A Prophet like Moses, but better

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

Romans 12:6-16  +  John 2:1-11

About 1500 years before Jesus was born, Moses stood at the border of the Promised Land and prophesied His coming: The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear. More than any other writer in the New Testament, the Apostle John brings out the comparison between Moses and Jesus, the Prophet who was like Moses, but infinitely better.

John spells out the comparison already in chapter 1 of his Gospel: For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. But there are many more comparisons that we can draw just from the Gospel of John. For example…Moses gave the people of Israel the Word of God; Jesus came to the people of Israel as the Word of God made flesh. Moses wrote about the creation of the world; Jesus participated in the creation of the world. Moses wrote about how God created the light that lightens the world; Jesus came into the world as the true Light that lightens all men. Moses gave the people the sacrificial lamb; Jesus gave Himself for the people as the sacrificial Lamb. Moses lifted up the bronze serpent, so that whoever looked at it would be healed; Jesus is the One who has been lifted up, so that everyone who looks to Him in faith will be saved from the ancient serpent’s bite. Moses, by God’s power, gave the people of Israel bread from heaven; Jesus is the true Bread from heaven, the living bread that sustains any who eat of it. Moses, by God’s power, took a rock and gave the people water in the wilderness; Jesus, by His own power, took stone jars filled with water and gave them wine at a wedding.

Since that’s the subject of our Gospel today, let’s focus on that event and consider what hidden truth is revealed about Jesus at this little Epiphany, at this revelation of Jesus as the Prophet like Moses, but better.

Since we left Him last week as a 12-yr-old Boy, Jesus remained mostly hidden until He was about 30 years old. There was that Epiphany of His hidden divinity at His Baptism, when God the Father spoke from heaven and the Holy Spirit descended on Him as a dove. Then there was a secret struggle in the wilderness for 40 days, where Jesus fasted and was tempted by Satan. Then back to the Jordan, where John the Baptist is responsible for another revelation: Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! Jesus immediately calls His first disciples: Peter, Andrew; Nathanael & Philip, reveals a tiny bit of His divine omniscience to Nathanael. Then up to Galilee with His new disciples, to the little town of Cana, not far from Nazareth, for a wedding.

Let’s stop and consider just that for a moment. A wedding reception hardly seems like the best place to begin teaching His new disciples and revealing His divinity and His mission to them, but it’s the beginning that Jesus chose. What does that reveal? It reveals, first of all, His approval of marriage as an institution of God that still pleases God to this day. He would later remind the Jews of that when they were looking eagerly for an excuse to break up marriages in divorce: Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.

You remember who first told us that God “made them male and female” in the beginning and brought husband and wife together? Yes, it was Moses. Moses wrote about God’s institution of marriage between Adam and Eve; Jesus brought about and attended Adam’s & Eve’s wedding, even as He attended this wedding banquet and honored it with His presence. So He still commands that marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure. And He promises to bless husband and wife as the husband loves the wife, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her; as the wife submits to her husband as the Church submits to Christ.

Back to our Gospel. Jesus’ mother Mary was also invited to the wedding and seemed to have some serving role at the reception, making some wonder if maybe she and Jesus were related to the bride and groom. At some point, they ran out of wine, or were beginning to run out; it’s hard to tell from the text. Mary approaches Jesus and says, They have no wine. Why does she tell Him? We have no evidence that He has ever performed a miracle before. But He has now begun His public ministry. He’s brought His first disciples along with Him to the wedding. She’s waiting. She knows that He hasn’t come into the world just to lead an ordinary life. So she’s expecting that He will do something extraordinary at some point, and she’s hoping He’ll do a favor for the bride and groom. Maybe now? Here’s Your chance, Jesus?

His reply is rather harsh, isn’t it? Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? From that reply, we can gather two things. First, that Mary had overstepped. After 30 years of speaking to Jesus as a mother to her Son, she had to learn a new place for herself: Not as an authority over Jesus, but as a subject in His kingdom; not as a mother to her Son, teaching Him, giving advice, exerting influence, but as a beloved disciple who was there to learn from Jesus. His reply is a gentle rebuke to her: Don’t involve yourself in My office as Christ.

