St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday sermon – Second Sunday after The Epiphany – January 17, 2010
“Celebration: Bringing Out the Best!”
Text: John 2:6-11
Since the Gospel reading from John chapter 2 for this second Sunday after the Epiphany takes us back to a joyful wedding that Jesus, his mother and his disciples attended in the town of Cana somewhere in Galilee, I liked to begin with a few thoughts about wedding and marriage.
First, when it comes to preparing for a wedding, celebrating a wedding, blessed is the couple who knows a wedding is not a marriage.
Don’t get me wrong! Making sure all the necessary details & preparations for a wedding are taken care of is important. Preparing for a wedding not only takes a lot of work, it can cost a lot of $$$.
But here’s the truth of it all. When a wedding is celebrated with wine, beer, champagne, good food, wedding cake; when a wedding is celebrated with dancing, laughter, plenty of picture-taking, good camaraderie among out-of-town relatives who don’t see each other very often; when a wedding is planned so all who are invited have a truly good time, while all of that is going on, while all of that is good to have happen, still be it a big, expensive wedding or a small, simple wedding, a wedding is not a marriage.
One of those billboard messages from God says, “Loved the wedding. Invite Me To The Marriage.”
Another message worth remembering says “Success in marriage is more than finding the right person - it is a matter of being the right person.” (TNBCQ, p.156)
What goes on in a good marriage is “the expansion of two natures, two lives, two hearts in such a fashion that each not only includes the other but each is enriched by the other.”
Take that one step further: “A good marriage is the union of two good forgivers good at forgiving each other.”
One other thought! Maybe it’s that I’m getting older and Sandy & I have been married for over 40 years, but I like this quote: “One of the great similarities between Christianity & marriage is that, for Christ-ians, Christianity & marriage both get better as we get older.”
In this age of rapidly appearing new words, I recently ran across the word, “oldyweds.” “Newlyweds become ‘oldyweds’, and ‘oldyweds’ are the reason that families work.”
In other words, in a good marriage, blessed is the couple who the older they get, the better they get at bringing out the best in each other and the best in their children.”
In fact, married or unmarried, single or divorced, widow or widower, blessed is the union & communion we have with the Lord Jesus Christ, when the hidden glory & grace of God at work in Jesus is at work in us, humbling us, improving us, bringing out the best in us that we might bring out the best in others.
If you think that bringing out the best in one another takes nothing short of a miracle, you’re right! That’s what takes us back to Jesus and the wedding at Cana.
Just how much planning went into that wedding at Cana we don’t know? How large was that wedding? How many days did it last? How did Jesus, his mother & his disciples come to get an invitation? Did they all go in on one wedding gift or did they give separate gifts? We don’t know! The one thing we do know is that weddings in Jesus’ time lasted for days and that sometime after this wedding celebration at Cana began “the wine ran out.”
Sometimes that happens in marriages too, doesn’t it? It’s not unusual that a marriage can settle into a relationship that’s more water than wine. It’s not unusual that a marriage flattens out into more taking each other for granted than bringing out the best in each other; more fault-finding than forgiving, more grudge bearing than joy sharing. What to do? What kind of miracle is needed?
It’s reported by John, when the wine ran out, Jesus mother said to him, “They have no wine.”
Jesus response to that was a seemingly a harsh and cold response, “Woman, what does this have to do with me?” The MESSAGE puts it this way, So they’re out of wine, Mother! Is that any of our business – yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.
What surely sounds to most of us like a harsh & cold response on the part of Jesus to his mother is really John’s way of saying (in the telling of this miracle story) that Jesus’ life and ministry was about much more than just doing miracles when a miracle needed to be done. Jesus’ life & ministry was not about using his divine power to make up for things running short or solving people’s problems or delivering people from bad days, or bad decisions.
