The Second Sunday of Epiphany
The Second Sunday of Epiphany
Light of Christ Anglican Church
The Rev. Michael Moffitt January 19th, 2025
Sermon: John 2:1-11 “Inviting Jesus Saved The Day”
Today is the Second Sunday of Epiphany which points us to those events after the birth of Jesus that manifested his divinity. Traditionally the events are His birth, the worship and adoration of the Magi (Wise men), His baptism, and the first miracle at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine.
This morning’s gospel reading from John 2:1-11 tells us the story of Jesus’ first recorded miracle at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. We’ll be looking at the traditions of first century Israel as we seek to understand what this story has to teach us almost 2000 years later.
We should start with understanding that John’s emphasis on the miracles performed by Jesus is different than the writers of the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. For the Synoptic writers the point was to show that the coming of Jesus—God in the flesh was a revelation that Heaven had come to earth and the Kingdom of God had begun its reign through the Messiah. What is referred to by theologians as the “Now but not yet”. This idea teaches that believers in the lordship of Jesus Christ are currently participating in God’s kingdom, but it won’t be fully realized until the end of the age at the return of Jesus Christ in all His glory.
For John the miracles performed by Jesus, though certainly historical acts of supernatural power are more symbolic, they point beyond the miracles themselves to Jesus and His significance as God in the flesh. John is writing at a time in the life of the church where the divinity of Jesus had already been called into question and the enemy had sown serious seeds of discord within the Christian community. John’s goal in his Gospel was to reveal that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh and the miracles and teaching of Christ testified to that divinity.
With that in mind let’s consider the story in John 2:1-11. The story begins with Jesus and his disciples being invited to a wedding, but they arrive on day three of the feast. In this time period disciples lived with their rabbis 24/7 in order to observe their daily routine, as well as verbal instruction in Bible study. By taking his disciples to the wedding feast Jesus was teaching them not to be separate from their culture but instead to be involved in the social life and celebrations of joy.
This wedding celebration could have involved a relative on Mary’s side where possibly she had some catering role. The fact that the wine had run out would have been a social disaster. Jewish wedding celebrations sometimes would last up to a week, and it would have been a real faux pas and reflected badly on the parents of the bridegroom to run out of something as vital to the celebration as wine. Wine is a symbol of joy in the Jewish tradition. Plus in that culture where honor and shame played such an important role this would be a serious and embarrassing blight on the host family. It would likely have been something that would not be forgotten by the community. In this time period weddings were of great importance in the social life of the community.
Some have suggested that Mary came to Jesus because it was customary that guests bring wine as a wedding gift but perhaps he and his disciples had shown up empty handed. They could have been seen as one of the reasons why the available wine didn’t last. Either way Mary obviously comes to Jesus believing that he could do something about it.
She simply informs Jesus that the wine is gone and leaves it up to him to do something. I find her approach very interesting and endearing. Remember Luke’s account of the birth of the Christ child, the shepherds came to Mary and Joseph bowing down before the baby, telling them all the angels had said to them about the child.
Later, as Joseph and Mary take the child to dedicate Him to the Lord, Simeon, a man in the temple, upon seeing the baby rejoices that God has allowed him to see the salvation of Israel. Then at 12 years old they find Jesus in the temple talking with the religious leaders who marvel at the young boys understanding of Torah. Each time the stories end with, “And Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
I think that Mary saw Jesus coming into the time of ministry that she knew he was destined for. So she merely walks up to her Son, the one the angel Gabriel said was, “the Son of the God”, and lays the problem on Him. Jesus’ response is, “Woman, why do you involve me?... My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Some have suggested that Jesus’ response was disrespectful and rude in that He addressed her as “Woman”. Actually, a literal translation sounds even more harsh and would be, “Woman, what is there to me and to you? Even though Jesus addresses his mother as “Woman”, the message isn’t that Jesus was disrespecting Mary as His mother, but that their relationship had changed. Now he would be following whatever His heavenly Father said and that would direct his works, not any human, even a close relative.
He isn’t claiming that his ministry hadn’t started. John had already revealed at Jesus’ baptism that he was “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) and Jesus has already called his disciples and they are with him at the wedding feast but Jesus was telling Mary the time for him to reveal his glory had not yet come. However, Mary remembers very well who the angel said that he was, and she had waited 30 years knowing that someday he would be revealed as the Son of God. There was a problem, Jesus could provide the solution if He wanted to, why not ask?
