Third Sunday after Epiphany, 2010

Text: St. John 2:1-11

The Rev. Jerry Kistler

St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church

Montrose, Colorado

“The First Sign of Glory”

“This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.”

Have you ever missed a sign? There were five of us in a Suburban driving home from a diocesan synod in Houston back to L.A one day – literally one day; we drove for twenty-four hours straight – well, actually twenty-five hours. By the time we got to the wide-open, empty spaces of western New Mexico it was about 3:00 in the morning, and it was my turn to drive. The driver before me had pulled off on the only freeway exit for at least seventy-five miles in both directions. Then he’d parked the car in little wide spot on the shoulder of that deserted country road, got out, and had to jostle me out of sleep to get me to take the driver’s seat – first major mistake. So then not being quite awake and a little disoriented, I proceeded to drive the Suburban over the overpass and then take a left back onto the freeway. What I missed was the sign that said “Interstate 10 East.” It wasn’t until about a half-an-hour later that any of us realized we were driving back to Houston. And then of course there was still no off-ramp for miles. So I took a big U-y across the center median, and headed back in the right direction.

Signs are important. Our society uses all sorts of different signs: road signs, business signs, hand signs. You name it, we have a sign for it. Being able to read and understand the signs is crucial to our ability to function in society. Signs are pictures that instantly convey important kinds of information. They point beyond themselves to something we should take note of, or be aware of. But not only that, signs also demand our response. A stop sign isn’t a suggestion. The East-bound sign on the freeway isn’t something you can take or leave. If you can’t see or make sense of the signs, you could end up going the wrong way. Visions of “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” come to mind.

St. John relies on all of these dimensions of signs in writing his gospel. Actually John organizes his gospel around seven signs, seven miracles of Jesus, which John sees as of particular importance as signs pointing to a deeper truth about Jesus. He didn’t include all the signs Jesus did, just these seven, for they were enough to fulfill his purpose. Remember what John wrote at the end of his Gospel: “Truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (Jn. 20:30-31)

The seven signs of John’s Gospel were recorded that we might come to have faith, or be strengthened in our faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and through that faith that we might have life in His name. In our Gospel lesson from John chapter 2 we read about the first of these signs, the miracle of turning water into wine. Johns says, “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.”

So what was it about this miracle that was like a sign-post to the disciples, and to all of us who have eyes to see it, that points in a special way to the glory of Jesus – to who He really is as the Christ, the Son of God – and demands our faith-response in Him?

Well, you know the story. Jesus and his disciples had been invited to a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was also there, John says. It seems she had some part in the organization of the festivities – an early Jewish version of a wedding coordinator perhaps. Then, at some point in the middle of the celebration, disaster strikes. The wine runs out! What could be worse? Either the groom hadn’t ordered enough from the caterers, or his guests were a little too liberal in their consumption. Either way in that culture this was a huge social faux pas. The idea that one could not provide for his guests was a terrible embarrassment to the family. As a matter of fact, there is some evidence that a bridegroom’s family could be sued for inadequately providing for the wedding feast – probably by the in-laws!

Again, most likely because she had some responsibility for coordinating the feast, it’s Mary who seems to note the problem first, and comes to tell Jesus the bad news: “They have no wine.” You know, that’s really more than a mere statement of fact, isn’t it? It’s sort of like when my wife tells me that the kitchen garbage is full. What she really means is "Aren’t you going to do something about the garbage?"  So our Lord's mother here comes to her Son to seek his help with the situation.

Throughout this Gospel, and in St. John’s other books in the New Testament, Mary is consistently portrayed as a picture of the Church. And here in this situation she is an excellent picture of how the church ought to pray to Christ in faith. She doesn’t try to manipulate Jesus. She doesn’t try to exert some kind of authority over Jesus. She doesn’t try to pull rank. She simply lays the need before him boldly and with confidence that He can and will help… even if at this point she may not know how he will help. If we take the text seriously, Jesus had never done any miracles before this time. And yet she believes and trusts in Him that He is able to do something that no one else could. That’s faith. That’s believing before seeing.

