Text: Gracia Grindal Tune: James Clemens or MACHT HOCH DIE TÜR
1. The candles on the table gleam
As crystal goblets flash and beam
While we await the bridal pair
Who enter from the cold, night air
And see the banquet linens spread
With lilies on their snowy beds.
The lustrous silver glints,
Red rose buds give off scents.
2. And we who wait to greet them, turn
To bless them as the candles burn
And welcome to the banquet feast
An old familiar wedding guest,
Who once in ancient Palestine
Turned water into vintage wine,
And brings his glory here
In fragrant cups of cheer.
3. Abundant life is what he gives,
A miracle all can receive.
Christ makes our ordinary days
A feast of joy, a day of grace,
So as our water glasses ring,
We hear the nuptials of our King,
Whose glory shines and blooms
And spills throughout the room.
Text © 2009 Wayne Leupold Editions, Inc.
REFLECTIONS
(Somewhat changed from a previous blog.) Here we see Jesus blessing our lives in the richest way possible. He comes to a wedding; his mother is probably helping with arrangements as it may well have been a relative’s wedding. Jesus, after a brief tiff with Mary, ends up giving the guests joy and he does so using the things of the world: wine out of water.
The last wedding I can remember, before COVID, was a real party. There was a large crowd. People were thoroughly enjoying the time, the fine dinner, the wine, the dancing. As the evening wore on, and the couples in their best finery danced the night away, I got to thinking how primal weddings are. Here we were in our Sunday best, the rules were formal, the father of the groom dances with the mother of the bride, etc., the toasts, the rituals going way back to Eden.
All to consecrate the love of a young couple heading out into their future. Their human urges didn’t need this ceremony, but the ceremony blessed them and put them in the context of creation and their creator. They had been drawn together for love of each other and their desire for each other, but the ceremony and gala said this was more than biological. Not only were the two being joined, a family, with mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, in-laws, who might not have chosen each other, was now dancing together and being joined. Soon there would be children about which we would care as much for as the strangers we had just met. The ritual brought us together and began something that would never end—a new life, around whom we would gather and care for and who maybe. later, would care for us. Bodies, filled with spirit, together in a dance. Of course, there can be woe later, but the wedding begins new life with hope.
Weddings and children are on hard times these days. The culture is asking what difference ceremonies make? That we have to explain that the ceremony does something more than give people permission to have sex, means we are at a cultural and religious nadir that scarcely understands what it means to be human. God made us out of clay but then breathed his spirit into us for life. We are not animals; we need ritual and ceremony to mark the stages of our biological lives in relation to the eternal which is there in the ceremony. We need children for our future and they need stable families in which to flourish.
Jesus, the Son of God, our creator, comes to this party and gives joy. In doing this we also see his divinity. He can make water into wine. He is the creator of both water and wine! And us—he knows our frame, what we need and what gives us joy.
He wants us to drink life to the lees, not isolate ourselves from each other and society out of fear. Then we will have no future. Not only did he come to give us joy in our daily rituals, but he came to take away our fear so we can live life to the fullest possible. Moses exhorts the people to choose life and go forward into what would be distressing places and times. (Exodus 30:19)
Once, I was sitting in an art gallery in Oslo wondering whether or not to buy the painting that had drawn me into the store. The owner knew his business. He drew up a comfortable chair, turned up the fire in the fireplace and sat me down. As I sat looking at the painting, which cost a pretty penny, (and I did buy it--see right--never regretting it) wondering if I should buy it, he commented that we rarely regret what we say yes to, but really regret what we have said no to--as one wag said, when we turn wine into water.
Sometimes of course we say yes to awful things, but it is the no we wonder about. What treausres were there behind the door we did not open? Jesus came into the world to give us abundant life, a life of eternal treasures. He came as a groom coming to woo his bride—all humanity. Every day he opens up a door to a wedding feast as he changes water into wine for us. He wants us to be filled with the new wine of joy, a glory that spills throughout the room.
Mary describes the Wedding at Cana
from The Sword of Eden (Wipf and Stock, 2018) by Gracia Grindal
Ceremonies swirled around us, the wine, the dance
Family, friends, the whole village came
Spirits rose, the shattering of the glass
Marking a sorrow ahead we could not name.
Shouting, laughter, suddenly the wine all gone
Aunt of the bride, the banquet duties mine.
Almost strange he entered, grown man, my son.
I beckoned. “Woman, it is not my time.“
Familiar the look that fathomed something more.
“Do as he says.” Water brimming over stone,
“Give them to drink,” he said, we watched them pour
Wine, rich in purples, vintages unknown.
The best for last, we circled the bride and groom
Like heaven, wheeling around the golden room.
HYMN INFO
There are few if any hymns on this theme in Scripture. I used the imagery of the weddings I know, and then imagined Jesus coming to them and how and why he would come. I changed the scene but not the arrival of our Lord who always comes with abundant life, a great theme in John. Clemens wrote a dancing tune for it with percussion instruments for accompaniment. A more sober tune is Macht Hoch die Tür. That tune first appeared in the pietist Freylinghausen hymnal Geist-reiches Gesang Buch 1703 and is now the preferred tune for the great Advent hymn Lift high the Gates.
LINKS
Organ version of Macht Hoch die Tür
Darko Pleli, organ
