Second Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Reflecting on John 2: 1-11

African Christian Art

Right off the bat, at the very beginning of his public ministry, Jesus sets out transforming us.  The first “sign” that John’s gospel gives us is that puny, weak bit of wine that runs out so quickly at the wedding at Cana.  Watch for the transformation:

Somehow, there are SIX STONE JARS sitting outside the tiny house!  This is funny, and it’s an inside joke for the Jewish-Christian readers of the first century.  Hmm.  Where else have we seen such huge jars?  Right at the entrance to the Temple, where men did ritual washings in order to make themselves pure so they could enter. Now those huge jars have been transplanted from the Temple all the way up to the little house where the marriage party is in full swing.

A similar joke might be if someone said, “We went to some Catholic friends’ home for dinner, and the stained glass windows from the Sistine Chapel were in their living room!”  It’s John’s way of saying, “Watch for the transformation that Jesus will perform.”

His mother gives directions to the stewards, and Jesus gives directions to the created world (which he created), and the water is transformed into the best wine of the party.

And of course there are countless transformations to come: the lonely Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at a well and becomes the premiere disciple in her village; the man born blind who is given sight so that we can see how blind we are; the dead Lazarus whose stone is rolled away.

But we don’t have to go far from the scriptures to see the best transformations, the ones that are endlessly happening in we who try and fail and try again to do whatever he tells us.

How do you try to do whatever he tells you in your life?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Ordinary Time - Cycle C