Second Sunday After Epiphany

Recently, I heard a woman say of her deceased husband: “He marched to the beat of his own drum. No one was going to tell him what to do.”

 

We Americans admire the rugged individual, don’t we? This one, with grit and determination, makes his own way in the world. By sheer force of will, against all odds, he overcomes all obstacles, and reaches his goal. At last, he achieves success, however that may be defined.  

 

In America, this character embodies the ideal. Consider the products of popular art and culture. This one is the hero in our most popular movies; he is the central protagonist in our favorite novels.

 

Now we don’t deny the admirable traits of such a character. But seen from the perspective of faith, he has one fatal flaw. Can you guess what it is? He is self-willed. He trusts in no one but himself, his own cunning, his own resources.

 

It should come as no news to you that Christian faith does not prize the self-willed life. On the contrary, the man of faith, or the woman of faith, lives a life oriented on God’s will. “Here I am,” the Psalmist declares, “I have come to do your will” (40:7). When Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray, he instructs them to pray to their heavenly Father with these words: “Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.” In the upper room, Jesus tells his disciples: “You are my friends, if you do what I command you” (John 15:14). 

 

Mary, the mother of Jesus, makes an appearance in our gospel lesson. In John’s gospel she appears here, at the beginning of Jesus’ public life, and then only once more, at the end, beneath the cross. At all events, she shows herself to be a woman of faith, as we will soon see.

 

The scene is a wedding, at which Jesus and his disciples are also present. Now we know that in the ancient Near East a wedding was not a Saturday afternoon affair in May, as it is in our culture. A wedding was a protracted event, stretching out sometimes over several days. In the small villages on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, a wedding was an occasion to renew ties among family members and friends.

 

So, weddings were community affairs. The notion of a wedding as a private ceremony would never have entered the minds of these people. In the language of authors Jonathan Sacks and Robert Putnam, we are looking at a “We-culture” in these verses. In many ways, it stands in contrast to our own “I-culture,” which, as these authors show, has weakened the bonds of marriage, family and community during the last half century or so.

 

But even in a “we-culture” there exist threats to the integrity of these bonds. In this case, the threat consists in the apparent failure of the hosts of the wedding to make adequate preparations for the festivities. They didn’t buy enough wine, and it’s about to run out. Mary is the first one to notice the shortage.

 

Parenthetically, we know from experience that at weddings everything has to be perfect. There is the wedding dress, the caterer, the photographer, the guest list, the church, the minister, the music, and the reception, and I’m sure I’ve left out many other things! Anxiety at last minute preparations runs high. If something goes wrong, if anyone responsible for making the event special fails, tempers can flare, feelings can get hurt. This can make all the guests feel uncomfortable and the festive mood is dampened.  

 

Now Mary doesn’t want this to happen. Among those at the wedding reception are her own family and friends. She does not want things to go wrong for them. So she turns to Jesus. She is confident that if her Son is willing to intervene, disaster will be averted. Accordingly, she asks him indirectly for help: “they have no more wine.”

 

Jesus’ response is curious. At first, he does not seem at all to be willing to help. He tells her that his hour has not yet come. Does this suggest he sees her request as a distraction from his mission, from the purpose for which he was sent into the world? Will he act only when that hour comes?

 

Mary comes up against resistance in her encounter with Jesus. Is this something we find in our own experience? Does it sometimes seem that God is disinclined to answer our request? “Woman, what is your concern to me?” (That is really how we ought to translate his words in verse 4.) Is that sometimes the sense we get when we present our requests to God?

 

But Mary does not give up on Jesus. She does not cease trusting in him. Without weakening in her faith, she stands firm.

 

Can we follow her example? Or do we give up when we sense that God is rejecting our prayer and withholding the help we so desperately need from him? We know that she stands firm, because after her exchange with Jesus, she turns to the servants and tells them, “Do whatever he tells you.”

 

A profound lesson is to be found in these words. Mary knows she is not in control. In yielding her concern to Jesus, she also yields the outcome to him. She doesn’t know in advance what he’ll do. But she knows that she can let go of the wheel, place the situation in his hands, and rest. She trusts implicitly that he can bring good out of a situation that is heading for disaster.   

 

If we’re men and women of faith, we do well to follow Mary’s example. We will not panic when our own situation escapes our control. Instead, we’ll go to Jesus and wait patiently on him. We’ll incline our ear to his word to us. And when we hear it, we’ll act on it, and then trust him for a favorable outcome.

 

This is what the servants do. They obey his command to fill six stone water jars with water. The water in them is meant for cleansing. When I visited the archaeological sites in Israel while on a tour there two years ago, there were basins everywhere for ritual bathing. When the Jewish people came into contact with that which made them unclean, they had to wash in accordance with the demands of the ceremonial law. Ritual hand washing was also required before eating.

