{"id":11681,"date":"2007-01-07T19:48:47","date_gmt":"2007-01-07T18:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=11681"},"modified":"2025-04-08T17:18:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T15:18:46","slug":"john-21-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/john-21-11\/","title":{"rendered":"John 2:1-11"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany | 14 January 2007 |<\/strong> John 2:1-11 | Samuel Zumwalt |<\/strong><\/h3>\n

John 2:1-11 [<\/strong> English Standard Version ,<\/strong> \u00a9\u00a02001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers<\/a> ] <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c1On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, „They have no wine.“ 4And Jesus said to her, „Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.“ 5His mother said to the servants, „Do whatever he tells you.“ 6Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to the servants, „Fill the jars with water.“ And they filled them up to the brim. 8And he said to them, „Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.“ So they took it. 9When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10and said to him, „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.“ 11This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

A Sermon for 2 Epiphany <\/strong><\/p>\n

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.<\/p>\n

Both the prophets Joel and Amos declared that when the Messiah came there would be an abundance of wine (see Joel 3:18 and Amos 9:13). The prophets declared that the mountains would drip with sweet wine when God\u2019s anointed king showed up, the same kind of wine we use in our celebration of Holy Communion.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to celebrate when there is an abundance of sweet wine. That\u2019s what you\u2019ll find if you ever participate in a Jewish Seder, or Passover celebration. Even if you tend towards the somber, it\u2019s hard not to be rather happy after having enjoyed such a celebration with glass after glass of sweet kosher wine served throughout the meal. Everything about that meal has great significance. Small children ask questions about why Passover is different from any other night. Then everyone recalls God\u2019s mighty act of deliverance when Israel was freed from Egyptian slavery. Let me tell you, a great time is had by all. But, I must warn you, if Jewish friends ever invite you to a Seder, you should plan on taking a taxi there and back or, at least, have a designated driver.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s kind of like that in John 2. But they are not celebrating the Passover when the Lord Jesus, God\u2019s Messiah, shows up. They are having a wedding feast at the groom\u2019s family home. All have eaten well and have enjoyed a lot of wine. Yet now there\u2019s a problem. The wine is running out, and the party is far from over.<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 Jewish momma sizes up the dilemma and tells her boy about it. The implicit command is: \u201cFix it!\u201d Of course, you can almost hear Jesus\u2019 sigh. It\u2019s kind of like a pastor being on vacation and showing up as a visitor at a congregation whose pastor suddenly calls in sick. So the congregation\u2019s president stands up and says: \u201cIs there a pastor in the house?\u201d And the pastor\u2019s spouse leans over and says: \u201cHoney, you\u2019ve got to help them out.\u201d And the response is a look that says: \u201cGreat! It\u2019s my first Sunday off in months, and I\u2019m supposed to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

You notice that Mary doesn\u2019t take no for an answer. Like all mothers, she\u2019s used to being obeyed. In fact, she says to the servants, \u201cDo whatever my son tells you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now there are six jars for water to be used in washing according to the various Jewish purification rites. Each when full can hold up to 30 gallons of water. So Jesus tells the servants to fill them to the brim, and he says to draw some out and take it to the man in charge of the feast. When the guy tastes the wine, he says to the groom: \u201cThis stuff is incredible. Normally people serve the good wine first, and then as the people get sloshed, the hosts bring out the cheap stuff. But not you! You have saved the very best for last!\u201d What a party!<\/p>\n

WHEN IT\u2019S NOT LOVE <\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m presently reading a disturbing novel entitled The Wrong Man<\/em><\/strong> from author John Katzenbach. It seems a bright young graduate student named Ashley has made the huge mistake of hooking up only once with a good looking but evil fellow named Michael. She had been drunk. She made a huge mistake. But now she could not get rid of the guy. He is obsessed beyond all reason.<\/p>\n

Michael doesn\u2019t just write her notes saying that she is his forever. Michael follows the guy that kisses Ashley at the doorstep after a first date, and Michael beats the guy nearly to death. In fact, Ashley is disappointed not to ever hear from the guy again, not knowing that he is comatose for two months and thereafter in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n

Ashley keeps telling Michael to leave her alone. Her professor dad tries to talk sense to the guy, even offering him $5,000 to leave his daughter alone. Michael responds by anonymously accusing her father of plagiarism and even by rewriting another man\u2019s doctoral dissertation to incriminate Ashley\u2019s father. Then Michael messes with Ashley\u2019s lawyer mother\u2019s professional bank accounts and then anonymously accuses her of stealing from clients. Then Michael anonymously accuses Ashley\u2019s mom\u2019s partner, a high school coach, of the sexual harassment of a 15 year old student.<\/p>\n

