The last two mornings we have had ice all over everything. About noon I started out to visit the hospital and turned back, taking pictures as I returned home. Fierce Beauty!
I have been meditating on the Wedding Feast of Cana (John 2:1-12.) Like most of John's Gospel this story has at least one or two meanings below the most obvious one. Taking a cue from Sunday's first reading from Isaiah (62:1-5), I settled on God's wedded union with us.
The marriage of God and the People of God is a theme that runs through the Old Testament. Isaiah puts it in unmistakably sexual words:
"They will no longer call you "Forsaken," nor you land "Barren."
"Beloved" will be your name, and your land will be called "Married."
For the Lord delights in you, and your fields will be fertile.
As a young man marries a wife, your Builder will marry you.
As a groom delights in his bride, the Lord will honor you."
The coming of the Messiah consummates this marriage. In the very person of Jesus divinity and humanity are wed. God becomes flesh, married now forever to our human race. As the human body of Jesus is raised into God, we are drawn with him into the most intimate imaginable union with the Divine.
This wedded union with God has inspired mystics down through the centuries as they surrendered themselves in contemplation into Love's intimate embrace.
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