Mary’s response was the perfect example of intercessory prayer. She states the problem to Jesus and lets Him decide how he wants to deal with it, and she merely instructs the servants, “Do whatever he tells you” and she walks away. I love that! Mary knows that there is nothing more that she can do.
When Mary told the servants to do whatever Jesus asks them to, she is taking the risk that Jesus will do nothing, and the wine supply will continue to be depleted. I think she knows Jesus’ heart and believes that he will not let the bridegroom be shamed but instead will use this occasion to reveal himself as the hope of Israel and the true source of divine power and authority.
There may be another reason that Jesus solves the dilemma. His disciples would have been observing this encounter and learning that their rabbi obeys the Torah and the commandment to honor his mother. Jesus now performs his first miracle. After instructing the servants to fill the six stone water jars with water, he tells them to take it to the master of ceremonies. Somewhere along the way, it becomes wine.
In Jewish tradition, when a new bottle of wine is opened, a blessing must be recited. The blessing over wine was recorded in “The Book of Blessings” in a discussion between two Jewish scholars of the first century, Shammai and Hillel over when and how often to recite the blessing. Shammi and Hillel are one generation prior to Jesus, so the blessing was in use in Jesus’ day. At the wedding in Cana, the master of ceremonies received the new wine and in a loud voice would have recited the blessing: ‘Blessed are you the Lord our God, King of the Universe. You create the fruit of the vine’.
At this point, the disciples have a moment of revelation. Who just made the fruit of the vine? Jesus. According to the blessing, who is the only one who can do that? “The Lord God, King of the universe”.
Any doubt they previously had faded away. Not because of an amazing ‘sleight of hand’ or conjuring trick but because in a very Jewish way Jesus had revealed who he really was, creator of the fruit of the vine, the King of the Universe. This makes the water to wine one of the best miracles and perhaps the best way for Jesus to begin his ministry, by proclaiming who he really is through the power and authority of His word.
There’s another consideration as well. Remember than John wrote this story in his gospel probably 50-60 years after the event itself. He was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This miracle anticipates the transformation of the old order signified in the stone water jars used for ceremonial cleansing (v.6) into the new, signifying eternal life in God’s kingdom through the Lord Jesus Christ. The wedding at Cana was not the only thing to be celebrated. The kingdom had come.
The Apostle John is writing this story probably somewhere between AD 85-90, towards the end of his life, but it’s important to note that he is writing this story under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but I picture him laughing and crying as he remembers the occasion. He was there and saw the looks on the faces of the servants when Jesus instructed them to fill the ceremonial stone water jars with water. They had to be wondering why he wanted the jars full of water since they were for ceremonial washing of hands but for whatever reason they did as he asked. I suspect that John also was thinking back to his own “AHA” moment when his heart leaped in his chest upon seeing the miracle, and perhaps the joy of seeing Jesus through much different eyes.
Imagine what the servants were thinking when after filling the jars with water Jesus instructs them to draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. Maybe they were afraid that the master would think they were mocking him or demand an explanation as to why he was being given water.
I guarantee you that no one was prepared for what happened next. The water had not only miraculously turned into wine, but it had turned into a wine that was far superior to the best they had served so far.
John finishes out the story by revealing that it was this, the first of Jesus’ miracles that revealed His glory, and his disciples believed in him.
In the last few sermons we have had occasion to point back to what John wrote in the previous chapter John 1: 1-4; 10-11:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”
John is telling this story of Jesus’ first miracle after revealing that Jesus was the creator God and that the Father had used the Son to create the heavens and the earth. It was Jesus that spoke to the darkness, and void and chaos in Genesis chapter 1 and cried out to all that nothingness, “Let there be light and there was light and it was good.”
John wanted the reader to understand who Jesus was and why it shouldn’t be a surprise that he could turn water into wine. After all he was the Lord of Glory and the creator of all things! John is also pointing us to the compassion of God for his children even in the mundane. The bridegroom needed to be rescued, and Jesus was willing to comply.
