Zechariah 8: 1-8, 20-23 Mark 1: 1-11 (John 2: 1-11)
"Again the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous for her with great fury." (Zech. 8:1)
In order to understand what the First Lesson given at Morning Prayer today has to do with the Epiphany season and its Octave, which just concluded on Friday, some context seems necessary. In his commentary on Zechariah, Didymus the Blind, a fourth-century disciple of Origen of Alexandria, has the following to say: "The contemplative soul is spoken of as Jerusalem, Jerusalem meaning “vision of peace”; she stumbled and hence was banished from the divine conjugal chamber and alienated from the one who formerly lived with her. As a result, lustful abuse was heaped upon her by hostile powers, anagogically referred to as Assyrians and Babylonians, so that the partner who showed her consideration no longer cared for her. The vagaries of her free will do not remain set in that direction...the one who had abandoned the divine conjugal chamber is acquainted with it again, so that her former carer drives off her adulterous abusers and is jealous for her. He does so with a great anger, extremely incensed with her mockers, to the point of now saying openly, I am jealous for Sion and Jerusalem....Reformed in this way, she could be called true Jerusalem because she no longer hankers after the shadows and images of the Law, but only the good things preļ¬gured by them." (The Fathers of the Church, Didymus the Blind, trans. Robert C. Hill, p. 157)
This theme of both the literal and allegorical rightness of marital fidelity is carried over by the English and, prior to 1928, American Books of Common Prayer, which give as the Gospel Lesson on this day the Wedding Feast of Cana. At least three signficant things occur at this wedding: Jesus is present as an invited guest, he works a public miracle, and thus "manifested forth his glory, and his disciples believed on him." Here in the very midst of blessing a marriage not only by His presence but also by providing not only that which was adequate in order to continue the celebration but indeed the very best, there is an epiphany. And thus the pattern established by and lived out in the Old Covenant, and not abolished but fulfilled and overcome in the New, is once again confirmed to be God's means of manifestation that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. (cf. John 10:10)
And thus, Jesus' statement at the very end of Matthew's Gospel, "lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen." is also a retroactive proposition. What I mean by that is that Jesus' attendance at the Cana Wedding, aside from all the other significant things that have been discerned out of it over the millenia, also provides us with an hermeneutical key to understanding the wedding/bridal imagery present in the Old Testament Prophets. For these prophecies, rather than being mainly or mostly about predicting the future as the modern understanding of the word prophecy is given to be about (thus opening the door to rendering the Bible as a tool for divination, which it most certainly is not), do in fact reveal the presence of the Second Person of the Trinity right in the very midst of the Old Covenant dispensation as it is being lived out and progressed through in time by mankind. The Old Testament is neither useless nor optional for Christian people.
The English word "Gospel" is derived from the Greek meaning "good news". We have here in the American Prayer Book Gospel Lesson from St. Mark a brief summary of the fulfillment of the Old Testament in Jesus Christ with many things written and implied "between the lines" and thus meant to be understood by those who are already well-versed in the literary and theological ground of the Hebrew Scriptures. The great disobedience perpetrated in the Garden of Eden and the subsequent expulsion of mankind from paradise is now to be undone in the ultimate act of obedience and generosity that is the Incarnation.
Referencing both past and present, a call has gone out to all those who will listen and who have their eyes and ears and hearts attuned to what the Lord God is saying. "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." The time of preparation is about to be fulfilled.
Two allusions from the Old Testament present here are Isaiah 40:3 ("The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.") and the idea of God appearing "before thy face". At the very least when reading these verses, we ought to bear in mind Moses leading the people through the wilderness. Unlike us, however, he was only allowed to look upon the Promised Land before he died. The Good News for us is that we are indeed allowed to cross over into all that the Christian life has to offer.
But there is a further consideration from 1 Kings. Having incurred the wrath of Jezebel, Elijah flees into the wilderness and begs the Lord to take his life. Acknowledging that things have been and indeed will be difficult, the angel of the Lord brings him nourishment. Right here is a shadow of the sacramental system to be inaugurated in the New Testament for the use of the Church. As Elijah was twice nourished by the gift of God, so are we. At the very beginning of our Christian lives we are cleansed and refreshed by Baptism and at regular intervals are provided with Holy Communion for "the strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ"(1928 American BCP Catechism, p. 582).
