The Good Wine

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Sermon Notes, Epiphany 2, 2022 "Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now." In this world there are two ways to do things. The way everybody does them, "Everyone serves the good wine first." And then there is Jesus' way. "But you have kept the good wine until now." The everybody way is visible, open for inspection, and subject to second guessing. The Jesus way is hidden except to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. We might criticize the everybody way. The Jesus way is above reproach. It could not be better. You cannot improve upon perfection. John's account of the wedding in Cana opens his book on the Jesus' way. It is a way that would not occur to us until he shows it to us. Then we are dazzled by the results. Words like extravagant, abundant, and generous come to mind. The deaf hear. The dumb speak. The lame walk. The dead are raised to life. And it all begins when Jesus changes 6 vessels of water into wine. Not just any wine, but Chateau Haut-Brione 1982. Before we look at what Jesus did and why it occupies this particular place in our liturgical calendar, let's take a look at how all this started. The story begins "on the third day." John has already primed his readers to be looking back to the creation narrative when he began his Gospel with, "In the beginning." Now he takes us back to the third day, that day when God separated the waters from the land and not stopping there, created seed bearing plants and trees and all matter of vegetation. It was an epic day of creation, the first day of life. On this third day Jesus' mother, Jesus, and his newly appointed disciples are attending a wedding in Cana. While the third day of creation was "good," this third day of the wedding is about to go terribly wrong. A first century wedding in Galilee could last six days. Here on only the third day, the wine was about gone. At stake was the groom's reputation. And the bride's father would also be ridiculed for giving away his daughter to such an unworthy son-in-law. Something needed to be done and Jesus' mother, never named Mary in John's Gospel, knows what to do. She tells Jesus, "They have no wine." It's right here that the story gets tricky, and trickier yet by our modern use of language. We know what Jesus will ultimately do, but getting him to do it is not easy. He seemingly dismisses his mother's concern. Dismisses with prejudice. "Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come." Let's disable that pejorative term "Woman." In today's idiom to call your mother "woman" would be rude, insulting. But neither John nor the Greek lexicon mean it that way. To call her "woman" is to ally her with Eve, creation's primal mother, called "woman" by Adam in jubilation over God's gift of "Flesh from my flesh and bone of my bone." It is the name Jesus gives her now and will give her again when he hangs on the cross and gives her to John to be his mother. What follows is a rare glimpse into the life of Jesus with his earthly family. We know from her own words in the Magnificat and from her own pondering in her heart, that Mary knew fully whose son she bore. We know from Simeon's warning that she also knew the price she would have to pay for her love. We have a picture of Jesus and his mother standing at the very brink of his ministry, weighing the cost both knew would be theirs to pay. Jesus is not reticent about his mission. I think rather that he is respectful of his mother. He will not begin until she gives him leave to begin, her blessing. Which she does when she tells the servants to do what he says. And he steps out on to the road to calvary. So he changes the water into wine and saves the day for the bridegroom and all the wedding guests. We might pause to ask, "What just happened?" A lot, it turns out. Jesus reveals that he is Lord of all creation. Water does not become wine by any physical process, only by the word of the Word. It is not magic, it is a miracle. Or a sign as John rightfully describes it. The first sign that Jesus performed so that we may believe. I've spoken before about the anatomy of signs, that they are only signs to those see them as such. In this case we need to ask, "Who then saw this as a sign?" Not the master of the feast. He had no idea where that good wine came from and was only puzzled that the bridegroom took so long to offer it up. Not the bridegroom. The chief benefactor of the miracle was equally ignorant of how his reputation and party had been saved. Certainly not the guests who kept on partying as if it was 1999. Jesus' disciples? Probably, but they stand outside the story looking in. The sign belongs to the servants who dutifully obeyed and were thus witnesses to the glory of God. They would forever be changed by the knowledge of God revealed to them. Would this one sign be a catalyst for them to seek out other signs? We hope and pray that it might be so. St. Augustine writing about this passage says this: But since men, intent on a different matter, have lost the consideration of the works of God, by which they should daily praise Him as the Creator, God has, as it were, reserved to Himself the doing of certain extraordinary actions, that, by striking them with wonder, He might rouse men as from sleep to worship Him.1 John echoes this when he says the signs of Christ are given so that we might believe and by believing have life in his name. John 20:31 We need to ask ourselves if we are struck by wonder when we should be. Are we led by signs and miracles given to us to reach toward a new life in Christ Jesus? Are we the servants and disciples who witness the glory of God, or the bridegroom and guests who only revel in their good fortune? Jesus continues to change water into wine in our lives. It is not an everyday occurrence, but a special extraordinary reach of grace in our direction. I'm sure each of us can remember an event or an experience where our water was turned into His wine. He invites us to drink fully of him. The new wine never runs out. And like the servants at Cana, He invites us to bear his wine forward into the world. Heavenly Father, As you changed water into wine at Cana, so change us from vessels full of ourselves to vessels full of you. May we be filled with wonder at your abundance. And may we overflow and spill the wine of your love wherever we go, on whoever we meet. In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 1, Augustine of Hippo. 1888. "Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel according to St. John." In St. Augustin: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies, edited by Philip Schaff, translated by John Gibb and James Innes, 7:57. A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series. New York: Christian Literature Company.
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