Theologians have debated for years about how Jesus turned the water into wine, and some have insisted that he wouldn’t have done that because the people at the wedding had clearly already had too much to drink. The principle that John is teaching us here is not the mechanics of how Jesus did it or whether or not we personally believe that he should or shouldn’t have but that only Jesus could have done it.
Some have looked at this miracle as minor in comparison to other miracles that Jesus did—restoring sight to the blind, healing the lepers, feeding the 5,000 with a few loaves of bread and a few fish, or, of course, raising the dead—but I believe that this miracle was the perfect way to begin the ministry of Jesus. I believe that it is this miracle that reveals the simplicity of our response to the call of God upon our lives. There are things that we must do but there are things that only God can do.
Jesus never asked or suggested that the servants should turn the water into wine but only that they fill the six stone water jars with water. They could do that, and Jesus knew that only he could actually perform the miracle but would not until the servants acted in faithful obedience to his command. Once they did that, then they were able to see the result of Jesus’ power, and no one would ever be able to dissuade them from what they had seen with their own eyes, and I assure you that they were never the same again. Encountering Jesus Christ is like that. John doesn’t reveal their response, but he does reveal that because of this miracle Jesus’ disciples believed in Him. John tells the story as a way of revealing who Jesus is. In the Old Testament God revealed his power and glory through a variety of miraculous events and John is wanting his readers to see that Jesus was that same God who came and dwelled in their midst.
What if we were to respond to the commands of God with the same faithful obedience as the servants in this story? What if we didn’t turn aside from the things that Jesus asks of us because we felt inadequate but instead ask ourselves, “What part of this can I do and what part can only Jesus do?” For me going into ministry was overwhelming because I knew my inadequacy and I knew my own heart, but I also knew that Jesus was my equipper and my strength. Still I know my helplessness before him but also know his faithfulness. “Go fill up the water jars”—well I can do that. “Okay, Now watch this!!!”
Let’s consider a few of the things that Jesus has asked (or commanded) us to do.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43-45)
Again we have a command that begins with something that we simply cannot do in our own strength but gives us a way to respond in faithful obedience. When we pray for our enemies it changes us. I have found that I can’t hate someone that I am praying for because the Holy Spirit changes my view of them. This act of obedience allows us to be in the position of seeing God change our hearts and reveals the power of God to our enemies. Like Mary we are asking that God provide the help that we want and by prayer acting upon who we know Jesus to be and depend on him moving in the way that he sees fit.
Either way we win, hatred is removed from our lives, and we are free to not let that define us any longer.
The miracle at the wedding feast at Cana shows us what can happen when Jesus is invited to even the most normal of situations. He accepted the invitation and was available to meet the need when a problem developed. If we are Christ followers we have the authority of the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit within us. Now don’t misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting that we should make ourselves available to turn water into wine since Jesus’ Spirit indwells us. What I am saying is that we should follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and depend on Him to use us as He sees fit. As we ask God for clarity in the simple request of the Great Commission we begin by acknowledging that the request makes sense but that we can’t do it without the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. The command of Christ reads very simply in Matthew 28:18-20;
“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
The command to spread the gospel to the world sounds overwhelming but I think it begins by inviting God to help us to be faithful in the small everyday tasks like loving our neighbor as ourselves and having the passion to step out in faith believing that He is able to accomplish whatever he has purposed to do.
This is the promise revealed at the wedding feast at Cana. Jesus was pointing us to the reward of obedience, it comes with a cost, but the payoff is huge because it’s Jesus himself that we encounter and all that comes with that; a river of delight, the fountain of life as it was meant to be and the ability to see clearly through his light. His commands are wonderful because they reveal his best for us, and they lead us to see and reveal the absolute glory of God.
Finally, consider once again Psalm 96 that we read this morning. The Psalmist is calling all the nations of the world to proclaim God as their King. This contrast compares the Glory of the living God with the lifeless idols worshipped by the nations. This Psalms theme is God’s universal kingship and that His reign will one day extend to the ends of the earth, even the universe. All of creation will experience Epiphany, the manifestation and revelation of the love of the Lord our God through Jesus Christ, the Messiah. “Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness, tremble before Him all the earth. Say among the nations, The Lord reigns!” Let’s pray!
