Reversing Eden

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

 Week by week, as we journey through this Epiphanytide season, the Scriptures, and prayers of Holy Mother Church show who this Jesus truly is. Each week's proper’s, the Sunday collect and readings, adding to a beautiful mosaic slowly forming a vibrant portrait of the Christ born on Christmas Day.

This Epiphanytide mosaic began with the visitation of the Magi. Jesus is that tiny baby born in a lowly manger, but more than this, he is born King of the Jews, born to be worshipped by Jew and Gentile alike. As he sits listening and reasoning with the elders of Israel, this twelve-year-old Jesus is the very embodiment of Divine wisdom given from Heaven for the salvation of fools. And in consenting to John's baptism, he consents to the will of his Father in all humility which will fully manifest itself on Calvary's Cross.

Today's Gospel invites us into yet another Epiphany, which takes place at a Jewish wedding. From John's concluding remark on the event, we learn that this is the beginning of Jesus' miracles and that by this particular sign, the glory of Christ is made manifest.

The Appearing of God

"AND the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there (Jn 2:1). First, we note two things, that Jesus' mother had been invited to the wedding and was attending and that Jesus arrived at the festivities on the third day. What is John communicating by specifically associating this first miracle of our Lord? with "the third day?"

In the Old Testament, the third day was the day of Divine visitation, of a Theophany (the appearing of God). For example, in the central account of the meeting between God and Israel on Sinai, Moses records that: "On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings ... The Lord descended upon it in fire" (Ex 19:16-18).

So, St. John is making an obvious point. Someone far greater than an itinerant Jewish rabbi has come to enjoy and celebrate the marriage between a son and daughter of Israel. God himself has appeared on the third day. Thus, the wedding feast at Cana far surpasses the Epiphany to the Magi and even our Lord's baptism: because the first of signs performed at the Wedding Feast in Cana unveils the Divine Glory of Christ showing Jesus to be God, not merely a man, but very God of very God.

We shouldn't be surprised that the first miracle performed by Jesus, who is God in the flesh, should occur at a wedding and result in the unveiling of his Divinity amidst a bride and bridegroom, God himself, residing with the man and the woman. Now, consider the portrait I have just painted: The man, the Woman, and God in union together. Now that should evoke the memory of another man and woman, with whom God once enjoyed communion. I am speaking of Adam and Eve.

Trouble In Eden

God once walked with man and the woman in the Garden face to face. There they looked upon their Creator and beheld God in innocency of life and purity of spirit. But with the eye, the woman also saw the fruit and found it pleasing. And wanting to satiate such an unholy desire, Eve took of the fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then their eyes were opened, and for the first time, they became conscious of their nakedness. Having fallen from innocence, they hid their faces from God from fear and shame, not wanting to see or be seen by the God who once walked peacefully with them in the Garden.

"Where are you?" asked God. "What have you done?" Where were they? They were naked, hiding, and riddled with shame. Why? Because they had disobeyed the commandment of their God, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Gen 2:17). And because God is faithful, die they did. They experienced two deaths.

First, the covenant union they once enjoyed with God died- for they killed the covenant blessing by their transgression. They not only lost beatitude and blessing but the God of their origin. And second, they brought death into the human condition, meaning their days on earth would be numbered, they would experience the horror of death, the body and soul tore apart without hope of ever being reunited (for they knew nothing of the hope of bodily resurrection).

And as if all this weren't enough, a curse was pronounced upon their covenant-breaking:" To the woman, he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain, you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you." And to Adam, he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you; in pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust, you shall return."

Not even that old crafty serpent, the Devil, escaped Divine judgment and its curse, for God decreed: "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly, you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life." Now, listen to what the Lord God says next: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall strike your head, and you shall strike his heel."

Did you catch that last part of God's decree? The offspring of the woman will strike or crush Satan's head. Meaning one born of a woman will destroy the serpent, though in doing so, shall be wounded as well. This was God's promise to reverse the sorrowful outcome of Eden.

Reversing Eden

Now, with Eden in mind, let's bring this ancient story into the realm of the wedding feast at Cana. In Eden, God happily enjoyed communion with the Man and the Woman. Jesus is happily enjoying the festivities with the bride and groom. But then, things change drastically, at Cana and in Eden: in both instances, the Man and the Woman find themselves in trouble, helpless, and without hope.

The Wedding at Cana, for St. John, is the retelling of Genesis. In Jesus and his Mother Mary, John sees the Second Adam and the New Eve. He interprets the events at Cana, signifying that which God had promised so long ago in the Garden, the fulfilling of the promise Israel so very desperately longed for: for a man born of a woman to come and break the chains of death. At Cana, St. John has perceived the beginning of something wonderful: the promised one has come to inaugurate the reversal of Eden.

In Eden, Eve brings the fruit to her husband Adam, inducing Him to eat it. She is the unfortunate initiator, who, by her actions, awakens Adam's desire for the forbidden food: she participates in his unrighteousness. At Cana, Mary, the new Eve, initiates as well, not by drawing Jesus' attention to fruit, but to the fruit of the vine. She initiates and awakens the Man (Jesus) towards doing good as Jesus miraculously comes to the aid of the bride and groom in producing an abundance of choice wine.