And not only that, but Mary endures in this faith even when Jesus seems to brush her off.  Though He answers her in a way that may seem to us a bit rough – literally, “Woman, what is it to me and to you?” – she simply turns and tells the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it."  That’s exactly the message of the Church, isn’t it? That’s exactly the message we should be proclaiming to those have no power to fill up the lack in their own lives, the emptiness of the wine of the Spirit. “Whatever He says to you, do it. Believe in Him and be filled.” Jesus said in John 10, “I have come that they may have life, and that more abundantly” (10:10).

That’s really was the miracle at Cana is all about. The prophets had long before depicted the Messianic age, the age that would be ushered in by Christ, as a time of wine flowing in abundance. An abundance of wine was a picture of God’s blessing and grace in its fullness. Remember the blessing Jacob pronounced over his son Judah in Genesis 49:11. Judah’s royal descendant would bring in an age when wine would be so abundant that you could wash your clothes in it! Amos speaks of the great day of salvation as the day when “The mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it” (9:13). Jeremiah looks forward to the day when “They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the Lord… the grain, the new wine and the oil… They will be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more” (31:12). The same imagery was taken over into the Jewish writings around the time of Jesus’ life and ministry. In the book 2 Baruch there is this fantastic description of the abundance of the Messianic age: “The earth… shall yield its fruit ten thousand-fold. On each vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall produce a thousand clusters; each cluster shall produce a thousand grapes, and each grape shall produce a cor of wine [or in other words, about 120 gallons]” (29:5, 6). Sounds like a great time!

So when Jesus sees the lack of wine at the feast He seizes the opportunity to reveal to His disciples this important truth about Himself: that He is the One who will usher in the Messianic feast – the abundance of grace and blessing of the New Covenant age depicted by the overflowing of wine.

There is an important theme highlighted here in this miracle, in this sign, of the Messianic age - the age of Christ and his apostles, the age of grace and truth, breaking in and superceding the age of Moses and the Law. Notice that it was the water that was contained in six stone jars that was turned to wine. We’re told that the six stone water jars were being used for the Jewish purification rituals. Jesus told the servants to fill the jars to brim which signified that the time of mere outward, ceremonial cleansing was now completely fulfilled. And then when the water was miraculously transformed into wine, it was symbolic of the passing away of the old order of the Law, and the breaking in of the new order of grace and abundant life in Christ.

And so John says in this miracle Jesus revealed his glory to his disciples. It was the glory of his grace and the fullness of God’s blessing through faith in Him. John had already introduced us to this theme in the first chapter. “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth…. And of His fullness we have all received… [grace upon grace.] For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

It’s in the very extravagance of the miracle itself that we see so clearly just how much grace and life and blessing there is for us, if we put our faith in Christ. The Lord does not simply solve the immediate problem. He doesn’t simply provide enough wine to get the guests to the end of the banquet. He orders six pots containing 20 to 30 gallons a piece to be filled to the brim. He creates an over abundance. And then, as if changing water to wine weren’t enough, He turns the water into the very finest wine anyone had ever tasted, so that the host of the feast, not knowing where the wine had come from, was moved to rebuke the bridegroom, saying, “You have kept the good wine until now” - again symbolic of the new wine of the grace and blessing of the Messianic age that had finally come in the person of Jesus the Messiah.

This is the revelation of the glory of Christ in the miracle at Cana. He took the occasion of a minor crisis at an obscure wedding feast to display to his disciples his grace and truth and the new age he was ushering in through faith in what He was about to accomplish: the true purification by the out-pouring out of the wine of his own blood. Like the finest wine in immense quantity, the kingdom of Christ is one of grace upon grace, grace to the full, for sinners like you and me who have no wine, who cannot produce the peaceable fruit of righteousness on our own.

But let’s not miss the sign. It’s written for us here in the Gospel of John that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we might have life in His Name – life in abundance. And it’s signified to us now as we would partake of the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus gives us His wine to drink. The fact that churches everywhere, all over the globe, are today celebrating this feast of the Lord is a sign to us that we are in fact living in the age in which the wine of God’s grace flows in abundance. Let’s see in it the glory of the Lord revealed to us, and believe in His Name and be partakers of His blessing. +