Epiphany 2 (Year C) RCL

Jan 16th 2022

St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church

John 2.1-11

A Gift Undetected

Are you guys all aware of the affect that Covid has upon your senses? Particularly your ability to smell and to taste. Not just while you have it, but after as well. For days, weeks, even months after recovering from Covid things may smell different, they may taste different. Things that were once common house hold scents, even pleasant smells, become things which smell like; sewage, rotting meat, rotting eggs, or mouldy socks... Or, like others who are less fortunate (or more fortunate depending on how you view it), you may not be able to smell or taste anything at all for a while. Imagine a life like that. You couldn’t smell that freshly brewed dark roast whole bean coffee in the morning, or taste that gourmet steake dinner... or imagine this;perhaps after having recovered from Covid, you can’t smell anything, and you go off to this party, perhaps it’s your fathers or grandfathers 90thbirthday or something, and they’ve decided to finally pop open this bottle of single malt scotch that’s been aging for 80 years, which would be unbelievably expensive if sold at market, a once in a life time experience! And all of your siblings are there and they’re all ranting and raving about how excited they all are to finally taste this exceptionally rare drink, to finally have this extraordinary experience. The glasses are poured for the whole family to partake, and everyone takes a drink and they all exclaim with great enthusiasm about how amazing this scotch is, but... you can’t taste it. How would you feel? Weird? Guilty? Ungrateful? Like someone has wasted this magnificent gift upon you? Oh no-no, please don’t pour me one, I couldn’t taste it anyway, it would be a waste, we might have said. What if, knowing this, your father, your grandfather, gave this drink to you and only you. Not just one glass, but the whole bottle.

What good is a gift undetected?

So often we think of a gift as something given only to be appreciated, to be understood. We even admit so explicitly; “it’s the thought that counts,” we say. What do we mean by that? Who’s thought? The thought of the giver of the gift who gives solely out of grace for the sake of the other? Or the realization in the mind of the one who receives the gift that the gift is costly, great, important, lovely, useful, appreciated and so on. So often we only give or do in order to obey the laws of the society around us. Only to be thought of highly by others. So often we think that that’s what Jesus here was aiming for, to shock and surprise everybody around Him. To show forth that He was God in flesh, or at least a great prophet who does crazy miracles! But no. He comes to give the best wine to the drunk and the unaware. To the unappreciative, the un-thankful, the unworthy, and He did so, with almost nobody knowing it.

The context is this. A wedding. Particularly a Jewish wedding. Particularly an ancient Jewish wedding in Cana. A long several day celebration feast in which the whole community, not just friends and family were invited. Mary was helping serve, And Jesus and His disciples were invited to come along.

In this time, in this place, the wedding was the chief concept of celebration. Universal invitations went out, universal attendance in the community was had. And the groom provided all the celebratory supplies. Food for the feast, decorations for the furniture, and wine. OH yes, wine. Not only were weddings so important to ancient Israelite culture that the picture of the Messianic salvation of His people was picturedas the wedding of feast of the Lamb, of Christ’s marriage to the church, His bride, (Isaiah 62:5, Rev 19:6-9, Eph 5:25...) but so too was wine. Wine was, is, extremely important to Jewish culture, and yes, IT STILL IS OF CRUCIAL IMPORTANCE TO THE CHRISTIAN LIFE AND WORSHIP. Our fallen and destitute state is pictured in Isaiah 24:7, 9, and 11, as a need for wine. A need to be saved. The wine dries up, the vine languishes, No longer do they drink wine with singing; There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine. And salvation given, in the Messianic reign, is picture6in Isaiah 25:6 as wine given, the best wine, the good wine. On this mountain the Lordof hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. A feast. A feast made upon a mountain, (I don’t want to spoil the plot twist here but the mountain is Mt. Calvary, the place of the Skull, golgatha, where the body given and the blood shed for the forgiveness of your sinsbecomes the meal set before you at the wedding feast of the Lamb, for as He says in John 6 myflesh is true food and His blood is true drink.

Wine, for Jews, wine for Christians, Weddingsfor Jews, weddings for Christians, are inseperable from our lives of faith, of culture, and worship.

And at these weddings, at least these Jewish ones,it is the GROOM, who is responsible to supply the wineandthe food, for the feast. For the whole village, for the several multi-day feast. To run out of wine – SCANDAL. Faux Pas doesn’t even comeclose to the social weight behind this situation. If Jesus were to do nothing, this groom, his bride, and their entire familial clan would be socially destroyed. Crushed. Humiliated. Shamed. SHAMED. And in a culture of shame that meant basically death. Especially, since at this time, and in this place, wine was so cheap, so common, so universal that even a poor groom would be able to afford enough wine for the wedding feast to have plenty after. Neither is there any mention that the food ran short, but just the wine. So it is not only morally unthinkable that the groom would run out of wine but it is WEIRD, and unexpected, without reason, not a normal occurrence, not a short sighted mistake... This story is designed to get you to ask, not just here, but time and time again, WHAT is going on here? so what is going on here? Why did they run out of wine? How, did they run out of wine?

