The Second Sunday After the Epiphany
At Cana in Galilee
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!
Amen! Our Lord Jesus performed a very quiet and discrete miracle in today’s
Gospel, a miracle that hardly anyone noticed, except the servants. Yet in this
miracle, which God calls “the first of His signs, Jesus… manifested His glory.”
Dear Christian friends,
A. Why would Jesus choose a wedding as the place for His first miracle?
• It CANNOT be that our Lord performed His first miracle at a wedding
because He thinks more highly of married people than He thinks of others.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Not only has our God declared and
promised through His prophets that He shows no favoritism (Deuteronomy 10:17,
Acts 10:34), but think also of the people who surrounded Jesus’ birth! There is
the prophetess Anna, whose marriage was buried only seven years after it began,
and then she lived “as a widow until she was eighty-four” (Luke 2:37). Mary the
mother of our Lord was nearly victimized by divorce, as Joseph quietly planned
to cope with her pregnancy (Matthew 1:19). What about Zechariah and Elizabeth?
Married, but not in bliss. Zechariah might have been holding some deep
resentment against his wife, and Elizabeth against her husband. Their marriage
languished under the weight of their desire to have a child (Luke 1:7). These
are the people for whom the Christ
child was born and with whom He surrounds Himself—people for whom marriage did
not turn out well as they might have hoped.
• So Jesus did not choose a wedding for His first miracle because He
prefers married people. (We should give our Lord more credit than that.)
Perhaps we should think of Jesus choosing a wedding feast for His first miracle
because marriage is the one human relationship that ties all of us
together—including everyone who is not right now married. Even if you are
single or widowed, if you are divorced or simply too young to marry, you still
have family relationships that God has given to you on account of marriage.
Brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles all comprise the
fruit and flower of marriage. Beyond that, all government, all friendships and
all business relationships might likewise be traceable to marriage, if for no
other reason than for the fact that we all have Adam as our father and Eve as
our mother. God gave His gift of marriage to our literal first parents (Genesis
2:21-25) and from that one marriage has come every
human relationship on earth.
Some people may say that I am pushing today’s Gospel a little too far, and that
I am digging way too deeply into these Words, “there was a wedding at Cana in
Galilee.” Maybe so, but God’s Words are exceedingly broad, and they go farther
and deeper than any little preacher like me can ever imagine (Psalm 119:96). If
I have pushed today’s Gospel, it is only because I am trying to help you find
your own place in this Gospel, no matter what your current station and place in
life. The miracle in today’s Gospel is “the first of [Jesus’] signs.” These
Words—“the first of His signs”—these Words suggest that this miracle in today’s
Gospel is the elder brother, so to speak, of all our Lord’s other miracles.
This miracle is the prototype, the outline, the lead-off batter for the
miracles yet to come. In today’s Gospel, Jesus “manifested His glory” in this,
His first miracle, and the glory of Jesus extends to ALL NATIONS, not
merely to those therein who happen to be married.
That is why each and every one of us should listen carefully to today’s Gospel.
That is why it is a good and blessed thing for every single one of us—married
or single—that our Lord Jesus went to “a wedding at Cana in Galilee.” By
choosing a wedding for His first miracle, Jesus is including all of us together
and He is piling together all the relationships we have with one another—each
of which is rooted in and traceable back to marriage.
B. What is that miracle, in which our Lord Jesus “manifested His glory”?
• If you rush to your answer, you might say that Jesus manifested His
glory by
turning water into wine. You would be correct.
Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up
to the brim. And He said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master
of the feast.” So they took it [and] … the master of the feast tasted the water
now become wine.
In this miracle, as with all His miracles, Christ our Lord is teaching us that
we can rely upon Him. I know it does not always feel as though you can rely
upon Jesus while you struggle and labor every day with your various crosses in
life. Jesus knows that you do not always feel convinced and content that you
can trust Him, either. That is part of the reason why your dear Lord gives you
this miracle in today’s Gospel. What has Christ done here today? Christ has
demonstrated that He will provide for each of us, according to our need. Christ
shows in this Gospel that His abundance will never fail to flow for us at the
proper time—neither a moment too soon nor a moment too late. Christ shows us in
today’s Gospel that we can confidently look to Him for all things, just as His
mother Mary likewise looked at Jesus and boldly said to Him without wavering,
“They have no wine.” Christ Jesus wants each of us to share in Mary’s
confidence and certainty.
She turned and said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” With these
Words, Mary was essentially saying, “Everything will be fine. Simply listen to
Jesus and act according to His Word.”
• Perhaps there is more to this miracle than “the water now become wine.”
As God explains at the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus “manifested His glory” here
today. Stated another way, Jesus beamed forth; Jesus showed Himself as He
really is; Jesus made His glory known. But no one knew about this “water now
become wine” except for the servants, and perhaps Mary and the disciples. A
miracle done in secret does not seem like a good way for Jesus our God to
display His glory!
But maybe the miracle in today’s Gospel is somewhat greater than “the water now
become wine.” Stated another way, maybe our Lord’s miracle did not begin when
He saw “six stone water jars there… each holding twenty or thirty gallons,” out
of which He made the wine. Perhaps the miracle in today’s Gospel actually began
much earlier, when “Jesus… was invited to the wedding with His disciples” and
HE ACTUALLY WENT! I am talking about the miracle of God’s presence among us! I
am talking about the unfathomable mystery of Christ our Lord choosing, not only
to come to earth, but also to sit among us in our daily lives and to be with us
in the midst of our family relationships. Today’s Gospel does not show us a God
who simply drops our provisions upon us from above! Today’s Gospel shows us a
God who deigns and desires to live bodily among us, providing for our every
need while standing near and in the midst of us!
C. What does the Miracle at Cana show us about our Lord’s glory?
• If you think of our Lord’s first miracle only in terms of “water now
become wine,” then you could think of Jesus’ glory as the display of His divine
power. Stated another way, Jesus displayed or “manifested His glory” in today’s
Gospel because He possesses the divine power to change water into wine by
merely speaking a Word. There is certainly nothing wrong with that idea, as far
as it goes.
• Today’s Gospel is not merely about “water now become wine.” Stated
another way, today’s Gospel is not about Jesus ability to exert His divinity.
Today’s Gospel is about our Lord’s DESIRE to exert His divinity for us and for
our sake. Today’s Gospel does not merely show us a Lord and Christ who can do
things for us, but here we see a Lord and Christ who wants to be among and who
finds no greater glory than providing for us while in our midst! Today’s
miracle begins when “Jesus… was invited to the wedding with His disciples” and
HE ACTUALLY WENT!
o By going, Jesus shows that He wants to be with us, and even rejoices to
be with us. Jesus is happy to dwell among us because there is now nothing among
us that would incur His wrath. After all, Jesus our Lord shouldered all wrath
and judgment against us when He entered Baptism for us and thus became “the
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).
o By going to a wedding in particular, Jesus carefully includes every
single one of us in the miracle of His presence and grace. Marriage is the one
human relationship that ties all of us together—including people who are not
married. By choosing a wedding for His first miracle, Jesus is including all of
us together and He is piling together all the relationships we have with one
another—each of which is rooted in and traceable back to marriage.
“This, the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His
glory.” Give hearty thanks and praise to God almighty that He calls today’s
Gospel the FIRST of Jesus’ miracles. When God calls this miracle the first one,
He wants you to know and trust that there are many more to follow.
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