A series of epiphanies at Cana

Sermon for Epiphany 2

Romans 12:6-16  +  John 2:1-11

What kind of Messiah would Jesus be? How would He reveal Himself to the world? How would He save His people from their sins? Mary must have wondered about all these things; the Old Testament prophecies were intentionally vague, and so far, 30 years had passed since Jesus’ birth without any life-changing deeds on His part. He had recently gone down to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. That was surrounded by some strange events—a voice from heaven declaring Him to be the Son of God in whom God the Father is well-pleased, the Holy Spirit descending on Him in the form of a dove. But it appears that no one heard it except for Jesus and John. There was no big public revelation, no spectacular kick-start to Jesus’ ministry. On the contrary, right after His Baptism He disappeared for over a month (to be tempted in the wilderness, as we learn from the Evangelists). Immediately after His return from the wilderness, Jesus chose a handful of disciples, and the very first thing He did with them was to attend a wedding in Cana. Maybe this would be the great revelation of Mary’s Son as the Messiah!

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives Mary and His disciples and us a taste of what’s to come—not exactly what anyone expected—a series of revelations or epiphanies in which He teaches us several things about Himself and His plan of salvation.

The fact that Jesus’ first act after calling His first disciples was to attend a wedding is itself an epiphany. It says something. It reveals that He hasn’t come to inaugurate an age of celibacy, or a new spiritual age in which God’s people pretend to be above the mundane concerns of married life. He hasn’t come to turn people into monks or nuns. (Nor, by the way, has He come to turn His people into teetotalers—people who pretend to serve God on a higher plain by avoiding all alcohol.) Some people can serve God best without marrying, but not most of us. God created us to live in pairs, for the most part, one man and one woman living a single combined life for life. Jesus hasn’t come to disrupt that pattern, but to bless it. To bless it, and even to set the ideal pattern for it, teaching husbands how to love their wives by His own example of loving the Church in giving Himself into death for her, and teaching wives how to submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Him in everything.

At the wedding reception, they ran out of wine. It’s not a big problem, but to Mary, it presents a big opportunity for Jesus to finally reveal Himself openly as the Savior by doing a miracle for all to see. She wanted Him to manifest His glory as the Son of God to all the attendees at the reception, and so she informs Him that they’re out of wine, implying that He take this opportunity to come out into the open as the Son of God after 30 long years of hiding His divinity.

But that’s not what Jesus has planned. He replies to Mary, Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come. It wouldn’t come for three years, and when it did come, Mary wasn’t going to like it one bit, because the true manifestation of Jesus before the world as the Christ wouldn’t be in a victorious display of majesty, wouldn’t be a welcome or glorious sight at all. It would be in being rejected, in suffering and dying for the sins of the world. That was the true, public manifestation and epiphany of Jesus as the Son of God.

No, what Jesus reveals about Himself here is His plan to keep Himself hidden from most, hidden under the mask of normalcy, of humility, while revealing Himself to only a few at a time. His plan was to reveal Himself chiefly by His Word, by His teaching, to convert sinners by His Word alone, and then, to those who believed, He would reveal bits and pieces of His glory along the way.

That desire to remain hidden from the eyes of the world and to convert sinners a few at a time, by means of His Word alone, still confuses people. They imagine that, if God were real and if Jesus were God, then He would show Himself. He would get rid of all the wrong in the world and inaugurate an age of right. They imagine that He would confront people with an irresistible, irrefutable manifestation of His Godhood, instead of speaking softly through the preaching of His Word and letting people reject Him left and right. But what we learn from the wedding at Cana is that the world’s idea of Jesus has always been wrong.

At the same time, He isn’t indifferent to our earthly needs, even the small ones. He quietly gives instruction to the servant girls, who quietly fill the stone jars with water and then draw some of it to take to the master of the feast. And what does he find when he tastes it? It’s not water; it’s wine. He doesn’t know where it came from, that a few moments ago it was just plain water.

Just plain water becomes something miraculous when Christ adds His Word to it. That should remind you of something: of Luther’s explanation of Holy Baptism in the Small Catechism: Baptism is not just plain water, but it is the water included in God’s command and connected to God’s word… For without God’s word the water is plain water and no Baptism; but with the word of God it is a Baptism—a water of life, rich in grace, and a washing of regeneration in the Holy Spirit.

So Jesus reveals His divine power and glory in this miracle, adding His Word to the water and changing it into something meant for celebration, something meant to bring joy and gladness to the heart. But again, He reveals it to a chosen few—to a few servant girls, to His mother and to His handful of new disciples. The wine is for everyone at the feast, but the revelation, the epiphany is for a chosen few.

This wasn’t the public spectacle Mary had been looking for; it was something better. Because it’s the same powerful-but-hidden Jesus who is working right now in His Church, quietly, invisibly, working repentance, working through Baptism, working through preaching, working through bread and wine, to which He also adds His Word so that they become something more: His own body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins, and now administered to you that you may take part in the marriage supper of the Lamb. He gave Himself on the cross for all men, but it’s to the chosen few, to those who have believed His Word, that He continues to reveal Himself, giving peace to our hearts through the knowledge that He reigns invisibly over all things, even in the midst of this world’s darkness.

One final note on today’s Gospel, one more little epiphany. We note that the master of the feast was surprised as he tasted the wine that the servants brought to him, not because he knew where it came from, but because it was so good—far better than the wine that had been served so far. He couldn’t fathom why the bridegroom would reserve the best wine till last. That’s not how it’s done. The guests can’t appreciate the good stuff, the expensive stuff, after drinking a few cups of the cheap stuff. Why save the best till last?

Because that’s how it will be in the Messiah’s kingdom. God doesn’t give us the best life here on earth. That’s the life that awaits us at the last. He doesn’t give you everything you’ve ever wanted here, nor will He. On the contrary, you may suffer much here below. But something better is coming. He doesn’t start out revealing the fullness of His glory to us here and now. On the contrary, you see a Christian Church that’s weak and frail and outwardly divided. He’s saving the full revelation of His glory until the end, when He comes and takes His Bride, the Church, into the great wedding hall. Now we have a foretaste of that wedding banquet here in this Divine Service. But then we will have the full banquet of life and joy in God’s presence. I have come that they may have life, Jesus said, and that they may have it more abundantly. And you will, if you remain firm and steadfast in the faith, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.