And the story goes on. It\u2019s the 80s movie Fatal Attraction <\/em>rewritten for the 21 st century. Michael is a very, very bad dude. Ashley should never, never have hooked up with a stranger just because she was drunk and he was cute.<\/p>\n

But this is not just a story that anxious parents tell to keep their sweet daughters in line. In fact, it is a fictionalized account of a recurring nightmare for many young women and men in America. Not all obsessive people are merely in need of intensive therapy. There are some really evil people out there that look incredibly normal. They are not just the sick types that are guilty of date rape. They are the kind of people that have a lot in common with serial killers \u2013 criminally brilliant and lethal.<\/p>\n

So when young people go out to party, they should always be with friends that will watch their back and vice versa. You never know when there is a predator out there.<\/p>\n

WHEN IT IS LOVE <\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve met a lot of couples over the years and have helped a lot of people get married. I\u2019ve also listened to a lot of stories of married love gone wrong. In fact, I\u2019ve lived that story, too. And it\u2019s difficult to talk about. Invariably when I talk about this topic I end up offending some people, which is not my goal.<\/p>\n

My goal is talk about the marriage God wants people to have, so that those that aren\u2019t married will do some serious thinking about marriage. I also want those that are married to take an inventory of how things are going and what God wants for them, too.<\/p>\n

Let me say it and get this part over quickly. Divorce is never God\u2019s will for us, and most divorces could be prevented by being more careful about whom we marry. Once we are married \u2013 with the exception of abuse or infidelity \u2013 God wills us to stay married even if we have chosen to marry someone that does not share our faith. It would be ludicrous to suggest that both spouses being nominally Christians automatically makes for a good marriage. It would also be ludicrous to suggest that spouses that don\u2019t share a common Christian faith could never have a good marriage. The evidence is not there.<\/p>\n

But I also remember a conversation I had with a woman that I dated in my late 20s. She had previously been in a serious relationship with a very nice fellow that happened to be Jewish. Because she and I ran in the same circles, I had observed the relationship for about a year. It was clear that there was much love between them, but then she had broken it off before they got married. I asked her what happened.<\/p>\n

She replied: \u201cMy mother told me how much she liked him, and what a fine young man he was. She said he would indeed make a good husband. But then she asked me what I would do about Christmas and Easter once I had children. My mother reminded me how much I loved all of the family activities they shared both at church and at home. She asked how I would handle it if my husband could not share in the same kind of spiritual and cultural joy as my own family always had experienced together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The young woman said: \u201cMy mother never told me not<\/strong> to marry him. She made me think about things, and I realized that I wanted someone that could share my faith with me.\u201d So that was that. After some matchmaking by friends, she and I began to date. Of course, it was rather ironic that even though we both shared a common faith and many interests, the relationship never really clicked. She ended up marrying a fellow whose family background was closer to her own, and, at last report, all was still well with them.<\/p>\n

I went on to a couple of more near misses and then to a relationship that would have been better if it had not become a marriage given a number of serious differences that should have been enough to discourage both of us. Alas, it is possible to love someone who is simply not right for you and for whom you also are not a match. Mutual attraction and even affection are not enough to make a marriage good or godly.<\/p>\n

BEING DRAWN OUT <\/strong><\/p>\n

Now by this point you may be thoroughly confused saying that it was rather a leap, and maybe a bit of stream of consciousness, to move from Jesus\u2019 first miracle at the wedding of Cana to talking about whom we marry. After all, shouldn\u2019t we be talking about the wonder of His having turned 180 gallons of ordinary water into vintage wine?<\/p>\n

Well, maybe it\u2019s not so great a leap after all. For, in those days, momma and daddy would never have allowed a good Jewish girl to marry a non-Jewish boy and vice versa. How could you have a lot of good Jewish babies and raise them up in the faith if momma and daddy weren\u2019t both God-fearing Jews? In fact, the great joy for those at the wedding of Cana was all wrapped up with God\u2019s people keeping the faith and passing along the faith to the next generations that were going to come out of this new union.<\/p>\n

Every Jew knew that the sexy Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) was a great celebration of God\u2019s gift of sexuality to a husband and wife. Paraphrasing loosely, the groom in the poem says things like: \u201cI can\u2019t keep my eyes off of you. You have got to be my wife and move in with me like yesterday.\u201d And she responds with equal enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

But every good Jew also knew that the sexy Song of Songs was also about God\u2019s great love for His people Israel. He was the great Lover, the great Husband of His people. So every Jewish wedding feast and every Jewish honeymoon was also a blissful reflection of the joyful relationship between the LORD and His people. Indeed Isaiah talked about a great future banquet that was coming for the LORD and His people (ch.25), and that later became part of the Christian story of the last things (Rev. 21).<\/p>\n