 

The fact that they were stone jars ensured their suitability for ritual cleansing. Clay jars would become ritually defiled and had to be destroyed (Lev. 11:33), but stone jars, according to Rabbinic literature, could not.

 

But true cleansing happens, not with old rituals, but with Jesus. Later Jesus makes this clear when he speaks of himself in the upper room as the one who provides washing to his disciples (John 13). Later he tells the disciples that they are clean by the word he has spoken to them (John 15).  

 

We’ve been speaking of faith. We’ve been saying that we are called to be men and women of faith, of whom Mary serves as an example. But perhaps it’s important here to clarify that this is not a blind faith. In an earlier generation, people spoke of a “higher power.” In an effort to overcome addiction or find healing, for example, we must surrender to a “higher power.”  Today, people speak of the “universe.” The “universe” knows what we need, for example, and at the proper time we will “manifest” it in our lives.

 

But John is interested in telling us neither about a “higher power” nor a “universe” but about Jesus. We want to know that help will come when we ask for it. But John wants us to know who helps us when we ask for it. And, on further reflection, this makes sense. After all, we will want to know that our helper is worthy of the trust we place in him. Why even believe in him at all if he is not faithful and good and powerful?

 

That this is John’s interest is shown in the fact that he consistently refers to Jesus’ miracles as “signs.” In the use of this word, he departs from the first three gospels, whose authors use a word, which, when translated, means “act of power.” In Matthew, Mark and Luke, a miracle signifies divine power, which evokes the human response of awe and wonder. But the purpose of a sign is to disclose, to reveal that which lies concealed. Signs are not only mere acts of power; they also unveil the God who is at work in Jesus, the God who reveals himself in Jesus.

 

Incidentally, that is why this lesson comes to us in Epiphany. In Epiphany, we peer behind the veil to see what God wants to reveal to us, what God wants us to see. And we respond in faith. In John, signs are done to evoke faith.

 

When the servants draw out the contents of the stone jars and give some to the master of ceremonies, he tastes it and is amazed. It is not only wine, but the very best wine! He praises the bridegroom of the wedding for saving the best for last.  

 

Author Anselm Gruen sees in this miracle the message that Jesus himself is the wine that gladdens the human heart. The reference to Eucharist or Holy Communion is unmistakable here. The true wine is the love of God that flows from the heart of Jesus. Jesus enters into the ordinary events of our lives, our gatherings, our celebrations, and gives them a new flavor. There is reason to celebrate and to enjoy with one another this new flavor in our lives. We can enjoy the new life and the new love that fills us, in Holy Communion as well as in all our festive gatherings with families and friends.     

 

John tells us that the miracle at the wedding of Cana was the first of Jesus’ signs, by which Jesus revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. But how does this sign reveal his glory? Why should this sign evoke the disciples’ faith, our faith, in him?

 

Let us note that in the quiet miracle at Cana is reflected those Old Testament prophecies about the messianic age, which is to come. When it does come, all the good things we enjoy will flow and overflow in unending abundance.

 

Consider, for example, the words of the prophet Amos: “The time is surely coming, says the Lord, when…the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit” (9:11, 13–14),

 

The prophet Isaiah declares that in the messianic age the Lord himself will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine, the finest of wines (25:6-8). 

 

The New Testament historian Martin Hengel speculates that those who minted coins during the Jewish War drew on this tradition. The coins were stamped with images of vines, reflecting the messianic aspirations of the revolutionaries.

 

In sum, the sign that Jesus performs in response to Mary’s pleading points to the abundant joy, of which the wedding is a symbol, that awaits God’s people. And this is to God’s glory, which at the same time for our good. According to the great second century church father Irenaeus, the “glory of God is man fully alive.” The images of wine and feasts and banquets and weddings point to God’s ultimate plan for his people. Our final hope is the new creation that God is preparing, one in which God’s people will flourish and take delight in all good things under the reign of Jesus, the King of Israel, the Son of God, the Messiah. 

 

Our faith is in this one. It’s not a blind faith, but rather a faith in one who is faithful and good and powerful. He draws us away from trusting in ourselves to trusting and obeying him. We are not self-willed, rather we submit our will to his, just as Mary did.

 

Let us keep her example before us. The civil discord out there today can bring us into tense situations, which can easily escalate and escape our control. Destructive passions have the potential to crash our festive gatherings and turn us into angry mobs. These may very well appear in our nation in the near future. Will we panic and let ourselves be carried away by our destructive passions? Or will we keep our heads, remembering that all things are under the control of our all-powerful King? Let us submit to him. Then let us obey whatever he tells us to do. Only then will we, the church, stand out from the world, rather than exist as an ugly extension of it. Amen.

 

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