Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.1UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.1UNLIKELY
Fear
0.07UNLIKELY
Joy
0.71LIKELY
Sadness
0.17UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.1UNLIKELY
Confident
0.21UNLIKELY
Tentative
0UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.92LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.85LIKELY
Extraversion
0.34UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.82LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.83LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Jesus Reveals His Glory at a Wedding
Do you know what is amazing, even remarkable.
It’s not that God’s changed water into wine.
Rather, it is the manner in which He did so.
He didn’t do so according to the laws He set down to govern what we like to call “nature.”
Instead, he chose to do so by means of a miracle.
It was not just any miracle; it was the very first miracle Jesus did, and it was done at a wedding.
St. John writes in the prologue to his Gospel:
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
(John 1:1 and John 1:14)
Thirty years after the Word became flesh is when Jesus first revealed His glory as the only begotten Son of the Father.
This evening’s Gospel reading concludes with these words: “This, the beginning of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee.
He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11).
The fact that Jesus chose to reveal His divine glory for the first time at a wedding tells us much about what God thinks of marriage.
Glory Revealed at a Wedding
In the beginning, God made them male and female, and He blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.”
Even after the fall into sin, God blessed marriage.
The very fact that God promised to destroy the power of Satan through the birth of a Child shows us that God has always honored the holy vocation of Christian motherhood.
Every Christian woman from the time of Eve onward has known that God would bring salvation to the world by bringing a holy Child into the world through a virgin woman.
The “seed of the woman” mentioned in Genesis 3:15 is none other than the virgin born Son of God, Jesus.
When Jesus calls His mother “woman” He is honoring her as the one to whom Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, said: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Luke 1:42).
Jesus honors Christian motherhood by honoring marriage.
When the Creator of all things became flesh within the Virgin’s womb and joined His creation, He did so in order to bless that holy estate into which God, in the beginning, placed motherhood.
He joined our own flesh and blood to sanctify this holy institution from which our flesh and blood comes.
It is from marriage that children come into this world.
Of course, those who deny God as Creator will also deny His divine creation.
They will regard marriage as a purely human arrangement and deny its divine origin.
Everyone knows where babies come from, but it seems that fewer and fewer understand why God has placed this special intimacy solely within the permanent and unbreakable bond of holy marriage.
God made marriage and the family the foundation of all civilization and culture.
God made a man from the dust of the ground and a woman from his rib and then joined in marriage the two who had been one so that they were one once more.
This was not a temporary arrangement.
Moses commented on the original marriage by writing, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).
“So then, they are no longer two but one flesh.
Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:6).
Jesus chose to reveal his glory for the first time at a wedding of one man and one woman.
Not at a gathering of the high and mighty political leaders.
Not at a gathering of illustrious clergymen or biblical scholars.
He chose to reveal His glory for the first time at a wedding of one man and one woman.
In that day and time a wedding was a day’s long affair.
The ceremony itself was held at night after a time of celebration.
Then, after the liturgical rites were completed, the bride and bridegroom would enter the home and be treated as royalty for several days.
They didn’t leave for a honeymoon as is common today.
They stayed put and entertained neighbors and relatives as if they were, for the moment anyway, king and queen.
Drunkenness was virtually unknown among the Jews.
Public drunkenness was considered disgraceful behavior.
But it was equally unthinkable to have a celebration without wine.
With the wine gone, the wedding celebration could not continue.
The bridal couple did not just face a mild and temporary embarrassment.
They faced a heart-breaking personal disaster.
These were folks who worked long and hard for little money a wedding celebration was a very important social event.
Revealed Glory Demonstrates Love
Mary could see disaster looming.
She went to Jesus for help.
Why Jesus?
She knew who He was.
The angel had told her some thirty years earlier.
She knew He was the Son of God, but she had yet to see Him prove it.
He had hidden His glory under a cloak of humility.
Nobody forced Him to hide His glory.
He did so willingly.
Mary knew that her humble and dutiful Son would not want the bridal couple to be publicly humiliated.
So, she laid their need before Jesus.
“They have no wine.”
Jesus could not do what He came to do if He placed Himself under human authority in doing it.
“Woman, what does that have to do with you and me?
My time has not come yet” (John 2:4).
The task of redeeming the world and saving sinners is a divine task.
Only God can do it.
Jesus could be submissive only to His Father in heaven.
As a boy in the home and as a man in the nation Jesus submitted to the authority of His parents and the government.
Yet, as the Redeemer of the world, He submitted only to the authority of His Father.
Mary knew this.
And she knew as well that Jesus would help.
Therefore she told the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do.
She had every confidence that her son was also the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus told the servants to fill six waterpots with water so that they contained between 120 and 180 gallons of water.
That’s a lot of water.
He then commanded them to take a sample of the water to the master of the feast.
They did.
He was amazed at the water that had become wine.
It was an excellent wine, the very best wine.
He had no idea where it came from, but the servants knew.
Revealed Glory Points to Something Else
There is a spiritual meaning here that we should consider.
Jesus is the heavenly Bridegroom, and the church is his holy bride.
He came down from heaven to become her Savior.
He gave His life for her, shedding His blood for her, purchasing her as His own.
He continually cares for her until the end of time.
Mary is a symbol of the church.
The church instructs her servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do.
Ministers of Christ submit to the authority of the church by submitting to the authority of Jesus.
Mary willingly submitted to Christ, her Son.
His will must be done.
So, she instructed the servants.
The Church must instruct her pastors.
Don’t make up your own religion for us, but rather give to Christ’s holy bride what Christ Himself has purchased for her.
Give to her the pure gospel and the holy sacraments and in this way Jesus will bless His holy bride throughout the ages to the end of time.
Another symbol are the six waterpots
They represent the Law of Moses that can only purify an individual outwardly, not inwardly.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9