Epiphany 2
Text: John 2:1-11
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
One of the most highly used wedding texts comes from Ephesians 5,
Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:23-24)
It's a beautiful text, but so many individuals get hung up on “Wives, submit to your own husbands” that they miss the whole point of the text. So, listen now to the words that follow…
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
When we pause and listen to these words in their fullness, they are such a wonderful image of sacrificial love, are they not?
But then hear the concluding words now: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
That passage from Ephesians is just simply beautiful, truly.
But, how often do we either take the time or permit ourselves to truly hear the entire passage I just read or take to heart the beauty that a Husband is to love his wife in such a way that it becomes a mirror and image of how Christ Jesus loves you, His body, the Church?
Too often, our spirit of independence gets caught up with words like “submit,” which is unfortunate because when this happens, we risk missing the blessings that may follow. God’s Word, like many instances and situations of life, requires us to be patient, slow ourselves, and meditate so that God may speak to us.
Take today’s Gospel, for instance. Here, Jesus is conducting His first miracle, or as John says, His first sign.
What does it mean that this was the first “sign” that Jesus did?
The Gospel of John contains seven “signs,” and they are:
- Today’s Gospel.
- The healing of a nobleman’s son.
- The healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda
- The feeding of the 5000
- Jesus walking on water
- The healing of a blind man
- And finally, immediately before the Passion of our Lord, the resurrection of Lazarus
These “signs” in the Gospel of John constantly confront man with God’s compassionate and omnipotent presence (Omnipotent means all-powerful). And, in the case of today’s Gospel, these signs reveal the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, and why He came into the flesh of man – to have compassion, love, and care for His bride, the Church.
For this reason, one of my seminary professors remarked that these signs demand our faith and obedience. (Weinrich, Page 306) But, they also have more profound meaning than what appears on the surface and require our patient mediation.
So, what does changing water into wine at a wedding in Cana really mean or have to do with us?
Well, let’s go back to the Garden of Eden, our parents, and the first husband and wife of creation.
God had given them the care of the Garden, He said they could eat of anything in the Garden with one exception – “Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Yet, like you, it’s always the one thing that you cannot have that entices you the most, and having listened to the serpent and taking what was not theirs to have in the fruit of that tree, Adam and Eve “heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and [Eve] hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.”
Why did they hide themselves? Because their disobedience led to their (and our) fall into sin. Their union with God was severed, and their consciences now felt the shame of sin – a sin that led them to hide themselves from their Creator.
This is what the guilt of your sin continues to do today. It causes you not only to hide from God when you do not keep His Commandments, but it also leads you to hide from your spouse, your family, and friends – you do this when you don’t answer phone calls, respond to texts, or emails, or give someone the silent treatment (This is really uncomfortable, prolongs healing, and only leads to greater separation too).
But there is good news in the Book of Genesis, too, as God now confronts the Serpent, Adam, and Eve; He says,
“And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15)
And it’s here we have the first Gospel of Holy Scripture. Because here, God declares that He will send a Seed, a Son, to be born of woman, and this Son will not only crush the head of the serpent – defeating sin, death, and the devil – but will also restore mankind to their Creator.
So, fast forward back to the Gospel today and ask, how does this text confront us with Jesus, and in what ways does it demand our faith and obedience?
First, the scene begins with the wedding hosts running out of wine. This leads Mary, the mother of Jesus, to call on Him to help as she says, “They have no wine.”
Now, some of you may wrongly say, so what if they don’t have wine? One must understand not only their culture but also what the wedding and the adornments symbolize. Weddings were a time of joy and feasting; they were a time of familial unity. But even more, they were also “a prophetic symbol for the peace and prosperity that God’s salvation would bring.” (Weinrich)
Running out of wine for a wedding would not only be an enormous party foul but also disgrace and humiliate the family.
So, when Mary says, “They have no wine,” she understands the gravity of the situation but also possesses faith that her Son, the God-Man, can actually do something about this great need.
But then there’s this striking line as Jesus says, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
Let me say, no, Jesus was not being rude or disrespectful to His mother, instead, we begin to see a separation in how Jesus now speaks as His life now leads Him to the “Hour” of His crucifixion.
In fact, it’s important to hear these words of Jesus from the cross as:
He “saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, [and] He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:26-27)
This whole interaction of Jesus and Mary today finds its completion on the cross, where a loving son places the care and well-being of His mother into the hands of a beloved friend and disciple.
Here is where the first sign of John’s Gospel, the changing of water into wine, is leading us today – to the cross, and it not only deserves but demands our patient mediation.
You see, the six stone water jars that Jesus used to change or transform the water into wine were used for the rite of purification – to make one ritually clean.
But now, upon the cross, Jesus takes all the sin and filth of our lives into the clay vessel of His body so that through His crucifixion and death, we can be made His spotless bride.
Isn’t this such a profound and glorious mystery of sacrificial love and image for us to imitate in marriage and as members of His Church? As we learn from Ephesians, “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body.”
For this reason, should we not slow down in life, listen more, speak less, and ponder the glorious Word of God? Because in it, the love of your Savior Jesus Christ is revealed.
So now the hour has come for you to proceed to this altar where you will not only be confronted with God’s compassion but receive a foretaste of the marriage feast that awaits us all, so come in faith and be transformed by your Savior, where He takes your sin and death into Himself and in return grants and feeds you with His forgiveness and life. +INJ+
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Rev. Noah J. Rogness
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Tomah, WI
