Friday 28 November 2008

Background

The wedding symbolism of this passage celebrates the finalmutual commitment of God and humanity - at least, those amonghumanity who are willing to let that relationship be their guideand their consuming passion. Like a wedding celebration, thisamazing event signals the beginning of a truly new world, in whichso much that has disfigured the old world is gone - no more tears,death, grief, crying or pain.

The president at the feast is God, who dispenses all the promisedblessings, especially water, as a gift from the spring of the waterof life. Could this gift perhaps be a mirror image of the gift ofknowledge which Adam and Eve are said to have craved in Eden (Genesis3:1-8)?

When we grieve over the level of human misery we see in ournewspapers we long for a new order. Political leaders spoke about anew world order when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, but it hasn'thappened yet. Perhaps this merely confirms the biblical view thatthis is indeed still a chaotic and disordered world. The new orderis God's gift and blessing, not the product or outcome of a humanplan.

To Ponder

If peace and order are God's gifts, what can wedo to bring them about?

Do we make our own disorder and chaos? Why?