Secondly, with that reply Jesus left a warning for future generations not to raise Mary to the role of mediatrix or intercessor. One old graphic of this text from John 2 is entitled, “Mary intercedes at a wedding.” Many Christians, influenced by the devil himself, have gone astray, imagining that Mary has a special role at Jesus’ side, even now, that she has special influence with Him, as a mother to her Son. But they should have paid better attention to this text. Mary is like any other believer in Christ, who has every right to approach Him, but no special influence over and above what others have. This text serves as a rebuke toward those who would pray to Mary so that she can then pray to Jesus on their behalf. That’s not how it works in the kingdom of Christ.

The second part of Jesus’ reply also takes some thought: My hour has not yet come. Later in John’s Gospel, He refers to His hour as having finally come: the hour of His greatest Epiphany, the revelation of God in Jesus’ humiliation on the cross, the revelation that God loved the world that much, that He would give His only Son into death for our sins. That was His real “hour,” the chief thing He came to do. It wasn’t to provide wine at a wedding. It was to provide His blood as a sacrifice.

But a little Epiphany here at the wedding would still be given. Mary guesses as much, because she tells the servants to do whatever He says. He said to fill the six stone water pots to the brim. We’re told they held 20-30 gallons each, so they had to be much bigger than the drawing on the cover of our service folder, and probably stood in a fixed place on the floor. Then He told them to draw from the water they had poured into the jars and take it to the master of the feast, the wedding planner of that time, who tasted the water that had become wine and was a little upset with the bridegroom for saving the best till last.

Do you remember what Moses’ first miracle was in the sight of all Egypt, the first plague that God brought against Egypt for their failure to obey Moses? It was the changing of water into blood; Jesus’ first miracle in the sight of His disciples was the changing of water into wine. A gift to the newlyweds and to all their guests. A sign, as John calls it, revealing His glory to His disciples. A sign to us that this Prophet like Moses did not come to destroy sinners, to bring God’s plagues against sinners, but to save them, and to give them life to the fullest and reason to rejoice.

And when He comes to us in Word and Sacrament and calls us into His kingdom, He calls us to live differently from the world, but not separately from the world. He doesn’t call us to renounce marriage and wedding receptions and wine. He calls us, not to leave the world, but to be the salt and the light of the world. St. Paul ran off a list in today’s Epistle of simple behaviors that Christians are to follow in the world. Were you listening? Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.

In some ways, that sounds a lot like Moses and the long list of laws he gave to the people of Israel. But in other ways, it’s much different. Moses was sent to make a covenant of obedience with the people of Israel. Obey, and God will be your God and bless you. Jesus was sent to make a covenant of the forgiveness of sins. Not, obey, and you will be forgiven, or, bring a sacrifice, and you will be forgiven, but trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and for the sake of His obedience and sacrifice, you will be forgiven. And then, starting from that status of being forgiven and well-pleasing to God through faith in Christ, the commands St. Paul issues simply show God’s people how to live as Christians, how to imitate God, how to love one another as Christ has loved us.

Moses changed water into blood. Jesus changed water into wine. But to bring it full circle, Jesus now takes wine and, with it, gives us His blood to drink in a holy Sacrament. Moses gave Israel bread from heaven. Jesus is the living bread that came down from heaven, and now gives us His body with the bread of His Supper, to make us one with Him, to feed us with His flesh and blood, for the forgiveness of sins, for the strength to live another day in this chaotic and evil world. Moses accompanied Israel in the wilderness and led them up to the Promised Land, but died before he could lead them into it. Jesus is the Prophet who will not only accompany us in this wilderness, but died and rose from the dead so that He can see us safely across the border of eternal life. That—together with everything else—makes Him a better Prophet than Moses by far. Amen.