A Wedding Reception Fiasco...

I was taken aback by the messaging board which trailed one particular online article in The Daily Mail national newspaper. Before you think to yourself, oh no, not another of this Remoaner's anti-Brexit fodder, I quickly wish to say that this time it's not political - rather it's to do with Jesus Christ changing water into wine at a wedding in Cana, often referred to as his first miracle.

Indeed, it could well turn political. After all, who among wine merchants in his right mind would wish for such a source for the best wine on the market, and make a huge profit so quickly? So much so, that the taxman will soon be sniffing around, perhaps rather like the tax collector Matthew did soon after Jesus instructed Peter and his mates to relaunch their boats as recorded in Luke 5:4-7. What a bountiful catch! Without a shadow of a doubt, the most hated Matthew would have been very interested indeed.

And hated by the Jewish community in which he serves - a servant to the Romans that is, whose empire having a dominant rule over all of Israel, both the Galilean region in the North and Judea in the South. Therefore it would have come as no surprise that Matthew the tax collector was perceived as a traitor to Israel, a wretched nuisance, like a bluebottle constantly buzzing around with its irritating presence. Sounds familiar?

Throughout his ministry, Jesus seemed to be interested in providing free food to the surrounding populace. The water-into-wine was the first case, then all four Gospel writers record the feeding of the five thousand from just five loaves and two fishes, followed by the feeding of four thousand from seven loaves and a few fish. However, the second near-identical miracle was recorded only by Matthew and Mark. Finally, John records an incident when, after his Resurrection, he instructs Peter and his fellow crew members to throw the net from the other side of the boat, resulting in another abundant catch after a whole night of empty nets.

Perhaps the political significance in all of this most likely have been, that the Conservatives would encourage business growth, pushing for greater profits by further capitalisation by performing miracles on a daily routine, and to build a cluster of shareholders. On the other hand, a Labour administration would have encouraged higher taxation in order to fund the Police, the NHS, Social Care, and other public bodies. Not at all popular this higher taxation idea might be, but if they so much want public services to be at their prime, somehow they all have to be paid for.

However, it's the water-into-wine miracle of more concern here. Only John records this sign. Here was a wedding feast, something very different to the rather stiff and formal British wedding reception which last up to only a couple of hours, and that's it. Here was a party, where everyone invited was having a whale of a time, talking, laughing, guffawing and dancing to music. The festivities lasted up to a week, and normally there would be enough wine to last the entire duration. But not at this particular instant.

It might have been the last day of the festival, or it might have been halfway through. Maybe those who did the accounting had gotten their sums wrong, and underestimated the supply. Whichever case it might have been, there sat Jesus along with his mother. Now here is an interesting scenario. How I would have loved to transport some of our church members at Ascot back two millennia and usher them into the festivity! What a shock they would get. All this "worldliness" and there is Jesus their Messiah looking on, even enjoying a chat with one or several of the guests. In horror, my church friends would most likely respond by asking Jesus:

Lord! Lord! Can't you see how worldly, irreligious and carnal this lot are? Surely you can't admit them into Heaven. Come on! Look at the way they are behaving! Back in our church we would never dream of such inebriated, shocking behaviour!

To which his reply would be entirely predictable:

The tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the Kingdom of God before you (Matthew 21:31).

And what's with the online newspaper article which appeared only a couple of days ago? It was about the location of the wedding. Yes, it was at Cana, a town in the Galilee region, not far from Nazareth. At the traditional area, the name of the site is Kafr Kanna, where a church was built to commemorate the event. But archaeologists have discovered a site some five miles north, in a cave tunnel among the ruins of a village, known as Khirbet Qana. The reason for their optimism that this may be the original location is because of several ancient artifacts in direct connection with Jesus has been found there. A dating of the ruins, along with historic manuscripts, confirmed that the settlement was a community at its peak at the time of the wedding, a flourishing town.

Therefore the actual site of the wedding is in dispute, exactly like the site of the Crucifixion and Burial of Jesus of Nazareth. There are two sites of the Crucifixion and Burial, at different parts of Jerusalem Old City. I was fortunate enough to visit both of them. The traditional site is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, situated within the Christian Quarter. Within the same building, both the site of the Cross and the tomb where he was buried are located. At least four churches have a claim to the site: The Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox, the Coptic Church and the Armenian Church. Indeed it is a beautiful, historic edifice, but any sense of the real site has been lost due to its presence, its religious and commercial significance of the basilica.

Protestants don't have any part in the Holy Sepulchre, as these claims were already made long before the Reformation. Instead, they claim that a different site, just outside the Damascus Gate, and close to the Arab Bus Station, there is a hill which on its south side are two openings, or caves, resembling eyeless sockets, hence the name Golgotha. Nearby there is a ancient tomb, and if you were to go on a prayer trip or any church-organised Holy Land tour, it's here you will be taken to:- the Garden Tomb, also known as Gordon's Calvary, after a British military commander Charles Gordon who declared the site as authentic. But although the site remains under his name, there were also several Anglican scholars, mostly British, who endorsed the site as being the actual tomb of Christ some years before Gordon endorsed it. 

