Vindication for the Broken

January 17, 2016
First Reading: Isaiah 62:1-5
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/011716.cfm

Breaking up stings. It is not just the pain of loss, but the embarrassment of having a relationship that we wanted taken away. It is embarrassing to tell your friends that you were the one rejected or that you got fired or that you got the raw end of a deal. The embarrassing pain of rejection cannot easily be reversed. It feels like a blot on one's character, a permanent mark. Yet to allow the pain to become permanent involves losing hope, rejecting new possibilities, forgetting who you really are. Unfortunately, many of us import these ways of thinking into our relationship with God. We know we are sinners and have made many mistakes and even after repenting and receiving His forgiveness, we can hold on to our failures as if they define us and hang on to our losses as if they show us our true character. We can even find ourselves in a place of refusing to let God love us because we feel ourselves to be unworthy. This dark struggle with coming to accept oneself, receive God's love, and allow our troublesome past to be forgotten in the light of his presence is what redemption is all about.

A Broken People

In this Sunday's first reading from Isaiah 62, we see the prophet announcing a message of great hope to a broken, exiled and disappointed people. He addresses the people as "Zion," the nickname for the capital city, Jerusalem. The latter half of Isaiah relates to a period when the Jews were exiled from their homeland. The Babylonians smashed and destroyed the city of Jerusalem before they exiled the Jews. Zion, the desolate, broken city, is now the center of the vindication of God's people, the mouthpiece of her cause. They have been undergoing the dark struggle of rejection. They thought they were God's people, but their homes were destroyed, the Temple was in ruins and they have been sent away from the land the Lord promised to their father Abraham. They were thoroughly embarrassed by their enemies. The Babylonians deposed their king and poked out his eyes (2 Kgs 25:7). The people of God were ashamed, downcast, humiliated.

Vindication

The prophet speaks up to announce their vindication--the restoration of their honor, "her vindication goes forth as brightness" (Isa 62:1 RSV). Vindication is hard to explain. It often means to be exonerated, to be cleared of wrongdoing, but in this case, it means something different. It means to defend the right of God's people to be God's people. Even though the people of God had been embarrassed and humiliated by their enemies, even though they had been punished for their sins, they were still God's people and he would come to their aid and defend them. He would avenge their honor and claim them for himself.

A Reunited Couple

What would their restoration look like? The formerly exiled people would come back to their land. They would be restored to their home. Their enemies, the Babylonians, would themselves be crushed and humiliated by foreign armies. The Jews would reclaim their rightful place as God's people, blessed and honored in the land he set aside for them. No longer would outsiders be able to scoff at the Jews as "Forsaken" or "Desolate," but rather, the Jewish people would now be called Hephzibah, which means "my delight is in her"--an actual name in 1 Kings 21:1. Also, their land would be called Beulah, which means "married." The forsaken, desolate, embarrassed people who seemed to be without hope, lost in exile in a foreign land, will be reunited with their original "spouse." The break-up would be over and a reunion would be in order.

Freedom from Shame

Sin embarrasses us. When we sin and fall away from God, we can fixate on our own mistakes of judgment and weaknesses of character. It is embarrassing to realize that your desires have a hold on you. Yet when God restores us to relationship with himself through Baptism and Confession, he frees us from that embarrassment. His forgiveness blots our ours sins and restores us to a place of honor. The dishonor of having failed, fallen and damaged our relationship with him is undone by God's mercy. He releases us not only from the guilt of having sinned, but from the attending shame. He truly sets us free from the humiliation of sin and gives us an honored place in his presence. His grace vindicates us and restores our honor.

Finding Freedom in Knowing God's Love

Fairytales end with the famous trope: "...and they lived happily ever after." Here Isaiah's portrait of God's restored relationship with his people is similar:

For as a young man marries a virgin,
so shall your sons marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.

(Isa 62:5 RSV)

While Isaiah had used the marriage metaphor before to explain the wrath of God against his people in terms of the anger of a betrayed spouse (Isa 5:1-7), now he builds on the idea he had introduced earlier of God taking back the wife that he had only temporarily abandoned (Isa 54:1-7). He returns to her, woos her, marries her, and rejoices over her. Marriage brings an end to the shame of rejection, loneliness and the nagging question at the back of one's mind, "Does anyone really love me?" Here, God marries his people (imaged as the Jews "marrying" Jerusalem), bringing an end to their shame and an assurance of his love and fidelity to them. He has not abandoned them. Similarly, when we come to realize that an all-powerful, omniscient, eternal deity would deign to care about us, love us, seek us, redeem us, and yes, even marry us, we should be overwhelmed. His great love for us vanquishes all of our self-doubts. It cleanses us of our shame and guilt and frees us from embarrassment. God means to redeem us and to liberate us from our past sins, and let us finally rest in his presence and in the knowledge of his great love for us.

Scripture Speaks: The Wedding at Cana

Gayle Somers

At the start of His public ministry, Jesus attended a wedding in Cana. Why was this the perfect setting for Him to work His first miraculous sign?

Gospel (Read Jn 2:1-11)

St. John tells us that after Jesus called and assembled His disciples, "there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there." It is interesting, isn't it, that right at the start of St. John's description of Jesus' public ministry, His mother gets first mention in this story. "Jesus and His disciples were also invited to the wedding," but "the mother of Jesus" is the one on whom the action pivots. St. John never refers to her as "Mary" in his Gospel. We know from Scripture and tradition that Mary and John lived as mother and son from the time of the Crucifixion. We might expect his description of her to be in more familiar terms. Because St. John's Gospel is considered to be profoundly interpretive in its report of the details of Jesus' life, we can legitimately wonder if his reference to Mary as "the mother of Jesus" has a deeper meaning than simply their biological relationship.

