Reading the signs

A Sermon preached on Epiphany II, Jan 16, 2022, at St. Augustine’s and St. Christoph

Isaiah 62:1-5, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11

Jesus’s attendance at the wedding in Cana comes at the end of what in John’s chronology of events has been an action-packed first week of ministry. On day 1 we met John the Baptist who refers to Jesus as the “one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me.” (John 1:26-27) and on day 2 John and Jesus meet and as John reports: “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.” (1:32) One day 3 Jesus picks up two of John’s disciples – Andrew and the “beloved” disciple: “The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus” (1:37) and later the same day he meets Simon, Andrew’s brother, and renames him Peter. This all takes place in Bethany across the Jordan.

Then on day 4, after a mad dash back to Galilee, Jesus finds and recruits Philip and Nathaniel. And now, a further three days later, he is in Cana with his disciples for a wedding. Mark’s Gospel is often described as one in which Jesus seems to be in a hurry, rushing everywhere with frequent use of the word “immediately” or “at once.” But John’s Jesus is impressively fast too. After a week like that I wonder if Jesus just wanted to relax and enjoy the wedding party and perhaps that’s why he reacts rather dismissively to his mother’s comment: “When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’” (2:3-4) Of course his hour, the hour of glorification through his death and resurrection has not yet come, we are still at the beginning of the story, even if that final hour is present in the background throughout the Gospel.

John’s carefully crafted Gospel has seven signs, as he calls miracles, and this is as we heard, the first. To call something a sign means that is has a deeper meaning and that it points to something or somewhere else. The other signs seem more dramatic with 3 healings, the feeding of the 5000, Jesus’ mastering nature by walking on water, and then raising Lazarus from the dead … not forgetting his own resurrection as what could be seen as the eighth and greatest sign. So, isn’t turning water into wine, just to allow a party to go on, a little banal in comparison? Why is this the first public sign? I think it is important and comes first for three reasons, for three things that it points to.

Let’s start with the setting, a wedding. This is a big and joyous event in the life not just of the couple, but of the whole community. It would be a big celebration – and that’s why it would also have been very embarrassing if the wine had run out halfway through. A marriage is a public declaration made by two people as they enter into a relationship of mutual trust and joy and support and, we hope, of love. This particular wedding is important in our understanding of marriage, which is why we make reference to it in the marriage ceremony in the prayer book: “Our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.” In the prayers used at an Episcopal wedding, we also emphasise that marriage is a sign with a meaning that goes well beyond just the life of the couple when we pray: “Make their life together a sign of Christ's love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.”

In the Old Testament, marriage was sometimes used as a metaphor for the divine-human relationship. In the book of the prophet Hosea, whose ministry began before Isaiah’s, Hosea’s own marriage illustrates the breakdown in the relationship between God and God’s people. In the extract from Isaiah, our first reading, marriage is also used as a metaphor. But here, well over a century later, it stands for the restoration of the relationship between God and God’s people, as their exile in Babylon ends. God addresses Zion, Jerusalem in terms of love and endearment: “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land 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.” (Isaiah 62:4) This restoration of relationship is a key part of Christ’s ministry, which is the first reason why his first sign is in the context of the celebration of a wedding, the sacrament of relationship and love.

The second reason is to be found in what actually happens. Water is turned into wine, it is transformed. Wine itself already carries a message of transformation – grapes are transformed by fermentation into wine – but here Jesus takes fresh, living water from stone water jars that were used for the ritual purification and turns it not just into wine, but into the very best wine.  It reminds me of Isaiah’s promise of future deliverance (25:6): “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines.”

One of the three petitions in the special blessing for Epiphany is that “God, by the power that turned water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana, will transform your lives and make glad your hearts.” Jesus came to transform us and our lives and through us the world. At Cana, Jesus offers the first sign that he is the Messiah, the light and saviour of the world, so that all who witnessed it or later heard or read about would believe in him and in his mission and be transformed to new life. Our way of being should be as hospitable, abundant, and generous as was Jesus’ act at the wedding. His sign also already points to the means by which we are to be transformed. Through the water of Baptism, the ultimate cleansing, and the very beginning of our life in Christ, and through the wine of the Eucharist, that together with the bread of life sustains, strengthens and renews us on our journey and allows us to encounter Christ at this Table.

The wedding at Cana embodies the image of reconciliation, of union, and of a loving covenantal relationship as prophesied by Isaiah and the miracle of transforming water into wine as a symbol of the transformation that Christ came to effect. But I said there are three reasons for this being the 1^st sign. I think the third reason is because it is about something ordinary. Two people marrying. A party. Water. Wine. It means that anything and anyone can be transformed. In his sermon last week, Douglas quoted from a poem by John Milton: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” We don’t have to be special, or powerful, and we don’t have to be saints before we are transformed. Our power is not our own, nor is our righteousness. They come from God who sets us apart and makes the ordinary special. What we have to do is believe and to follow the instructions that Mary gave to the servants: “Do whatever he tells you.” (John 2:5)

Amen.