Please read the passage before the homily.
We have to believe in signs for a sign to have meaning. A wedding can be a sign. People want to commit themselves to a common life for their own growth and development and that of society.
Six stone water jars, each holding a twenty to thirty gallons of wine. That is a lot of wine. Do you know how to make a stone jar? You cannot mold it; you cannot melt it to reshape it. You have to grind out the inside, a gallon of stone for every gallon of volume. This is not poor person’s wedding. In fact, it is God’s wedding.
The Jewish people considered containers made of stone to be resistant to contagion. They could be cleaned and reused. Containers made of wood, clay or cloth, if defiled, would have to be destroyed, but not stone ones. The wine of God’s wedding will always be poured from stone containers that will always be clean and have no contagion within it.
The wedding at Cana was a huge affair. The results were huge also. The disciples of Jesus believed in Jesus.
Weddings in the Bible are signs of God’s wanting to be near God’s people. There are signs of God’s love for God’s people. They are signs of God’s faithfulness to us. They are signs that God wants to be intimate with us. They are signs that God delights in us. They are signs that God considers us worthwhile as people, that God wants to spend eternity with us. God is like a bridegroom who delights in his bride.
If dating is a way two people check each other out to see if they want to make a permanent commitment to each other, then God has proposed to us and prepared a huge wedding feast for us. We are people with whom God wants to spend eternity. We have a deep and dear value and worth for God. If for God, then also for ourselves. As God loves us so much as to want to spend eternity with us, we must also love ourselves as much as God has loved us.
We believe in signs. God has wedded God’s self to us and sealed it with the permanent stone jars of his wine-like love for us. God wants to commit himself to us in s common life for our growth and development and that of society.