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Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany – January 19, 2025
John 2:1-11
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana is more than a magic trick. It is more than an emergency catering service Jesus provided. St. John calls it a sign. Signs are important to pay attention to, right?
Whether I’m out driving, or more often when I’m out for a morning run or an evening walk, I’ve noticed more and more over the last couple of years how often people aren’t paying attention to signs as much as they should. There are a couple of spots in particular where people just blatantly and regularly roll right through stop signs. Sometimes they don’t even slow down. Sometimes I’ll yell at them as they pass by, “Nice stop, buddy!” which means the process of me turning into my dad is almost complete.
Granted, these are usually quiet neighborhoods without a lot of traffic, but I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect that people pay some attention to the signs! They are there for a reason! It is important, right? The problem is that they think they know what to expect. They think they know the intersection and can merely give it a glance before breezing right past the sign.
I think we sometimes have the same problem with the sign in our gospel reading for today. We often roll right past it, thinking we already know what this story is about. We hear about water turning into wine and we think of all the funny memes and clever jokes which have come from the story, and we end up breezing right past the sign. And so I am going to suggest this morning that we come to a full stop, that we take a close look at this sign.
First of all, I think it is very interesting that we find Jesus and his Blessed Mother at a wedding. So far in John’s gospel we’ve had the prologue, then Jesus is baptized, then he calls some disciples – and the very next thing he does, before he does any teaching, any ministry, any healing or forgiving, the very next thing he does is go to a wedding! Jesus and his mother, Mary, go to celebrate the blessed union of a bride and a groom. This is a detail I think we roll past too quickly sometimes, but it is significant.
Jesus’ third public appearance in John, right after his baptism and his calling of the disciples, is to attend a wedding. This shows that Jesus and his Blessed Mother saw marriage as something worthy of support and celebration. This is important for the church to stop and notice. This is something we’re called to pay attention to. It is something we are called to emulate. It is an example for us to follow as the church.
Of course, the church should be a place where singleness is affirmed as a calling for some. It should be a place where divorced people find forgiveness and compassion and mercy. It should be a place where widows and widowers find love and care and community. But alongside all of this, the church should be a place where marriage is celebrated and encouraged and supported. It is especially important for the church to teach our young people that marriage is not merely a piece of paper or merely a lifestyle choice or a social construct. Marriage is woven right into the fabric of creation! It is a holy estate that is established and sustained by God. It can be difficult at times, but it is worth the effort. Marriage is something beautiful, and it only becomes more beautiful with time. Jesus and Mary found marriage worthy of their celebration and encouragement and support, and we should too.
We are at a point in American history where the marriage rate (not to mention the birth rate) is at its lowest point in history, having fallen by a whopping 50% since 1972. This can’t help but have negative implications for society. It has undoubtably contributed to the decline of the church. Back in the fourth century St. John Chrysostom wrote: “The love of husband and wife is the force that welds society together.” I read three or four books published in the last year which say essentially the same thing, using modern sociological studies to back it up. We shouldn’t be surprised then that when that welding isn’t happening, society starts to come apart. And so if the church cares about the world, it needs to care about marriage. It needs to encourage and celebrate and support healthy, loving marriages, just as Jesus and his Mother did in Cana.
This is important to stop and notice. This first of Jesus’ signs happened at a wedding, as a husband and a wife were being joined together in this force that welds society together.
This context of a wedding is important to stop and notice for another reason too. Over and over again in scripture, the relationship between God and his people is described using the metaphor of a husband and wife, with God as the bridegroom and his people as his bride.
The lectionary reminds us of this today by giving us one example from Isaiah. As we heard in our first reading, God says to his people Israel: “You shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”
There is a long history of the relationship between God and his people being described as that of a marriage, with God as the groom and his people Israel as his bride. And although this particular example paints a beautiful picture of this relationship, anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Old Testament knows that this marriage between God the groom and Israel his bride wasn’t always smooth sailing! There was one catastrophe after another!
It just so happens that at this wedding being attended by Jesus and his Mother Mary, a major catastrophe was about to take place. Mary seems to have noticed it first. “They have no wine,” she pointed out. To have run out of wine this early in the wedding celebration would have been a disaster for the couple. It was expected that the couple and their respective families would provide enough wine for the duration of the celebration. It was a way of honoring their guests and gladdening their hearts. To run out of wine would have brought shame upon them. Running out of wine would have brought the celebration to a screeching halt. Some would even have interpreted it as a bad omen on their marriage, that it was doomed to fail. It was that serious!
And so when Jesus had those six stone jars filled with water, and when he turned that water into wine – and not cheap or average wine, but the best wine – he wasn’t just doing a magic trick. He wasn’t just providing emergency catering. He was doing so much more! He was saving this couple and their families from shame. He was turning their shame into glory! They went from being almost ruined to being toasted as gracious and generous hosts! Jesus was rescuing this couple and their families from what they lacked, turning it into an abundance – not just an abundance of wine, but an abundance of joy.
This is what the prophets said the Messiah would do! He would bring a feast of rich foods and well-aged wines strained clear. He would deliver his people out of their shame. He would rescue and redeem the relationship between God the groom and his people, his bride. God would love them and cherish them and care for them in a new covenant relationship.
Israel was always running out of things, always coming up short. They ran out of patience with God. They came up short in keeping God’s commandments. Sometimes they ran out of faith in him. Sometimes they plain ran out on God altogether, jumping into bed with other gods! The prophets often described their idolatry using the language of adultery. But when the Messiah came, the prophets said, the relationship would be redeemed and restored so that the wedding feast would continue. A new covenant would be established.
Jesus wouldn’t ultimately accomplish this by turning water into wine, which is probably why he was reluctant at first to heed Mary’s request. He would ultimately do it when his hour had come. He would do it on the cross. He would do it by dying and rising again. But this miracle of turning water into wine was a sign. And this sign points to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. He is the one God promised to send so that the relationship would be redeemed and restored and the wedding feast could continue. It was a sign that he is the one who has come to love and cherish and care for us, now and forever.
Signs are something that are supposed to provoke a reaction in us. We dare not roll past them or lazily ignore them. Signs demand a response. And the response of the disciples is instructive. St. John tells us: “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”
As we stop and look at this sign, we are ultimately being invited to respond the same way the disciples did. We are invited to see this sign and believe.
And here is what you are being invited to believe: God has come to you in Christ to turn your shame into glory. God has come to you in Christ to save you from whatever emptiness you are experiencing, filling you up instead with an abundance of joy. God has come to you in Christ so that just as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so shall God rejoice over you. God has come to you in Christ so that whatever is broken or lacking in your relationship with him would be restored, and the wedding feast would continue – both now and forever.
See this sign today. Come to a complete stop at it and take it all in. See the glory of Christ revealed, and believe in him.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church