The first Eve only thought of satiating her desire for knowledge and becoming like God, so much so that she forgot her God through her selfish endeavor. Yet Mary, the New Eve, has room for the concerns of others; she is conscious of that which is empty and lacking, leaving room for the Lord to act in times of need. She saw the predicament, "They have no wine," and sought good for the wedding party. But humility compelled her to seek out Christ to attain it.

Again: the old Eve did whatever she wanted to do, not what God told her. But Mary, the new Eve, is the exact opposite, saying, "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." Do you see what St. John is revealing? Christ is the new Adam undoing the fall of the first Adam, and Mary is the new Eve undoing the disobedience of the first Eve. The reversing of Eden!

Beloved, the Miracle at Cana, in a fuller sense, signals a new dawn, the age of regeneration; Jesus says, "I am making all things new!" The remaking of the first order and the renewal of all things are signified in Jesus the New Adam and his Mother Mary, the New Eve. The Heavenly bridegroom was born into the frustration of men, to redeem a broken image (male and female) from Eden's curse, by which all of humanity fell, crushed under the weight of original sin. Thus, every person is born a son of Adam, a daughter of Eve, living East of Eden until the regeneration by faith out of the side of the Second Adam and made an acceptable bride for such a heavenly bridegroom. We are made flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone by his wound.

Let us return to Eden, "So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man."

Was not the side of the Second Adam opened upon the Cross? Yes, for John records in his Gospel that "one of the soldiers pierced [Jesus'] side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water." And doesn't Isaiah profess that Jesus "was pierced for our transgressions; [that] he was crushed (struck or bruised), for our iniquities; [and] upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds, we are healed?"

This heavenly wedding guest is the promised seed of Eden, the one whose heal is crushed on the Cross but by that very same Cross crushes the serpent's head. In a very real sense, the world had run out of wine; joy turned to sorrow, the wedding party had dissolved until, The New Man, Jesus Christ, arrived to restore the marriage feast.

It is of no small significance that Jesus performed this first miracle, signaling the regeneration of all things, at a wedding. Christ forever marked the sanctity and importance of Christian marriage, his very presence bringing Divine dignity to the union of one man and one. Thus, Holy matrimony is a sacrament, its visible form revealing an invisible reality: the reversal of Eden.

The awful divisions from the effects of the fall- man falling within himself, then suffering unhappy division between man and woman, humanity at odds with the created order, and worse, eternal separation from God- every single one of these unhappy divisions is restored through Christ and beautifully wrapped up in the unique and mysterious icon of holy matrimony, which is the reunification of all that fell, the reversing of Eden.

St. Paul speaks of this nuptial mystery, saying, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

Therefore, we take marriage seriously in the church because it is a Divine sign of the Gospel, signifying Christ's love for his church. Beloved, marriage is a Gospel concern; God brings two into one and shows forth the Good News of Salvation. This is why husbands are called to sacrificial love and wives to honor their husbands. Holy Matrimony is nothing short of a willful giving of self, the man to the woman, the parents to their children, the children to the family. Thus, a fruitful and faithful marriage images the self-giving of Christ who died for the life of the world.

It follows then that the apostle tells Christian children, "to obey their parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," not causing discord and strife within the family stressing the marital bond and opening the door for strife and division. By the same token, Paul exhorts fathers, saying, "do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."

Even those called to the solitary life, which is a high calling, are to pray for God's protection and grace for marriages: for we are all affected one by the other: weeping and rejoicing together for we are one body, the church. Each one is called to fortify and protect the Garden from serpents and all sorts of nasty critters and walk in the blessed company of the Lord in the cool of the day.

This is why, along with several other tragedies, same-sex marriage works against the Gospel: because it can never image salvation; for God descended in the person of Jesus Christ to restore the union between himself and humanity; to once again commune with the man and the woman. Same-sex unions can never be an icon of Christ's love to the world nor proclaim the Good News of salvation because Christ died to save the human race, which is male and female by Divine definition. Christian marriage, the nuptial joining of one man and one woman, becomes an Icon of salvation for the whole world to see. In a deeper sense, Christian marriage is a means to salvation because it is intended to manifest the glory of the Lord.

A Prayer for Marriage

What then are we to do but heed the words of our mother: "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." Therefore, let us close by doing the will of our Lord, bending the knee of our hearts in prayer for Christian Marriages using a prayer given to us by our faithful Bishops. Let us pray:

We thank you, heavenly Father, for graciously creating us in your image, male and female, and for ordaining that a man and woman shall be joined as one flesh in the covenant of marriage.

We thank you for the gift and heritage of children and for placing them in homes which may be havens of blessing and peace.

We thank you for the love between fathers and mothers and sons and daughters that binds together the generations and undergirds our country's social fabric.

Lord Jesus Christ, divine Bridegroom, we repent for all the situations in which we have dishonored the covenant of marriage through selfishness or unfaithfulness.

We repent as a Church where we have failed to prepare our children for holy matrimony or to care for those who are widowed, divorced, or single.

We repent, whereas citizens, we have become complacent and neglected the defense of marriage in the public square.

We pray you, Holy Spirit, to restore marriage to its due honor in our country and to revive our marriages and families as emblems of your love.

We pray you to strengthen our bishops and other leaders as they join with faithful churches to make a strong God-honoring defense of your design for marriage.

We pray you to have mercy on those who have promoted false teaching about marriage and on those who have been led astray and harmed by it.

Grant us courage, O Triune God, to hold fast to the truth of your Word and give grace to those who are counted worthy to suffer for the Name of Christ.

"Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.” Amen+