillip.
