John the Evangelist\u2019s gospel is chockablock with nuptial imagery.\u00a0 He begins his gospel by carefully drawing our minds back to Genesis with the words \u201cIn the beginning\u201d (John 1:1).\u00a0 He then audaciously takes us back not merely to the beginning of creation, but to (if we may speak of it this way) the eternity\u00a0behind<\/em>\u00a0creation.\u00a0 That is, where the Word was with God and the Word was God.\u00a0 Before God said, \u201cLet there be light\u201d, he was eternally speaking the Word who is himself in love and the Word was giving himself back to the Father in love in the unity of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\nWhen that Word, in the fullness of time, became flesh and dwelt among us, he came (in John the Evangelist\u2019s telling) in a kind of creation week, since he comes to inaugurate a new creation.\u00a0 So John\u2019s gospel carefully counts off four days beginning with the appearance of John the Baptist in John 1:19 and delineated by markers to separate the days (John 1:29, 35, and 43).\u00a0\u00a0 Then the evangelist suddenly announces, \u201cOn the\u00a0third<\/em>\u00a0day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee\u2026\u201d (John 2:1).\u00a0 This is typical of the evangelist\u2019s subtle and multi-layered literary art, because it does five things at once.<\/p>\nFirst, it rounds out the New Creation Week (4+3=7).<\/p>\n
Second, in rounding out the New Creation Week and placing Jesus at a\u00a0wedding<\/em>, it recalls for us that Jesus is the Second Adam of whom the first Adam was merely a prefiguration.<\/p>\nPreaching of St John the Baptist by Domenico Ghirlandaio, between 1486 and 1490. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThird, it reminds us that, by his own preaching, Jesus claims to be the true cosmic Bridegroom (cf. Mark 2:19-20; Matthew 25:1-13).<\/p>\n
Fourth, it recalls for us that the public ministry which Jesus is about to begin in the \u201cfirst of his signs\u201d (John 2:11) is going to culminate in his resurrection \u201con the third day\u201d.<\/p>\n
As to the fifth thing the evangelist is up to, we will discuss that presently.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Much, much more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last in my series on John the Baptist for The Catholic Weekly: John the Evangelist\u2019s gospel is chockablock with nuptial imagery.\u00a0 He begins his gospel by carefully drawing our minds back to Genesis with the words \u201cIn the beginning\u201d (John 1:1).\u00a0 He then audaciously takes us back not merely to the beginning of creation, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[322,836],"class_list":["post-106792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advent","tag-catholic-weekly-stuff"],"yoast_head":"\n
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