The Garden Tomb, also known as Gordon's Calvary.

Yet there is another reason why these scholars dismiss the Holy Sepulchre as being without authenticity. And that is because the church is located within the present city walls, whilst the Bible places the Cross and Tomb outside the city walls. However, archaeology has questioned the course of the ancient walls at the time of Christ, believing that the site of the Holy Sepulchre was outside the wall back then. There is apparently an archaeological site revealing the ancient course of the wall on the west side of the city, but doors of the building housing the dig remained closed throughout my whole stay in Jerusalem, something I have found to be very frustrating. 

By visiting both, I can make a first-hand comparison between the disputed sites. For example, I recall sitting in the bus bound for Hebron in 1993, actually facing the hill of Golgotha. As I waited for the bus to depart, I could see those two caves so clearly, just a few metres away from where I was sitting. No wonder Gordon and his ilk were impressed. Golgotha does have a resemblance of a skull. But there is one very small snag concerning the tomb itself. Because of the type of interior design when the tomb was hewn out, archaeologists have identified its age as between 7th to 8th Century BC. This flatly contradicts the "newly hewn tomb where no man had ever been laid" of Joseph of Arimathea, recorded by Matthew (27:57-61) and John 19:38-42.

Anyone who has familiarised with the history of the Reformation would realise the hostility which developed between the two parties. With no claim to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I'm not at all surprised that the Protestants chose a different site to authenticate the empty tomb of Christ, mainly to discredit any authenticity the Catholics (along with associated churches) would have on the site of the Crucifixion and Burial. The Protestants (including the Anglican Church) would have had heaps of evidence to prove their point, except on the age of the tomb itself, enough to burst the balloon.

I have stood at the Garden tomb in 1994, and looked in. Like the apostle John, I did not see the body either, but I had already believed long before I arrived there. The snag was, I was not too convinced that this was the true site. It was a tomb alright, a genuine ancient tomb hewn out of solid rock, but it failed to convince me that this was the tomb of Christ.

But with the Holy Sepulchre, there was that authentic air about it. In all four visits to Israel (alone in 1976, 1993, 1994, and with Alex in 2000) I just stood there, transfixed at what I was looking at. Despite my multiple visits, I never cease to be amazed over the fact that I could be standing literally at the very foot of the Cross of Christ as he hung there, atoning for my sins.

Authentic site of the Crucifixion, Holy Sepulchre.

The Holy Sepulchre itself. Inside, Alex knelt and prayed.

And so going back to the wedding festival. Like with the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of the nuptials is at Kafr Kanna, and it where pilgrims has been visiting for centuries. But now a new site is claiming authenticity, at a ruin of Khirbet Qana, some five miles north of the traditional site. The Holy Sepulchre versus the Garden Tomb all over again, with the exception that I have never visited Kafr Kanna, mainly due to transportation restrictions, unable to hire and drive a car.

And the comment forum under the article. The greater majority of comments posted ridicules the Bible and any belief in a god. As one commentator wrote - about an invisible friend in the sky who has written ten things we ought not to do, and then sends everyone who had broken these rules to a smoke-filled fire where one will be tortured for all eternity. But never mind, he loves you, he loves you so much. Then someone further down, no doubt a typical Christian, quotes Psalm 14 - The fool who say in his heart, "There is no God..." and finishes with the words, "This applies to you."

I suppose that is what I would expect from a typical Western Christian - a punitive attitude, the sort of attitude that would damn the soul of a skeptic rather than lead him to salvation. And with more and more comments of unbelief filling the messaging board, it makes me gain a perspective of a country which calls itself Christian but tending to lean on agnostic and atheistic ideas. The irony is, all these skeptical comments which questions the authority of the Bible and the existence of God, they trail an article about a wedding in Cana, a wedding which Jesus attended, and a new site has been discovered which may be more authentic. Yet its readers instead lash out angrily against the existence of God. 

Much to do with sin and a guilty conscience, a conscience which can be allayed by belief in evolution. Rather, I'm coming to think it's not so much as religion versus science as science is used as a panacea against a troubled conscience, the awareness of sin and the thought of a possible Judgement. After all, if Adam and Eve had never existed, then Jesus of Nazareth never existed either (if he did, then only as another moral teacher, nothing more.) If Jesus never existed, then there is that possibility of no Judgement, no Heaven and no Hell. Death to the body will be the end of everything, a concept accepted and believed by many. And a concept which goes hand-in-hand with Darwin evolution, believed by the vast majority of Brits at present.

With much of the UK falling into apostasy, one thing I'm grateful for. Yes, very grateful for, and that God is very, very patient, as he waits, not willing that anyone should perish, but all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).