No, Jesus life & ministry was first & foremost about making God’s grace, making God’s glory known in the best possible, most personal most beneficial way that he could; and that “making known” - “revealing” - “showing” - “accomplishing God’s purpose” - following God’s plan was for Jesus alone to determine, His to do; the point being that Jesus was completely in control of His destiny and He was not responsible to anyone or at the mercy of anyone other than His Father in heaven.
Sometimes in marriage, in families, in school, in sports, in civic organizations there are what we call “power struggles”; who’s in charge; who’s responsible to whom for what; who decides; who tells who what to do. That was not the case with Jesus. With Jesus, the most important thing about God’s glory being revealed in Him, was not to lord it over others, not to control others, not to be exalted, but to be humble, to serve, to give His life a ransom for many.
With Jesus, at the very beginning of his public ministry which happened to be at a wedding in Cana, the most important thing was to let his disciples get a glimpse of who He really was; let His disciples see in Him & through Him something they would not forget that would eventually help those disciples, to believe He was indeed God’s beloved Son.”
(This holds ten gallons, if I wanted to give you a picture to remember of how much water Jesus turned to new wine, I’d have to stack 12 to 18 or these behind me. 120 to 180 gallons of wine.)
After all, Jesus disciples were new to following him & learning from him. In terms of other miracles Jesus would do in public, stilling storms, feeding thousands, raising the dead, little miracle this miracle was that Jesus did quietly without drawing a lot of attention to Himself. But did the trick! Jesus disciples believed in him.
Or one might say, just as there is more to a good marriage than “living happily ever after”, so in Jesus’ “marriage” to the church as Jesus takes the church, takes all believers, sins forgiven, sins washed away, for His bride, there is more to Jesus’ love, more to Jesus’ than making people happy. As ever-present, ever-faithful Lord & bridegroom, Son of God, Son of Man, Jesus’ mission was & is to show forth the light of God’s love & glorify God in human flesh in ways that lead to believing in Him -- and bring out the best in us.
Married or unmarried, single or divorced, widow or widower, blessed is the union & communion we Christians have with our Lord Jesus Christ when the hidden glory & grace of God at work in Jesus is at work in us, shining on us, humbling us, cleansing us, improving us, bringing out the best in us that we might bring out the best in others.
Take it from Christian husband & wives who have been there.
“Marriage hits high & lows, goes through seasons of ecstasy & agony, which leave couples wondering whether it’s possible to regain the love, the conviction, the spiritual momentum they once enjoyed.
“The message from this second Sunday after the Epiphany is YES! Take those empty stone jars, fill them to the brim with the water of hope, prayer, and persistence, and draw from them.
“Believers are apt to find upon drinking the second batch of wine, the one they drink in their middle and later years, after the blush of youthful love has run its course, after they have experienced the heartbreak & disappointment of love lost, harsh words spoken, promises broken and tearfully experienced the miracle of sins forgiven – that the second batch can be better than the first batch of wine. (Proclamation Year C,
2000-2001, Renita Weems, page 94)
As Jesus changed water into new wine better than that first batch of wine, Jesus quietly, graciously, joyfully gave His disciples a brief, eye-opening, glimpse of His glory, and they believed in Him.
This miracle shows us how with the grace God & love of God revealed in Jesus, we are not only drawn to believe in Him, but with God’s grace & God’s love offered to us again & again in Jesus’ Word & Sacraments, it is possible to give of ourselves in love and to discover that the more we give of ourselves, the more we find ourselves believing in Jesus, and the more we find ourselves believing in Jesus the better we become bringing out the best in others.
To go from newlyweds to oldyweds is not a bad thing, not when the richness, the joy, the sweet wine of oldyweds is God’s grace & glory revealed in Christ working in us. I said it before, I’ll say it again, “One of the great similarities between Christianity & marriage is that, for Christians, they both get better as we get older.”
Better Christians, better marriages!
Better husbands, better wives!
Better at loving, better at giving!
With Christ at the center of our lives!
Not better than each other, but better for each other.
Amen.
