Mine Hour is not Yet Come

The weekend past marked the celebration of Mr. Kim Walsh’s many, many years of excellence in wrestling as he segues into retirement. Well done! The metaphor of wrestling complements the universal theme of pilgrimage, the idea of the journey of education, of learning. Both presuppose that there is something to be grasped and learned, something made manifest. In Chapel, morning after morning, we are engaged in wrestling with the images of Scripture in pursuit of wisdom and understanding. Epiphany is especially the season of ‘the pilgrimage of the understanding’ with respect to the things of God which ultimately belong to the good of our common humanity.

 

Such things as the concept of God’s infinite wisdom, infinite power, and infinite goodness are universal in some sense or another as refracted through a number of different philosophical and religious traditions. They require a journey, a pilgrimage into the concepts that belong to the structure of the reality of which we are a part. There is Arjuna wrestling, we might say, with Sri Krishna about his dharma, the sacred law of his being in the face of a great ethical dilemma in the Bhagavad Gita. There is the Buddha, Siddartha Gautama, stepping beyond the walls of his palaces to encounter and wrestle with a world of suffering, Dukka. There is Confucius wrestling in his Analects with the concepts of li and ren which cannot be reduced to simple means and methods of thinking what is good and right to do. There are, of course, the traditions of learning in the world of Plato and Aristotle and their successors about the eros, the passionate desire to know, that belongs somehow to the nature of everyone. And there are the teachings of Israel, of Christianity, and Islam that draw upon such things each in their own distinctive ways.

 

One of the oldest works of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh gives us the first wrestling contest in human history: Gilgamesh wrestling with Enkidu out of which comes their friendship; a friendship which ultimately will lead Gilgamesh on his quest for wisdom concerning life and death. In Genesis, Jacob wrestles with an Angel (or God?!) and in so doing is changed and becomes Israel, which means “one who strives with God.” Wrestles with God, we might say.

 

This week, one of the traditional and classical Epiphany stories, which has been read in the epiphany season for more than a millennium and a half, was read in Chapel. It was the story of the Wedding Feast at Cana of Galilee, a story told only in John’s Gospel. It is, as he says, “the beginning of signs.” And yet it points to the end or purpose of all the signs and wonders of the Gospel. Signs and wonders mean miracles. It is a miracle story where Jesus changes the water into wine. Why? For the good of our humanity, for our social joy which God seeks for us. Wow.

 

Miracles may trouble us as they seem to contradict the natural order of things. But the miracle stories are not arbitrary and quixotic. They recall us to God as the source and end of all life; in short, to the miracle of life itself. God as the Creator both establishes an intelligible world but cannot himself be restricted or limited to it. The story which John tells highlights our human limitations, our lack of what is needed for our ultimate good. “They have no wine,” Mary says. Her words signify the human predicament. We lack the wine of divinity in which we find our highest good and greatest happiness. That can only be found in God’s engagement with our world and with our humanity. At least that is how this story has been read over the centuries.

 

Jesus’ response to Mary is at first puzzling. “O woman, what is that to thee and to me? Mine hour is not yet come.” Two things. First, the goodness which God seeks for us cannot be simply at our command and dictate. Mary understands this since she immediately says to us, “Do whatever he tells you.” Secondly, the reference to mine hour points to the end or purpose of Christ’s Incarnation realized most fully and completely in his Passion and Death out of which flow the life of redemption and grace. In other words, the story is an epiphany. John says it is “the beginning of signs” because it belongs to the radical meaning of all the miracles. Ultimately, they are about the pilgrimage of the soul to and with God. They signal the divine will for our humanity in the hospitality of God.

 

And what is that divine will? As this story shows us, our social joys are found in God and with one another. The God who makes “the heavens and the earth and all that is therein” here changes water into wine for our good and joy. It is an anticipation and a participation in his Passion. His hour is love for us whereby he pours out his life. Life is the great gift of God to us; the gift here is “the good wine.” Life is not of our making.

 

The story is an epiphany of the divinity of Christ in the Christian understanding and teaching. But to get at its meaning requires our wrestling with the images of Scripture seeking the breakthrough of the understanding. The things of God are made manifest, but we have to wrestle with their meaning for us in our lives. The story here points to the sacramental understanding: God uses the things of creation to gather us to himself in joy and delight. In his Passion at the Last Supper, the bread and wine of the Passover become the body and blood of Christ, the means of our sacramental participation in God’s own life.  A great good indeed and one well worth pondering, even wrestling with, in our hearts and minds.