2nd Sunday after Epiphany 17.1.16 Divine and human
People question Our Lord’s divinity. How can a man be God? A man cannot be God but God can become man; that is, take on human nature.
This is surprising, but not so much so when we consider that God will go to great lengths to save us from sin and death.
And He chooses to save us by becoming one with us; teaching us by His example how we should live; and taking on our sufferings; suffering with us so He is not just telling us what to do, but doing it Himself.
People find reasons for not accepting Him, being addicted to sin and the status quo, thinking Heaven too far away, both in time and distance.
The miracle of Cana demonstrates Our Lord’s power, and symbolises movement from human to divine. Water becomes wine. The ordinary becomes extraordinary. Humanity is taken up into divinity.
To be upgraded like this can be a challenge we do not want to meet. So we tend to dig in and stay where we are. Ask a 3 year-old who is playing in the sand: would he still like to be doing this in twenty years’ time? He would probably say yes. But the 23 year-old would be bored playing in the sand. So we really do want to graduate to higher things.
O God…grant that, by the Mystery of this water and wine, we may be made partakers of His divine nature, who vouchsafed to be made partaker of our human nature.
What does this mean, to share in the divine? We are not gods, but we take on certain of His attributes (such as Love), which we express within the limits of human nature.
We are still human, but much better than before. We are able to cope with more things, with less frustration, less likelihood of sinning, or even making a mistake. We are more in tune with the sufferings of others; we have more desire to share their burdens.
It is not just that we do what God wants us to do, but that He is actually expressing His divinity through our humanity. We are transformed into copies of the divine. Not as good as the original, but a lot better than we would be otherwise.
Various forms of goodness will come out more obviously. And various sins and faults will disappear.
Our Lord gives us access to His richness through the sacraments, especially Holy Communion. In the sacraments He regenerates, revivifies. When we are forgiven our sins we are made new again each time. It is like a re-birth. The more expectantly we encounter Him the more difference will be evident.
Ever since Adam and Eve the quest of the human race has been to move from rejecting God to accepting Him.
The question we all face: Do you want to stay in sin and degradation? Or do you want to risk moving to a higher level, less familiar, but where you are promised a much greater happiness?
We must each answer for our own self. We may have more than one chance to get this right, but we do not have forever. We must not leave it too long.
People generally do not realize either the scope of what they are offered, or of how much they have demeaned themselves so far by refusing the offer.
We have been content simply to graze like cows, not worrying what else there might be, just eating our version of grass. We are called to much more and much higher than that. Let Him turn us into wine – the highest quality we can be.
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