So we can see that it is not a leap or even a stretch to say that the marriage relationship for both Jews and Christians is meant to be a sign of God\u2019s faithfulness to His people. And the joy of the wedding feast or the wedding banquet or the wedding reception anticipates and reflects the joy God has in us and the joy He wants us to have in Him. So that even though Jesus really didn\u2019t seem to go to the wedding at Cana thinking it would become a teachable moment (or even something that would preach), nevertheless that\u2019s exactly what happened when His Momma prompted, pushed, and plain old insisted that her boy solve the case (or cases) of the missing wine.<\/p>\n

He told the servants to fill the jars to the brim and then to draw some out and take it to the man in charge so that sweet wine would gush from the jars if not drip from the mountains. And if God\u2019s only begotten Son could do that with water, imagine what He could do with husbands and wives that are acting as empty as a bunch of water jars and as joyless as a wedding feast that has run out of wine? Don\u2019t you think the Lord Jesus who drew vintage wine from ordinary water jars could draw the equivalent of fine wine from Christian spouses that have, as the wedding liturgy says, discovered that \u201cbecause of sin, our age-old rebellion, the gladness of marriage can be overcast and the gift of the family can become a burden\u201d (Lutheran Book of Worship<\/em>, p. 203)?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you believe that \u201cGod, who established marriage, continues still to bless it with his abundant and ever-present support\u201d and that \u201cwe can be sustained in our weariness and have our joy restored\u201d by Him (203)?<\/p>\n

BE DRAWN OUT! <\/strong><\/p>\n

A folksy old friend of mine used to say about finding the right match: \u201cIf you want to hunt elephants, you need to go where the elephants are.\u201d I know that\u2019s not the most flattering picture especially for the most visual among us. But he was trying to say that you can\u2019t find what you\u2019re looking for if you\u2019re looking in the wrong place. That\u2019s exactly what that old girlfriend\u2019s mother told her in a rather thoughtful and gentle way!<\/p>\n

Our God is indeed the great Lover and Husband of His people. The heavenly Father sent His only begotten Son, born of the Virgin Mary, to be both Messiah and Savior. On the cross, He gave His body and blood to free us from sin, death, and evil. He promised that everyone that believes and is baptized into His death and resurrection will share His eternal life and love. That is why at the Last Supper, He instituted the meal that would keep connecting us to His saving death and His real presence until, at last, we are gathered to the great wedding feast of the Lamb. Our God wants everyone to share in an eternity of joy and love! Marriage is meant to reflect and anticipate that life!<\/p>\n

There is simply nothing more joyous and wonderful than when the wedding liturgy and the wedding banquet of a Christian couple are a piece of the same holy quilt. The Eucharist at the wedding gives way to the party afterwards and then to year after year of Eucharists and joyful celebrations that all anticipate the great joyful party yet to come when, at last, we are at home with God.<\/p>\n

My sweet wife Laura and I love to repeat often the traditional English vows to one another complete with \u201cfor better or worse\u201d and \u201cplight thee my troth.\u201d We always add some words to our vows. We say, \u201cUntil death parts us AND BEYOND\u201d and always add at the end \u201cAnd I have forsaken all others and WILL cleave only unto thee.\u201d<\/p>\n

We both know how miserable it is when, because of sin our age-old rebellion, the jars are empty. We both know how painful it is when all that\u2019s there is the same old joyless water instead of the sweet wine of God\u2019s great love reflected in the marriage. We both know how much it hurts to pray and work for things to be better only to find love not reciprocated. It is not what God wants for any of us. Who could want such misery?<\/p>\n

It takes a miracle for water to become sweet wine. May the Holy Spirit fill each husband and each wife today and then draw us out and make of us the finest vintage!<\/p>\n

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a9 Samuel D. Zumwalt<\/strong>
\nszumwalt@bellsouth.net
\n<\/a>St. Matthew\u2019s Evangelical Lutheran Church<\/strong>
\nWilmington , North Carolina USA<\/strong><\/p>\n

[An mp3 version may be accessed by clicking on the icon at the top right \u201cThis Week\u2019s Message\u201d page at www.stmatthewsch.org<\/a>] <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany | 14 January 2007 | John 2:1-11 | Samuel Zumwalt | John 2:1-11 [ English Standard Version , \u00a9\u00a02001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers ] \u201c1On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2Jesus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,659,727,157,853,108,110,658,349,3,109,160],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-11681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-johannes","category-2-so-n-epiphanias","category-archiv","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-02-chapter-02-johannes","category-kasus","category-nt","category-predigten","category-samuel-david-zumwalt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11681"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22546,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11681\/revisions\/22546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11681"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=11681"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=11681"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=11681"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=11681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}