Dear Preachers:

The Babylonian leader Nebuchadnezzar had completely destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BCE and taken many Jews into exile. When the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians they permitted the exiles to return to Jerusalem. But when the first wave returned and saw the destruction of the city they told those still back in Babylon to stay where they were – there was nothing to return to.

Isaiah had a different perspective: he encouraged the exiles to return and rebuild Jerusalem. In today’s passage Isaiah puts a vision of what could be if the people rebuilt their city. Prophets are not naïve. They see the reality around them; but still, they call people to do the seeming-impossible, to trust God despite the odds.

Many rejected Isaiah’s vision for the future. They were stuck in the past. Thankfully God does not give up on us, but persists with loving gestures and words. To use a modern expression, Isaiah is telling the people, “God is crazy in love with you.” Or, as he puts it, “As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you, and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you.”

Isaiah describes God’s intense love for us by using wedding imagery. God will not be a cool, or distant ruler. When the promised restoration comes about God will rejoice with the people and they will be one with God in a life-giving relationship. When things go horribly wrong for a people, or nation, the question arises, “Where is God? Doesn’t God care what is happening to us?” Just being optimistic in hard times is not enough. Our positive thoughts, or our own efforts, are not enough to save us. Isaiah is assuring the exiles and us, that God will not sit idly by when we are in need.

God fulfills Isaiah’s hopes and manifests loving concern for us in Christ. The gospel account of the wedding at Cana was the beginning of the “signs” God gives us in Jesus. Even when Jesus was taken and killed, God would not be deterred in God’s love for the people. Isaiah’s message of God’s love for us is shown in Jesus, the divine bridegroom now made flesh. He is at a wedding feast. In the “sign” of his miracle he is announcing that the time of salvation has begun. Now the promises made by the prophets of forgiveness, healing and new life have come to pass in him.

God’s passionate love for us has taken flesh in Jesus, beginning with his “first sign” at Cana. If the Messiah were going to make his initial appearance, what better occasion than a wedding celebration, one of the most joyous occasions of a couple’s life, a wonderful setting to represent the blessedness of the Messiah’s arrival.

In Jesus’ time wedding customs, like most of ours, were elaborate, but different. The ceremony took place late in the evening, after a great feast. The couple did not go away on a honeymoon, instead they opened their home to family, friends and neighbors. They hosted a party that usually went on for a week. In the light of their strenuous lives, such an event was a wondrous occasion for an entire town, or village, to break from their arduous life and celebrate. So, the prophets and Jesus taught about the wonders of God against the backdrop of a wedding celebration.
God’s passion for us is not cool. Instead, God keeps coming back with forgiveness; searches us out and keeps seeking intimacy with us humans, to save us from ourselves and fetch us back from whatever exile we have chosen.

We messed things up, certainly Israel did again and again. They even killed the prophets God sent them. But God can’t be shaken off. How do we know? Because Jesus arrives at a wedding feast in Cana and, as we heard the prophet Isaiah, we realize it isn’t just an ordinary wedding of an unknown couple in a small village whose location is lost to history. Jesus’ presence at the wedding and what he does there, announces that the long-awaited Messiah has arrived. The bridegroom has come to claim his bride.

Jesus is the host at this banquet; he provides us a super-abundance of wine (100-250 gallons!). Well, there is a lot to celebrate! It’s just as the prophets promised: God is an extravagant lover and at the end time will provide a banquet with plenty of food and choice rich wine. This wedding banquet is an announcement that a new time and deeper relationship with God is being offered to us.

That superabundance of wine is a symbol for us. We might have traveled a long distance, or a short one into exile. But we have returned to this wedding feast, to again meet our God, the daring and persistent lover: who does not give up on us; who comes to court us, always welcoming us back, always offering a new beginning, again and again. God calls us with an endearing name, Isaiah says, God calls us, “My Delight.”

Jesus is the specific and powerful reminder that God does not give up on us when we go wandering; when we make foolish choices, when our faith loses its ardor. Try this on for size: for just a day, or even a lifetime, no matter what happens, how we measure ourselves, hear God’s loving voice calling us, “My Delight.” What might that do for our sense of ourselves, our image of this new year?

Click here for a link to this Sunday’s readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011925.cfm