Indeed, it does. Recall that the prologue of this Gospel evokes the Creation: "In the beginning was the Word" (Jn 1:1). St. John wants us to be thinking about the early chapters of Genesis, both the glory we see there and the shadow cast by sin. The only hope for redemption after the Fall will be the fulfillment of a promise made by God. In speaking to the Serpent, He says: "I will put enmity [a battle] between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed" (Gn 3:15). In many subtle ways throughout his Gospel, St. John lets us know that "the woman" and "her seed" have finally appeared. Their battle against the Serpent has now been enjoined. Thus it is that in describing Mary in this story as "the mother of Jesus," St. John makes more vivid her connection to God's promise in Genesis.

In this episode at Cana, it is Mary who is alert to the details of the wedding celebration--perhaps it was the wedding of a near relative. Running out of wine was awkward and embarrassing for the bridegroom, but why would Mary think the problem should be referred to Jesus? He was, after all, an itinerant rabbi, not a wine steward! We have so many questions about this scene, don't we? The mystery is intensified when we see that Jesus wasn't thinking about this wedding as the occasion of His first public "sign." Even when Mary comes to Him, there seems to be some resistance from Jesus: "Woman, how does your concern affect Me?" This is an English translation of a Hebrew idiom. We are helped to understand it with a quote from the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible--New Testament:

[This Hebrew idiom] typically presupposes some perceived tension between two parties having contrary perspectives (Judg 11:12; 1 Kings 17:18; Mk 5:7), though not always (2 Chron 35:21). When the idiom is used in response to a person's request ... the speaker sometimes capitulates to the expressed will of the other (2 Kings 3:13) and sometimes not (2 Sam 16:10). Here... Jesus complies with Mary's request, and Mary herself appears perfectly confident that Jesus will respond favorably to her petition. In effect, Jesus would not have initiated the miracle at Cana, but neither would Jesus refuse His Mother's prompting. (ICSB-NT, pg 164)

So, why was Mary, so absorbed in the details of the wedding, moved to expect a miracle from Jesus to solve this problem? We don't know for sure, but we have to wonder if, as she participated in the wedding festivities with her Son in attendance, she recalled that His work, being God's Son, too, was to be the flesh-and-blood presence of the Bridegroom to God's people. During the long history of the Jews, God expressed His covenant relationship with them as a "marriage" (more on this in our First Reading). In Genesis, the marriage of Adam and Eve was fractured by sin. Sadly, God's covenant with His people was also greatly marred by sin. The Jews spurned their loving "Husband." However, the prophets foretold a restoration of the marriage. Mary knew that Jesus was born to mend this shattered covenant; He was the Bridegroom Who would purify the Bride.

Mary, as the new Eve, prompted her Son to fulfill His vocation in this richly meaningful wedding setting. In this, she undid what Eve had done in the Garden, when she prompted her bridegroom to sin. This was Mary's first public act of advocacy on behalf of God's people, a work she continues to do for all her children in the Church. Jesus performs the miracle, transforming the water into the "best" wine. To make this possible, the servants had to listen to Mary's directive: "Do whatever He tells you."

These are Mary's last words in the Gospel. They continue to ring out over the centuries to all of us who discover that our lives have no wine--that we are living on the water of sin, meaninglessness, and fear. The Bridegroom has come to transform all this. We simply need to do whatever He tells us.

Possible response: Blessed Mother, I thank you for your loving advocacy for us in the details of our lives that matter so much to us.

First Reading (Read Isa 62:1-5)

This is one of the Old Testament prophecies in which God explicitly promises to be the Bridegroom of His people: "For the Lord delights in you and makes your land His spouse. 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." All her life, Mary had heard these prophecies. Is it any wonder that at the wedding at Cana, she was full of expectation of what her Son could do for His people?

Possible response: Heavenly Father, help me remember today that You rejoice over us, Your people in the Church.

Psalm (Read Ps 96:1-3, 7-10)

In the Gospel, St. John tells us that when Jesus turned the water into wine, He "revealed His glory, and His disciples began to believe in Him." The psalmist today gives us words to use as we ponder and praise not only this historical event but also the fact that in our new lives in Christ, the glory of the Lord continues to be revealed--the water of our lives is transformed into the wine of grace and peace, of joy inexpressible. In thanksgiving for this miracle, we should be ready to do what our responsorial says: "Proclaim His marvelous deeds to all the nations."

Possible response: The psalm is, itself, a response to our other readings. Read it again prayerfully to make it your own.

Second Reading (Read I Cor. 12:4-11)

If we ask, in a practical way, what it means for the water of our lives to be turned into wine, this passage from St. Paul's epistle to the Corinthians gets us started on an answer. He writes about how, as a result of our baptism and faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit pours into us wonderful gifts that make present on earth God's own divine life. The gifts differ, of course, but "one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as He wishes." This life of God in us was what was lost in the Garden. The Bridegroom, beginning at the wedding in Cana, came to restore it.

Possible response: Lord Jesus, thank You for sharing Your life with Your people, the Church. Help us be faithful stewards of the gifts You have lavished on us.