Thursday, September 10, 2009

The Wedding Feast at Cana and the Christological Monomania of St. John

Schuchard, Bruce G.  "The Wedding Feast at Cana and the Christological Monomania of St. John."  All Theology Is Christology: Essays in Honor of David P. Scaer.  Fort Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary Press. 2000.  101-116.

Schuchard asks about the possible significance of John's specific statement of the "third day" for the wedding feast at Cana.  Did John have a particular reason in mind for this mention other than simply stating chronology?  Schuchard thinks John does.  He finds in this account a parallel to the account of creation in Genesis.  He also finds in this portion of the Gospel (1.19-2.11) a parallel to the entire Gospel of John, a time involving four narrative "journeys" to Jerusalem which correspond with the four days mentioned in John 1.19-2.11.

In this pattern of concentric circles of revelation, we see that the wedding feast would correspond with Jesus' third trip to Jerusalem for Passover as well as the third day on which Jesus rose from the dead.  This is the wedding feast at which Jesus provides the superabundant wine, the very best which can be imagined.  This wine, as we see if we consider the idea of the resurrection from the dead, is the blood of Jesus given for the life of the world.  This is in fact what we need and can never attain to outside of the resurrected Christ.

This article gives an interesting and thoughtful analysis of the Gospel of John from a literary standpoint.  I have never seen these patterns in John myself, but Schuchard brings up numerous scholars who have seen them.  I'm afraid we often become so intent on seeing what one sentence in Scripture says that we forget to explore the big picture God has given us throughout an entire book.  But we know the first one to put forth his opinion seems right until other evidence is examined.  Is Schuchard right?  Anyone ready to contradict him?

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