[Sermon Archive] - [Weekly Devotional Guide]

This Week's Sermon THE SECOND SUNDAY after the EPIPHANY 17 January 2010 "A Higher Reality" John 2:1-11 LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

It was three days after his baptism by John that Jesus attended a marriage in Cana of Galilee. Already he begins fulfilling the Scriptures which spoke of the Messiah as going through the region of Galilee, calling it "Galilee of the nations" [Isaiah 9.1]. The light begins to dawn there in that place. Jesus manifests his glory as the Christ by performing his first messianic sign. John calls them "signs," those acts which reveal the mind and work of God. These signs point to Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. Epiphany is about these signs which reveal Jesus as the Christ.

Perhaps you have never thought of this reading in that context, but the ancient church fathers did. St. Augustine wrote: "The Lord was invited and came to a wedding. Is it any wonder that he who came to that house for a wedding came to this world for a wedding? . . ." [Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, vol. NT Iva, p. 89]. So there are really two things going on here as Jesus performs his first sign. There is "A Higher Reality" than one might get at first glance.

By consenting to attend this wedding, Jesus sanctified the institution of marriage. It was not that marriage was not originally holy because it was. God ordained it in Eden, but when Adam and Eve fell into sin, marriage was affected.

"To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."" (Genesis 3:16-19, ESV)

Sin rose its ugly, divisive head into this fundamental human relationship, the relationship upon which all society rests. By his presence at Cana Jesus announced that a restoration had begun because he had come to deal with the root cause of all marital unrest, sin.

Marriage as ordained by God is under assault in our age by those who have disdain for it. They do it by living as husband and wife without being married. It is considered the norm these days. It no longer bears any stigma that it is wrong and out of step with God's institution. Even many Christians fall into the trap that this is not sinful, yet the Apostle Paul makes it clear that intercourse creates the "one flesh," which is the definition of marriage, of which Moses writes in Genesis 2.24. Living together, enjoying the benefits of marriage, without marriage perverts what God created and throws his institution back in his face.

Perhaps the most common understanding of the breaking of marriages is divorce. There is hardly a family that has been untouched by this. Ironically, those who live together before marriage to "test drive" their partners have a higher divorce rate if they marry than those who do not live together before marriage. Researchers have speculated that those who live together prior to marriage lack the same commitment that those who do not live together make. Divorce, says Jesus, is a result of man's "hardness of heart" [Matthew 19.8]. That's a way of zeroing in on man's inherent sinfulness and selfishness.

Marriage is held in contempt by many in our day. They point to its problems and failures, yet it is not the institution of marriage which is at fault, but sinful people who desecrate the institution. That there are sinful people in marriage in no way defines marriage itself. God pronounced it "good" at Creation.

We have heard an increasing drumbeat by those who twist the institution of marriage in Eden into a perversion of its origin and intent by same sex marriage. Again, our Lord spoke to this,

"He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female," (Matthew 19:4, ESV)

The Apostle Paul makes it clear that sin causes the perversity of God's creation by women exchanging natural relations for those contrary to the created order and by men doing the same thing, men having sexual relations with other men [Romans 1.26-27]. And while "God gave them up" to practice their perversity, none has an excuse when the judgment of God falls on him [Romans 1.28-2.2].

How significant that our Lord's first sign has to do with the family! He came to restore the basic unit of society before any other. He graced the marriage at Cana with his presence because he would manifest his glory and bless this nameless couple with more excellent wine than they could have ever imagined.

There is "A Higher Reality" here! Think of how many of our Lord's parables have a marriage setting, such as the parable of the Five Foolish and Five Wise Virgins, or the parable of the Marriage of the King's Son. Clearly Jesus points to something beyond our marriages.

His miracle in changing water into wine has highly significant implications. Wine is the Old Testament symbol of physical and spiritual joy [Genesis 27.28; Ecclesiastes 9.7]. Listen as Isaac blessed his son Jacob:

"May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine." (Genesis 27:28, ESV)

Wine also spoke about future hope, as the prophets spoke: Is. 25.6, Joel 2.19,

"The Lord answered and said to his people, "Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations." (Joel 2:19, ESV)

Wine is a blessing of abundance, Joel 2.24; 3.18.

"The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil." (Joel 2:24, ESV)

The glorious future of Judah was tied to an abundance of wine, says Joel further on.

"And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Shittim." (Joel 3:18, ESV)

Even further, and especially, wine has eschatological significance, that is, it is connected with the messianic age and the appearance and manifestation of the Messiah. Listen especially to the way Isaiah describes heaven:

"On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken." (Isaiah 25:6-8, ESV)

You perhaps remember that Isaiah's description of heaven is often the Old Testament reading for a Christian funeral. And the connection with what happens in the Divine Service each Sunday is plain from the words of the familiar communion canticle, Let the Vineyards Be Fruitful.

1 Let the vineyards be fruitful, Lord,
And fill to the brim our cup of blessing.
Gather a harvest from the seeds that were sown,
That we may be fed with the bread of life.
Gather the hopes and the dreams of all;
Unite them with the prayers we offer now.
Grace our table with Your presence, and give us
A foretaste of the feast to come.

Text (st. 1) and Music: © 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship Used by permission: LSB Hymn License .NET, number 100010193.
Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2006 Concordia Publishing House.

Let's get back to St. Augustine's observation that Jesus came for a wedding. Eve is called the mother of all the living because all the living have come from her, and because of her sin all her children die, but the Church is our mother who begets us to eternal life. From the womb of the baptismal font you have been born to a new and living hope because of Christ. Because you are baptized you are part of the Bride of Christ, the Church. Jesus came to cleanse and purify his Bride. Listen to another familiar text, one appointed for marriages. Here Paul explains that Higher Reality.

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." (Ephesians 5:22-33, ESV

Jesus was physically present at Cana. He came not to drink wine but to provide it. Jesus is physically present here, too. There are those who deny that Christ is physically present in the bread and wine, but should we not believe him when he says, "This is my body, this is my blood" in the Sacrament? He who changed water into wine can certainly give us his body and blood in the Sacrament. He took ordinary water and made it into fine wine. He takes bread and wine and makes them into heavenly food by which he forgives sin. He comes to give us his gifts.

Running out of wine goes beyond a social blunder. It would be "unholy" because the celebration would be curtailed and cease. The Church of our Lord Jesus Christ never runs out of the good wine of the forgiveness. Christ's forgiveness is a never-ending supply. This good wine is adequate to cover all your sins, no matter how many times you approach him. The chalice overflows with Christ's blood so that you know that your sins are forgiven.

Jesus came for his Bride, the Church. He came to purify her through Holy Baptism, the baptism of his blood, and to bring her unspotted to her heavenly home. He nourishes and cares for her on this earth until the day of his return.

Yet, our Lord Jesus Christ was pleased to come to the marriage at Cana and he is pleased to come to our marriages even today. He promises to bless all those who invite him into their marriages. He will provide for you and give you what you need. He will never leave nor forsake you. Jesus comes into your marriage to give you his gifts. His blessings can never be exhausted, either in this world or in the world to come.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.