John 2:1-12

Epiphany 2, 2021| John 2.1-12 | by Richard Johnson |

2 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” ⁴ And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” ⁶ Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. ⁹ When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” ¹¹ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. [John 2.1-12 NRSV]

We are into the season of Epiphany now, the season of light whose theme is the way Christ is manifested or made known to the world. Our opening hymn this morning [“Songs of Thankfulness and Praise”] is one of my favorites, one which weaves together several traditional gospel stories which have always been highlighted in this season. We sang that Jesus was “manifested by the star to the sages from afar. Then he was “manifest at Jordan’s stream”—last Sunday’s story of Jesus’ baptism. And manifest “at Cana, wedding guest, in his Godhead manifest”—today’s gospel lesson. John calls this miracle at Cana “the first of Jesus’ signs,” the first thing Jesus did that pointed to who he was. This sign, John goes on, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee, and he “revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”

Jesus revealed his glory

It is that last phrase I want us to think about for a few moments. Jesus “revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” Let’s think first about the miracle itself. It almost seems a little crass, doesn’t it, to think that the disciples believed in Jesus just because he turned water into wine. Were they so gullible and superstitious that a miracle like that could convince them about Jesus?

But as is often the case in John’s gospel, we must look below the surface. When John says Jesus “revealed his glory,” he’s not talking simply about the miracle. There is a deeper meaning. Notice, for example, that there were six stone jars. In Jewish thinking, the number seven was the perfect number, which symbolized fullness, completeness. The number six was regarded as imperfect—not quite seven. It would be sort of like saying, in our culture, “I’m 99% sure about this”—which means, when you come right down to it, that I’m not really quite sure. In that example, 99 is an “imperfect number”—one that falls just short of the ideal. And that’s what “six” often means in Jewish writings. There were six jars, and they were jars used in the Jewish rite of purification. So the observant reader of John’s story would notice first of all that Jesus is going to be dealing in a symbolic way with the imperfection, or the incompleteness, of the Jewish law.

Note also that this takes place at a wedding. Very often in the Old Testament, a wedding is a metaphor for the expected coming of the Messiah. We heard it in Isaiah today: “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” The idea is that the joy and love that will be expressed at the coming of God’s Kingdom is like the joy and love of a wedding feast.

That idea is advanced further when we see what Jesus does with these jars of water. He turns the water to wine—but what a wine supply! Each jar held about 30 gallons, so we end up with 180 gallons of fine wine—far more than even the most riotous wedding reception would likely drink! But again, in the Old Testament, an abundance of wine is a symbol for the coming Messiah. When the Messiah comes, the Jews believed, it will be like a feast with an abundance of wine—no shortage, no need for caution or concern about scarcity. More than enough.

Put all this together, and you can see what it means that Jesus “revealed his glory.” It isn’t that he was a great miracle worker; rather it is that he is the Messiah, come to fulfill the imperfect Jewish law and invite all men and women to the great wedding banquet of God’s Kingdom.

They believed in him

And so, in this way he “revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” But what does that last part mean? After all, they were already disciples; they had already agreed to follow him. Didn’t they already believe?

Perhaps this reminds us that faith is not something that happens all at once, “boom” and that’s it. It is something that needs to happen over and over. Christ reveals himself repeatedly, he makes himself known repeatedly, and we believe—that is, our belief, our trust, grows and increases.

Think about it this way: You meet someone for the first time, and you can certainly rightly claim that you “know” that person. On the most basic level, you do know her; you have met her. But every time you come in contact with that person, your knowledge of her grows. Every time you are with her, she reveals herself to you by what she says, or how she acts. You come to know her more deeply. The more experiences you have with this person, the more it means to say, “I know her.”

And that’s the way it is with Jesus and his disciples, with Jesus and us. We know him, we believe in him—but that isn’t a final, once and for all kind of relationship. It is a relationship that must grow. In a sense, every time we come in contact with Jesus, he is revealing himself to us. And the more he reveals, the more fully we know him, and the more fully we believe.

Word

He comes to us in many ways, but we Lutherans believe there are two ways especially in which he “reveals his glory.” One is through his Word, and the other through his Sacraments.

Through his Word, he calls us, speaks to us, addresses our concerns, our needs, our yearnings, our desires. Think about it again in terms of human relationships. Words are an important part of how we reveal ourselves to one another. I’ve recently been e-mailing with a second cousin of mine; I’ve never met her, but her grandfather and mine were brothers. She never knew her grandfather, he died before she was born; but she has inherited the love letters he wrote to her grandmother. She reads those words, those words now nearly a century old, and she comes to know this man she has never met.

I suspect we all do the same thing. A friend, a loved one, says something to us—maybe something almost in passing, but the words somehow take root in our heart. We treasure them, we ponder them, we love them because they reveal something to us. Sometimes with an old friend I find myself saying, “I remember something you said to me thirty years ago . . .” Probably you do the same. Words bind us to one another in a way that nothing else can do.

Is it that way with you and God’s Word? At morning prayer this week, we were talking about how we read the Psalms—or any Scripture, for that matter. I suggested one thing that helps me: when I am hearing the Word read in church, I listen for a phrase or just a single word that seems to speak particularly to me. Then, in the silence following the reading and throughout the service, I turn it over in my heart and mind, let it continue to challenge me or inform me, let it do its work of binding my heart closer to God. In that way Jesus reveals himself to me, again and again.

Sacrament

The other way Jesus does that is through the Sacraments. In a non-verbal way, through the Sacraments he touches us, he is present with us. One of the ways I like to describe the Sacraments to children is to have them think about how their parents express love to them. One way is through words, and that is important. But that isn’t all. Our parents also touch us, and we need that. We need them to kiss us goodnight, to hug us goodbye or hello. Baptism and especially Holy Communion are like that. They are the physical, tactile expression of Christ’s love for us. Through his Word he talks to us and tells us of his love; through water and bread and wine he touches us, he hugs us and holds us close to himself.

Each time we hear the Word, each time we receive his Body and Blood in the Eucharist, Christ is revealing himself to us. The hymn we will sing in just a moment [“Now the Silence”] calls Holy Communion “the Son’s epiphany.” It is Jesus, revealing himself to us, just as certainly and as personally as he revealed himself to the disciples at that wedding in Cana. I don’t know a better way to put it than in the words of the Dutch poet Klas Hanzen Heeroma:

We, who once were dead,

Now live, fully knowing

Jesus as our head.

Life is overflowing

When he breaks the bread.

This is your design,

In this meal we meet you.

Be our bread and wine,

Jesus, we entreat you,

This shall be our sign.

May our eyes be open to see the signs that he so graciously gives, that we may believe in him.

—

Pastor Richard Johnson

Webster, NY

roj@nccn.net