Another mysterious question; why did Mary go to Jesus?Jesus did not come to save us from being socially ruined. Nor did He bear any responsibility for this man and his public reputation. Neither did Mary, although she seems to have been helping out at the wedding; yet even still, ultimately this responsibility, was laid upon the groom. Which is why it is weird, no, it is absurd, that Mary then goes to Jesus, who had just travelled a long way to come to a village that was not his own, and says, “They have no wine.” What was she asking Him to do? To work a miracle?! Perhaps some of you noticed; she didn’t actually ask Him anythingat all, not even “Jesus do you have any ideas?” She simply stated matter of factly; “They have no wine.”

Jesus responds; Uhm, okay mom, I can see that, but what does that have to do with me? For my hour has not yet come.

Interesting isn't it, He full well could have stopped at saying, “what has this to do with you and me?” We aren’t responsible for these people, what does their social failure to host a party have to do with me? But he doesn’t stop there. He says also “what has this to do with you orme? For MY HOUR HAS NOT YET COME.” Your hour has not come Jesus? What hour? Are you going to be responsible for this guy’s hosting etiquette at 4pm? I mean really… what hour?

The hour for Jesus to begin his ministry? That hour had already passed. Jesus had already been Baptized and announced by the voice which rentthe heavens in two, to be the beloved Son of God! And by the resting of the dove upon Him, to be the one who Baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire, John had already declared Him to be the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. He had already called and gathered His disciples. Andrew, and Simon-Peter. He had already been tempted in the wilderness. He had already called Philip and Nathanael, and been proclaimed to be “Him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote.”So what hour was it that had not yet come? Matthew 26:45 the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. The hour of His death. The Hour when He would again be with His mother, the hour that concerns not only Himself but also His mother. But that was not this hour. In other words, He may as well have said, and what business of that is mine, for I haven’t come to help him host a wedding feast but to die for His sins!

Be that as it may. What sounds like a no, is taken by Mary as a yes. And she, who again, seems to have been serving at the wedding, tells the servants to do whatever He tells them. And so naturally, they do.

Here, Jesus takes up the responsibility of the groom. Here, all of that Jewish culture spanning all the way from the beginning of the O.T. all through the New, that of the Wedding, that of the bride and the bride groom, that of Wine and the Celebration, all of these Messianic foretellingsand images they become not just fully pictured, but fully embodied in Christ Jesus, right here, for us to see. For us, to see. But for all? Not quite.

This is not a public miracle. Let us pay attention very carefully to how this happens. Mary instructs the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them. And he points over to the 6 stone purification jars, Jewish ceremonial equipment for ritual cleansing, and says fill these with water and take them to the chief steward. Does He tell them why? He does not. But they do this; they take these Jars to the chief steward, essentially the chief servant over the wedding making sure that everything is suitable for the wedding guests. And the steward drinks it, - but it was no longer water! It had become wine! And not some kind of fake wine, it was not water that tasted like wine, or that was in the form of wine, it had, as the text says BECOME WINE. And not just any wine, but it is GOOD WINE. And the Steward said to who, to Jesus? No. To the bridegroom whose responsibility it was to provide wine to all the guests for the feast, he calls him over, he’s so surprised that he calls the bridegroom over, he has something to say to him. He says, I’m sure in utter shock and confusion, Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now. But he doesn’t say this as a word of compliment. What a waste, givingthisto people after they’ve already become drunk.why would you do something so stupid? This is the message. And why did he say this to the bridegroomand not to Jesus? Because, “he did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew).” He assumed, and with good reason, that Jesus had nothing to do with this.

And just how fitting that is my friends, that the full revelation of the Messiah would be missed, save by a few. How fitting that is my friends, how fitting that is. That, God is hidden even in His revelation. That to those who are given to know, more indeed would be given. But to those who had nothing, even what they had would be taken away.

Yet here is the true revelation, here is the epiphany for today;

Though we are not in the business of giving to the undeserving, the unappreciative, the drunk, and the unaware, Jesus is. For though weserve the good wine first, while those drinking can appreciate it, before they become drunk and intoxicated, unaware of the nuances of the scent and taste and texture of the wine, so as to not waste money on those who can not make good use such a gift, it is Jesus who gives the best wine to the drunk. It is He who gives the gift without putting His name on it, without any desire for reciprocation, who gives of Himself, ofHis own substance. And not only do they not know that it was Jesus who gave them this wine; but they can’t even tell that it is good wine. For they had become drunk! What madness is this? What foolishness is this?! It is grace.

for it is He who, when that final hour comes, would be put to death for the forgiveness of the sins of those who nailed Him to His cross. Yet none of themunderstood this; Paul says in 1 Cor 2:“for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But they did! And in their drunken sinfulslaughter of the Lord of Glory, they will receivegood wine. Christ’s blood, shed for the forgiveness of their sins, and in their unaware Killing of the Lamb of God, they will obtain a richfeast, His body, given for them.

Here, at this wedding,Jesus takes on His responsibility as the Groom of that feast. But the good news, is that He did this, when His hour had not yet come, in order to foretell and point forward to the time when that hour indeed did come. When the Son of man would be betrayed into the hands of sinful men. Handed over to the chief priests, to the scribes and the pharisees. Mocked, beaten, humiliated, tried, found innocent, yet executed anyway. Where on that mountain, on Mt. Calvary on Golgatha... on that cross, the Lordof hosts made for all people a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. His body given for you, and His blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. He has come for the church, His bride. He has provided the wine for His guests. The table is now ready. His flesh is true food, His blood is true drink. Take and Eat, take and drink. For the hour of your salvation right now has come. Amen.