At Mass today we read a section from the prophet Isaiah where he proclaims that God will restore the fortunes of Israel. He compares the current situation with the words Forsaken and Desolate and contrasts the time of restoration with the words Delightful and Married. (Is. 62.1-5)
At the same service we will read the account of the Marriage at Cana in Galilee, where Our Lord Jesus Christ performed his first miracle. (Jn. 2.1-11)
The Scriptures are full of wedding and marriage imagery, which is no accident. In the ideal concept of marriage, we have two people coming together, becoming a single unit with a single purpose but where the persons still maintain their separate persons. They are united, but not confused, they share a purpose but bring separate agency, they give totally of each to the other (I said ideally). This is why God uses in the Prophets marriage imagery in His relationship with His people, and why this carries forward into the Church. As in a marriage, God and Humanity work together, possess a single purpose, are unified, but still God is God and Human is Human, bringing both Natures together and in so doing something truly creative and beautiful comes about.
It was Jesus' purpose to bring about that reconciliation, that reunion between God and Human of which the prophets spoke. In the Incarnation, God seeks to marry the Divine and the Human back together, for we had been Forsaken, we had been Desolate. It was no accident that Jesus' first miracle was at a wedding, Here, where a couple had come together symbolizing the coming together of God and His people, the actual marriage of Divine and Human was first proclaimed.
