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Throughout the month of January we are exploring the meaning of Worship. Last week we talked about worship as God’s Affirmation Station. Something about hearing an affirmative word heals us, motivates and empowers us to become more than we ever thought possible.

What God the Father says to Jesus at his baptism, he says also to us. “You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter. With you I am well pleased.”

Today we continue our exploration of what worship is all about. Today’s gospel points us to the New Testament’s primary metaphor for worship. Worship is a wedding banquet.

Jesus joins the festivities of a wedding feast. Readers unfamiliar with the broad scope of the biblical narrative will miss the reference to Old Testament themes in his passage where marriage is a common metaphor to describe God’s relationship with Israel.

Today’s reading from the Old Testament provides one example. Isaiah 62 says,

You shall also be a crown of glory In the hand of the LORD,
And a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

You shall no longer be termed Forsaken,
Nor shall your land any more be termed Desolate;

But you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah;
For the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married.

For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you;
And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

Jesus calls himself “the bridegroom.” He told many parables using weddings as their central theme. The early church read the Song of Solomon as a love story that told the tale of God’s love for the church, the church being “the bride of Christ.”

He brought me to the banqueting table, and his banner over me was love.

The association of a wedding feast with God’s relationship with his people was obvious in the ancient world. A wedding is a covenantmaking ceremony. God’s relationship with humanity is constituted by the covenant God makes with us in Christ Jesus.

God does not have to love us any more than one man must love a particular woman. A groom chooses his bride. A bride chooses her husband. Their relationship expresses a choice made in freedom and bound in covenant – the covenant of marriage.

Worship is, in essence, a recurring wedding banquet. Every Sunday we freely choose to come together. In worship we are made the Bride of Christ. Worship constitutes, expresses and nourishes this covenant relationship.

What does it mean that Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding feast? Simply this: The party is not over. This particular wedding feast will have no end.