God is with us in Word and Sacrament

The Second Sunday after Epiphany

The Second Sunday after Epiphany

Ephesians 5:22–33; John 2:1–11

+ IN NOMINE IESU +

It’s no accident that the Scriptures both begin and end with a wedding. Blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb, says Revelation. But cursed are those who eat at the marriage feast of Adam and Eve.

For them it goes terribly wrong. Eve speaks when she shouldn’t and Adam doesn’t speak when he should. Eve wasn’t there, wasn’t yet created when the Lord gave the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That command was given only to Adam. It was his duty in love for Eve to tell and teach her that holy command. And so when Adam fails to speak, the consequences are monumental. He is responsible.

But in terms of the Epistle for today, Eve does not respect her husband, Adam does not love his wife. For there they stood together, side-by-side, in the Garden in conversation with that wily serpent of old. Did God really say? it asks. Eve should have pointed to him for the certain answer. But she didn’t. She didn’t respect him and the authority he had.

And Adam is not better. For he is there with her while the serpent speaks. And he says nothing. He fails to act, to support, to protect his wife from harm. He fails to love her, to give his life for hers. To put his neck on the line, instead of letting her dangle in the wind when he knew better.

And so their actions are each a rejection of each other. And a rejection of the union that God made between them. A rejection even of their union with God. And thus they lose the kingdom. They’re banished from the the Garden, from God’s paradise, from God’s presence.

That’s what sin does. It isolates us—from one another and from God. It ruins our relationships. It disorders what God’s good order. It makes our lives dull and dreary. It makes our lives laden with pain and sorrow, with toil and trouble. It makes our lives a never-ending struggle for respect and love, a vicious cirlce. For Without love, a woman reacts without respect. And without respect, a man reacts without love. (Consider your own marriages, consider your own congregations—your lack of love and their lack of respect.) And Adam is responsible.

But God spoke to both of them and he promised a time when that would be undone, when they’d be redeemed, when they’d be renewed.  When a man would give up his life for sake of His bride. When He would do his duty regardless of what He received in return. And thus it is no accident that the first and chief of our Lord’s signs takes place at a wedding.

Signs aren’t ends in themselves but visible indications of something else. They point to something beyond themselves to something greater. These signs were written to reveal Jesus’ glory so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God.

And so it is quite fitting that our Lord’s first sign takes place at a wedding. For in the changing of the water into wine, Jesus shows us what he came to do: to make all things new. That in him, the old passes away and the new is come. For the gift of the law came through Moses but the greater gift of grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

And so the mother of Jesus comes to Him “They have no wine.” What exactly she had in mind, we aren’t told. But by our Lord’s answer to her, it seems that He at least thought it something a bit more involved that what He eventually did. “Woman,” that is ma’am or miss, “My hour has not yet come.”

His hour, as we come to learn from the rest of John’s Gospel, is the hour of His death, the hour of His Passion and Crucifixion. The hour when the work of reconciliation, of renewal, and re-creation would be complete. When it is finished and all may rest from their labors.

But it wasn’t time for that. Not yet, He said. And so Mary surrenders her request and that problem to Jesus’ will and word. “Do whatever He tells you.”

And they do. The water in the six, not seven or eight, but six stone jars for the Jewish rites of purification was turned into wine. The old wine ran out. It had lapsed. The new wine had come. The imperfect had been replaced by the perfect and far better. In this sign, Jesus shows that the old had passed away, and the new had come. For he came to make all things new.

Not just new wine, but all things. The old—the old rites, the old temple, the old way of marriage, the old Adam and Eve, the old way sinners relate to each other and to God—everything old had passed away, had come to their end, their conclusion in Jesus Christ. And in Him the new had come—the new rites, the new temple, the new marriage which has no end, the new way sinners relate to each other and to God. It’s all fulfilled in Him. It’s all fulfilled in Jesus Christ, in the Word of the creator become flesh to re-create, to make all things new again. In Him, it is finished—a new creation, a new order with new life, where sin, death, and the power of the devil are overcome and where moth and rust cannot destroy.

And this is what our Lord reveals in the first of His signs. That despite how bad, how sinful, how negligent, how unloving, how disrespectful we have been or are, how much we abuse Him and His love, that despite all that, He came to make all things new. It is not yet too late. He loves you and thus he gives up His life to protect you, to keep you safe, to cleanse you and sanctify you. You are always new and perfect because of Him and His love. He came to forgive you and renew you. He came so that you would delight in His will and walk in His Word to the glory of His holy Name.

So rejoice and delight in the Lord, your Bridegroom. For he comes, even now, with new wine, the best wine, to gladden your hearts. And so our Lord gives to them and also to you a life enlivened, enhanced, and textured, a life lived with new joy, new intensity, new awareness, and a new openness to one another and to God. For the wine that He gives is His blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins. Come, then, have your sins forgiven and your hearts gladdened. For you are his dearly beloved. Amen.

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