Kothine (Pethurtha) First Sunday of Great Lent (English)

First Sunday of Great Lent – Kothine
(Pethurtha) Wedding Feast at Cana – The first sign – St. John 2:1-11

A Call for becoming one with God
A marriage as a sacrament symbolizes the union between two individuals, who are brought together in the presence of God. This union is not wrought by man but it has been wrought together by God through His divine will and intervention. Through marriage, two different individuals having differing personalities have been brought together to become one family unit, supplementing and complementing each other. In the sacrament of marriage, a man and a woman are given the possibility to become one spirit and one flesh in a way which no human love can provide by itself.

The Christian marriage symbolizes the love that God has for man, for it is only through the love that He had for man was He able to realize that man shouldn’t be left alone and a partner was created for the first man, Adam in the form of Eve in the garden of Eden. Also, the Christian marriage symbolizes the union between Christ and His bride, the Church. Just as marriage calls for the man and woman to come together and become one, and calls for physical, mental and spiritual upliftment of each other through a constant communion with each other, Christ through His love and sacrifice for mankind calls us to become one with Him and be in constant communion with Him.

Cana Wedding Coptic
For it is only through the union with Christ that man can become complete and achieve the status of divine and be called the ‘sons and daughters of the living God’. The various parallels between this event and the Resurrection account in St. John 20:1-18 tells us that the marriage between Jesus and the Church will be fulfilled through His Resurrection.

And as our Lord Jesus Christ attended this wedding celebration, His presence shows us that God both sanctifies marriage, and is present in our own marriages and families, and also that he sanctifies the celebrations of human life, and rejoices when we rejoice in Godly and happy occasions such as these.