This weeks reading was very refreshing. It was break from the repetitiveness that I found myself stuck in while reading through Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Although John is basically the same storyline that the previous books cover; the way it is written made the reading very enjoyable to me. I enjoyed the prospective that the writer wrote from. While reading through a lot of questions arose to me while going through the book, but one account had me completely stumped.  In chapter 2 of John apparently there was a wedding, and the event was not talked about very long besides a couple of lines. Growing up all I knew about this chapter was the miracle pf turning water into wine, but the author seemed to leave out the key details of the wedding which was who was the couple that was to be wedded. That really made me look at a couple of things.

  

  One of the things that had to quickly be dismissed from my thought process was that it was the wedding of Jesus to a bride. It would be pretty easy to think that the wedding was indeed for Jesus and Mary Magdalene due to all the speculation about the relationship between the two characters. I guess what made me come to the conclusion that this was not the wedding of a Jesus and Mar Magdalene was that she had not been brought into the picture, and if Jesus was indeed to be wed that day why would he be invited to his own wedding. I seriously doubt that it was his wedding unless he had a sudden case of amnesia which is never mentioned.  So with that out of my mind I was able to deduce that it was not his wedding, and able to form my blog topic.  My question that I will try to find is: Who was getting married at the wedding that occurred at Cana?

 

 

 

Finding this answer I had to dig through a couple of websites that all seemed to agree that the wedding was between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but since I already realized that was possible I was very disappointed that published sites found this to be the case when clearly it isn’t. Eventually I found some good sources that really helped unravel this mystery.  The first site that helped me form my answer was on the same mind frame that I was on about the allegation of the event being centered on Jesus, and Mary Magdalene.  The site pointed out three facts:

“Firstly: Jesus did not give any orders on His own initiative; His Mother was the one who instructed the servants to do whatever He tells them to do.

Secondly: If Jesus and the bridegroom were one and the same, would it be necessary for the Holy Mother to tell the servants “Do whatever He tells you”?  Wouldn’t it have been self-evident that the word of the bridegroom was sufficient?  Isn’t that what these very critics asserted, when they stated that “only the bridegroom could give orders”?  

Obviously, this was the wedding of a very close friend or relative, which explains why the Holy Mother was entitled to give instructions.  But, for the Holy Mother to have had to instruct the servants: “Do whatever He tells you”, is also proof that the servants didn’t recognize Jesus as a person who had any say in the festivities, let alone as the groom…

Thirdly: In the last verse of this same chapter, it says:  "After this (Christ’s supposed wedding-feast in the city of Cana), they went down to Capernaum, He (the… “bridegroom” Christ) and His mother and His brothers and His disciples, and there (in Capernaum) they stayed for not many days". Pay attention to the second statement the author writes; it would seem like the wedding was a for someone Jesus knew or even a family member. The website that I got this information from is from  the following: “http://www.oodegr.com/english/ag_grafi/kd/kana1.htm”.

  Although the website gave me a good idea to who the wedding was for; I still was finding myself asking ok who is this wedding for. The nest website I looked up helped me come to a lot of conclusions about the mystery wedding.  The website that I used was the following: “http://jamestabor.com/2012/07/28/mark-and-john-a-wedding-at-cana-whose-and-where/”. The post was written by James D. Tabor and basically he came to the conclusion that the previous website also concluded. Tabor stated the following: “ Since the wedding is held in Cana, my guess is that it could very well be the wedding of one of Jesus’ brothers, perhaps James, to a sister or daughter of Nathanael, thus accounting for it being held in that village. Cana then becomes a place to which Jesus can return, and as with Capernaum, it served as a kind of “home” for him”.

  I found both of these sites helpful, but I mean all of this is speculation so the truth might not ever be found in our contemporary society. What can be derived from this account are two things: The wedding was not between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and the wedding was for someone Jesus was either related to or knew as a friend.  The idea makes since due to the people who were at the wedding one person in particular. Jesus’s mother was there at the wedding, and if she was there it had to be either one of her other children’s wedding or a family friend. What I have come to conclude is that Mary the mother of Jesus was in fact at the event, and for her to be there her and Jesus must have known whomever was getting married. That is just my speculation, but it does hold some weight due to the surrounding evidence presented and other sources that are available.