The Second Sunday After the Epiphany At Cana in Galilee Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen! Our Lord Jesus performed a very quiet and discrete miracle in today’s Gospel, a miracle that hardly anyone noticed, except the servants. Yet in this miracle, which God calls “the first of His signs, Jesus… manifested His glory.” Dear Christian friends, A. Why would Jesus choose a wedding as the place for His first miracle? • It CANNOT be that our Lord performed His first miracle at a wedding because He thinks more highly of married people than He thinks of others. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Not only has our God declared and promised through His prophets that He shows no favoritism (Deuteronomy 10:17, Acts 10:34), but think also of the people who surrounded Jesus’ birth! There is the prophetess Anna, whose marriage was buried only seven years after it began, and then she lived “as a widow until she was eighty-four” (Luke 2:37). Mary the mother of our Lord was nearly victimized by divorce, as Joseph quietly planned to cope with her pregnancy (Matthew 1:19). What about Zechariah and Elizabeth? Married, but not in bliss. Zechariah might have been holding some deep resentment against his wife, and Elizabeth against her husband. Their marriage languished under the weight of their desire to have a child (Luke 1:7). These are the people for whom the Christ child was born and with whom He surrounds Himself—people for whom marriage did not turn out well as they might have hoped. • So Jesus did not choose a wedding for His first miracle because He prefers married people. (We should give our Lord more credit than that.) Perhaps we should think of Jesus choosing a wedding feast for His first miracle because marriage is the one human relationship that ties all of us together—including everyone who is not right now married. Even if you are single or widowed, if you are divorced or simply too young to marry, you still have family relationships that God has given to you on account of marriage. Brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles all comprise the fruit and flower of marriage. Beyond that, all government, all friendships and all business relationships might likewise be traceable to marriage, if for no other reason than for the fact that we all have Adam as our father and Eve as our mother. God gave His gift of marriage to our literal first parents (Genesis 2:21-25) and from that one marriage has come every human relationship on earth. Some people may say that I am pushing today’s Gospel a little too far, and that I am digging way too deeply into these Words, “there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee.” Maybe so, but God’s Words are exceedingly broad, and they go farther and deeper than any little preacher like me can ever imagine (Psalm 119:96). If I have pushed today’s Gospel, it is only because I am trying to help you find your own place in this Gospel, no matter what your current station and place in life. The miracle in today’s Gospel is “the first of [Jesus’] signs.” These Words—“the first of His signs”—these Words suggest that this miracle in today’s Gospel is the elder brother, so to speak, of all our Lord’s other miracles. This miracle is the prototype, the outline, the lead-off batter for the miracles yet to come. In today’s Gospel, Jesus “manifested His glory” in this, His first miracle, and the glory of Jesus extends to ALL NATIONS, not merely to those therein who happen to be married. That is why each and every one of us should listen carefully to today’s Gospel. That is why it is a good and blessed thing for every single one of us—married or single—that our Lord Jesus went to “a wedding at Cana in Galilee.” By choosing a wedding for His first miracle, Jesus is including all of us together and He is piling together all the relationships we have with one another—each of which is rooted in and traceable back to marriage. B. What is that miracle, in which our Lord Jesus “manifested His glory”? • If you rush to your answer, you might say that Jesus manifested His glory by turning water into wine. You would be correct. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it [and] … the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine. In this miracle, as with all His miracles, Christ our Lord is teaching us that we can rely upon Him. I know it does not always feel as though you can rely upon Jesus while you struggle and labor every day with your various crosses in life. Jesus knows that you do not always feel convinced and content that you can trust Him, either. That is part of the reason why your dear Lord gives you this miracle in today’s Gospel. What has Christ done here today? Christ has demonstrated that He will provide for each of us, according to our need. Christ shows in this Gospel that His abundance will never fail to flow for us at the proper time—neither a moment too soon nor a moment too late. Christ shows us in today’s Gospel that we can confidently look to Him for all things, just as His mother Mary likewise looked at Jesus and boldly said to Him without wavering, “They have no wine.” Christ Jesus wants each of us to share in Mary’s confidence and certainty. She turned and said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” With these Words, Mary was essentially saying, “Everything will be fine. Simply listen to Jesus and act according to His Word.” • Perhaps there is more to this miracle than “the water now become wine.” As God explains at the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus “manifested His glory” here today. Stated another way, Jesus beamed forth; Jesus showed Himself as He really is; Jesus made His glory known. But no one knew about this “water now become wine” except for the servants, and perhaps Mary and the disciples. A miracle done in secret does not seem like a good way for Jesus our God to display His glory! But maybe the miracle in today’s Gospel is somewhat greater than “the water now become wine.” Stated another way, maybe our Lord’s miracle did not begin when He saw “six stone water jars there… each holding twenty or thirty gallons,” out of which He made the wine. Perhaps the miracle in today’s Gospel actually began much earlier, when “Jesus… was invited to the wedding with His disciples” and HE ACTUALLY WENT! I am talking about the miracle of God’s presence among us! I am talking about the unfathomable mystery of Christ our Lord choosing, not only to come to earth, but also to sit among us in our daily lives and to be with us in the midst of our family relationships. Today’s Gospel does not show us a God who simply drops our provisions upon us from above! Today’s Gospel shows us a God who deigns and desires to live bodily among us, providing for our every need while standing near and in the midst of us! C. What does the Miracle at Cana show us about our Lord’s glory? • If you think of our Lord’s first miracle only in terms of “water now become wine,” then you could think of Jesus’ glory as the display of His divine power. Stated another way, Jesus displayed or “manifested His glory” in today’s Gospel because He possesses the divine power to change water into wine by merely speaking a Word. There is certainly nothing wrong with that idea, as far as it goes. • Today’s Gospel is not merely about “water now become wine.” Stated another way, today’s Gospel is not about Jesus ability to exert His divinity. Today’s Gospel is about our Lord’s DESIRE to exert His divinity for us and for our sake. Today’s Gospel does not merely show us a Lord and Christ who can do things for us, but here we see a Lord and Christ who wants to be among and who finds no greater glory than providing for us while in our midst! Today’s miracle begins when “Jesus… was invited to the wedding with His disciples” and HE ACTUALLY WENT! o By going, Jesus shows that He wants to be with us, and even rejoices to be with us. Jesus is happy to dwell among us because there is now nothing among us that would incur His wrath. After all, Jesus our Lord shouldered all wrath and judgment against us when He entered Baptism for us and thus became “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). o By going to a wedding in particular, Jesus carefully includes every single one of us in the miracle of His presence and grace. Marriage is the one human relationship that ties all of us together—including people who are not married. By choosing a wedding for His first miracle, Jesus is including all of us together and He is piling together all the relationships we have with one another—each of which is rooted in and traceable back to marriage. “This, the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory.” Give hearty thanks and praise to God almighty that He calls today’s Gospel the FIRST of Jesus’ miracles. When God calls this miracle the first one, He wants you to know and trust that there are many more to follow. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons