The God who came to bring you joy

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

Romans 12:6-16  +  John 2:1-11

Changing water into wine. That was Jesus’ first miracle after His “inauguration day” — that’s, in a sense, what His Baptism was, an inauguration into the Office of the Christ. Not that He wasn’t the Christ before that! He was! The angel declared already to the shepherds of Bethlehem that “unto you is born a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.” Jesus’ whole life on earth was one great offering to God and one great act of service on mankind’s behalf. But He began His public ministry when He was about 30 years old, on the day He was baptized.

We hear all too much of what certain elected officials intend to do on “day one” after their inauguration. Do you remember what Jesus did on day one? Let’s fast forward, for the moment, past the 40 days He spent in the wilderness right after He was baptized, where He was tempted by the devil. (We’ll talk about that in a few weeks.) Upon His return to the Jordan River, He was immediately and openly declared by John the Baptist to be the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. On the next day, which we’ll call “day one” of Jesus’ actual ministry, John privately pointed two of His disciples to Jesus again, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” And they went to Him and spent the day with Him and began learning from Him as His first disciples. On day two, Jesus gathered two more disciples on His way up to the region of Galilee. And then on the next day, the third day, where our Gospel begins, they all attended a wedding to which they had all been invited, together with Jesus’ mother, in a town called Cana. And there, the Apostle John tells us, He manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.

What did Jesus’ first miracle teach His first disciples about Him? What do we learn from this first official act of His about the purpose of His coming? I’ll summarize it this way: We learn that this Man is God, the God who came to bring us joy.

Let’s look at the event recorded for us only in John’s Gospel. First, as Jesus introduces Himself to His disciples, think about the contrast they must have noticed between Jesus and their former teacher, John the Baptist. John wore camel-skin clothing, lived alone, out in the desert, avoided society, and never touched a grape, much less a cup of wine. Jesus was relatively “normal.” He did attend weddings and social gatherings. He did drink wine, or at very least sat approvingly at the table where wine was served and, as we see in this account, even provided more wine for the guests who had already been drinking it. His was not to be a ministry of solitude or of shunning joyful gatherings. And although He would never marry, He showed His approval of the institution of marriage by attending this wedding on the third day of His ministry.

They ran out of wine early, which was not an earth-shattering problem, but it would have brought some shame upon the bridegroom and some disappointment to the guests. At that point, Mary, who seems to have had some role in running this wedding banquet, said to Jesus, They have no wine. Not a demand, but certainly an implied suggestion. “Maybe You want to do something about it.” Mary knew that Jesus had now come forward publicly to begin His ministry, so she thought it was her place to guide Him.

His response shows that He was not interested in being guided by His mother. Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come. It’s as if He looked into the future and saw how people would try to approach, not Jesus, but His mother Mary to intercede for them, to guide her Son into helping them. No! Jesus makes it clear with His answer that Mary needs to step back from the motherly role she had had up until then. She was not to be His guide. He would determine, in communion with His heavenly Father and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, when His hour had come, and His true “hour,” His true moment for revealing His glory wouldn’t come for over three years, during Holy Week, when St. John records Jesus finally saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” in His crucifixion and death.

Mary did step back, humbly. But she prepared the servants, in case Jesus decided to help. Whatever he says to you, do it. And He did tell them to do something. There were six stone jars there. Fill the jars with water, He said. So they did. Now draw some and take it to the master of the feast. And just like that, the water was turned into wine, and not some watery wine or barely drinkable wine, but, as the master of the feast noted, the best wine. Only the creative power of God can do that.

But only a few knew at the time what had happened—the servants who had drawn the water, and Jesus’ new disciples. Jesus wasn’t looking for attention or for human praise. Still, for those few, and now for us all, it was and is an epiphany: this Man, who appears so normal, this Man, who attends weddings and wedding banquets, this Man, whom John the Baptist declared the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, is God.

If Jesus is God, then the pressing question is, what was God doing here, walking among us, living among us, attending wedding banquets, changing water into wine? Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells us why He has come: I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. That’s what the Psalmist said, too: You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

God’s goal for each of us is that we may have life and joy in His presence. And as Jesus showed at Cana, He even wishes to give us moments of joy here in this sin-infested world. Joy at the wedding of husband and wife, joy among friends and family, joy in a glass of wine that “gladdens the heart of man,” as the Psalm says.

But those are moments of joy, fleeting moments here, not destined to last, not supposed to be the permanent state of human beings in a world that now remains under a curse. Adam and Eve ruined the perfect life and joy that God had intended for our race, and we’ve been ruining it ever since with our own sins, with our worry, with our anxious fear, with our distrust of God and His Word, and with our self-serving words and deeds. Add to that the sins and the wickedness of the world around us, and the rage of the devil who is always prowling around, looking for someone to devour, and it’s clear, this world will never be and can never be the home of life and joy. Again, it isn’t supposed to be.

And so God became Man, and that Man is God, so that He might be that very Lamb of God that John the Baptist proclaimed Him to be just three days before the wedding at Cana, the sacrificial Lamb, the one who would shed His blood on the cross as the payment for the world’s sins. And now He calls out in the Gospel to all who hear, “I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly! I have come that you may have fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore!” But the path to that life and to that joy is repentance, is humbling yourself before God, confessing your sins, and looking to Christ for forgiveness, life, and salvation, which He offers right here in the preaching of the Gospel, in the waters of Baptism, and in the communion of His own body and blood with the bread and wine of the Holy Supper. Those who trust in Him know a different kind of joy, even when the world is crumbling, the joy of peace with God, the joy of knowing that God will keep every promise made to His baptized people, and the joy that comes with the assurance of faith that God will bring us safely to the fullness of joy in His presence, to the joy of eternal life.

So give thanks for the moments of joy here, in this wilderness. Those moments are gifts of God, as is the ability to enjoy them. But understand, they’re fleeting, and they may be few and far between in this world. So look to Christ for fullness of joy in His presence, for pleasures forevermore at His right hand. And let the moments and glimpses of joy here in this life—let those moments not be the goal of your life that you strive for and yearn for and even covet when they don’t come as frequently as you would wish, but let them be little reminders of the fullness of joy that’s coming when Christ appears for the real wedding banquet, where He is the Bridegroom and the Church is His Bride. He is the God who came to bring you joy. And if you remain in Him and He in you, then He will soon bring you to the perfect joy of that glorious wedding feast. Amen.