As we will see in Mark chapter 6, the fate of the voice in the wilderness is as likely as not to be martyrdom. For in the desert, which is a place hostile to all but the hardiest life, nothing superfluous can survive. That is why the early monastics fled to the deserts, in order to burn away their selfishness and pretence, to be purified in an arid place where only what is essential will remain. Thus it is a highly symbolic place that can effect what it signifies.
So, already in these opening verses we are told that there is Good News here, that what was long foretold will come to pass. In Moses, Elijah and John the Baptist the Christian life is referenced in its prophetic, sacramental and sacrificial aspects. We know where we are going, but cannot get there without passing through death to eternal life. It will be a difficult go, but we are given very real helps to sustain us. It will cost us something dear in terms of our own identity, our relationships with other people or institutions and it may even cost us our lives. This is the Good News we have now been introduced to.
And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (Mk. 1: 9-11)
It can appear problematic that Jesus here presents himself for a baptism of repentance. We who profess the orthodox faith say of Him in the Nicene Creed: "God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God". Consider that in the grand scheme of Christianity (particularly with regard to the Cross and Resurrection, without which everything else becomes entirely meaningless), a fallible god in need of conversion and repentance is entirely laughable and useless. Thus we are not in any meaningful way similar to the present day devotees of a self-inflicted Mt. Olympus and the errant, fickle deities that have been enthroned there by pathological fiat.
On the subject of that paradigm, consider this as well. At what point did either the historical Zeus or the modern day "Zeuses" that we create and place over ourselves (money, political power, widespread notoriety, unexamined "group think", etc.) ever tell us that they love us? Is submission to this sort of domination worth the cost that it inflicts on our humanity?
Back to the matter immediately at hand, by means of submitting to John's baptism does Jesus give us yet another sign that He is here with us, able to live exactly as we do, completely human in all things but sin. It is an act of generosity (very remotely) akin to being a guest in someone's house and partaking of the meal that they offer you. Only in this case the meal has objective, not just subjective, worth. Perhaps that is also one of the reasons why both the Passover and the Eucharist (the latter being inaugurated within the context of the former) are meals as well. They both lend themselves quite naturally to an intimacy of participation and an ease of understanding their symbolism in this context.
John's baptism, particularly of Jesus, has a significance both historical and analogical, and not simply because these are things that we have assigned to it. We are to see that Jesus' coming is going to completely transform and fulfill all that has come before by His participation in the lived Covenant given to Moses and developed by Israelite tradition. The Old Testament is neither useless nor optional for Christian people.
As the Holy Ghost descends upon Him, we hear the voice of the Father declare: “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” This is the first of three times that we hear this saying in Mark. The second comes in chapter 9:7 at the Transfiguration. "And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him." The third comes in chapter 15:39, following upon the Crucifixion. "And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God." These three occurrences all come at the most significant points in Jesus’ ministry on earth and they point to the three traditional roles ascribed to him of prophet, king and priest. He is a prophet because He comes to tell us of the things of God through His preaching and healing ministry begun at the river Jordan. He is king because He is the second Person of the Blessed Trinity reigning forever in Heaven (manifested so dramatically on Mt. Tabor). He is a priest because He offers the one oblation (to which all the blood offerings of the Old Testament pointed) of Himself on the Cross. And in this, once again, we see in Christ the fulfillment of all that came before in Moses, Elijah and John the Baptist. Herein is revealed finally and perfectly the light of the New Covenant proceeding out of what was made known and lived in the shadows of the Old, the sacramental, prophetic and sacrificial nature of the Christian dispensation.
In conclusion, the Rev. Dr. Peter Toon, in his commentary on today's Collect says:
In addressing, God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, the Church recalls that not only is this Lord God the Creator of all that is, but he is also the sovereign ruler of all that is. He governs all things in his providence and does so in such a way as to allow for the exercise of the wills of human beings, even when they rebel against his law.
How wonderful, then, that in this very context Christ makes Himself known. Dr. Toon continues:
The Manifestation of the identity of Jesus at the first miracle in Cana of Galilee is linked in Christian celebration with his Manifestation when visited by the Magi and when he was baptized by John in the Jordan. On all three occasions his true identity was made known and manifested in Epiphany.
