Second Sunday after Epiphany
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The Gospel reading of the marriage at Cana gives us occasion to consider the state of matrimony. Many people, even some pastors, think that marriage is a secular matter and no business of the Church. But we must remember that from the beginning, marriage is God’s institution. He created marriage. He defines marriage. And He will continue to protect, uphold, and bless His institution until the end of time.
God created marriage for the temporal and eternal well-being of man. When Adam was still in paradise, God wanted to establish the first family bond. So He said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen 2:18). Then after God had finished this work, He Himself led the first bride to the first bridegroom. He Himself pronounced the benediction on this first couple.
From the beginning, Satan, the enemy of God and his children, has sought to dismantle and destroy everything good in God’s creation. This includes marriage. He does this either by debasing marriage to the level of beasts or by exalting it far above the place that God intended. He will teach people to think of marriage as a ball and chain, or instead as a fairytale that promises to satisfy every desire in the yearning heart of man forever. Either way, the devil hopes to destroy the peace and blessedness that God intends His people to have.
Marriage is the foundation of all other necessary and beneficial estates. Without it no state would last. Marriage binds the solitary together into families. Even if you are single, you were brought into this world and placed into a family and home because of marriage. There has never been a nation so corrupt or a people so wicked that they have succeeded in abolishing marriage altogether—though our country is surely trying. Through marriage God provides for children, protects women, and curbs the selfishness of men. Even unbelievers are still blessed and enriched by God’s institution, though they do not acknowledge God as the source of this gift.
In Luther’s day, clergy would show their disdain for marriage by refusing to attend weddings as guests. Jesus does no such thing. Instead, he honors marriage by attending what was likely the wedding of a friend or relative. This is the time and place that Jesus chooses to perform His first miracle and reveal His glory. We might expect that the first miracle would have been to feed starving people, or to heal a suffering man, or maybe to raise someone from the dead. Jesus would do all those things within the course of His ministry. But He began by changing water into wine, that is, he miraculously intervened to bless and provide for the needs of a couple on their wedding day.
This shows us how highly God regard marriage. Not only did He create it, but he sustains it and provides for the necessities of wedded life. It’s likely that the bride and groom were relatively poor. Perhaps they ran out of wine because they had served all they could afford. This is one reason many couples delay marriage. They want to wait until they can afford the huge, Hollywood wedding that society has told them they must have. But you don’t need a big-budget wedding in order to find joy and contentment. In fact, the more a couple looks at marriage itself as the source of their happiness, the less likely they are to find it. This bride and groom of Cana probably didn’t have any of the things that the professional planners and wedding industry say are necessary, but they had the one thing that truly matters: they invited Jesus to their wedding. Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let this wedding day be blessed. God will provide what is truly needed for a good marriage and a blessed home.
After the wedding, many Christian couples are afraid to have children because it’s too expensive. Each additional child will set back retirement another ten years. More children might mean driving an older car instead of the latest model. Jesus teaches us today that if we trust Him, He will provide. He has blessed the estate of holy matrimony, and when couples enter into it with faith, they will find joy and contentment according to God’s promise.
As any married couple knows, after the honeymoon is over, and perhaps before, there will be a host of troubles and problems. This is part of life in a sinful and broken world. Marriage might be the happy end of a Disney movie, but in real life, it’s the beginning of set of problems that didn’t exist before. Before marriage, when all you have to think about is yourself, it’s far easier to be selfish and still get through life. But with every new person that the marriage brings into your life, whether your spouse, or your children, God is putting your selfishness to death, one blessing at a time.
Pope Francis recently said something that caused a lot of controversary: Couples who choose pets instead of children are selfish. For once, I agree with him. To be clear, he was not speaking against owning dogs or cats. He was saying that choosing these over having children is wicked. It is. God never said that raising children would be easy. He never said that marriage would be without its crosses. In fact, you can count on the wine running out. It does in every marriage, and to some extent, in every relationship. That wonderful person who can do no wrong will turn out to be a sinner, just like you are. And when one sinner is joined to another sinner in holy matrimony, there are bound to be conflicts of interest. But where Christ is, there that union can find the new wine that only He can give, even in the midst of brokenness.
It is, after all, our suffering that generally brings us closer to Christ. And there will be suffering in marriage, just as there will be suffering in every other station in this poor life. But through every cross we bear now, God is working out His eternal, salvific plan in our lives. He must teach us that we will never find true happiness or fulfillment in another person. That unmet longing within the heart of every Christian, whether we know it or not, is our deep desire be united to Jesus as His bride. Compared to this, even the best human marriage is only a poor likeness. This is, perhaps, the greatest reason that God continues to uphold His institution of marriage on earth: because it is a picture, however dim and feeble, of the glorious union with Christ that awaits His Church in heaven. When we at last are granted entrance into that wedding feast which has we end, we will say, “Truly, Lord, you have saved the best wine for last.” Amen.