Sermon Epiphany 3 2013

Isaiah 62:1-5

1 Corinthians 12:4-11

John 2:1-12

I think I must have first seen the Wizard of Oz in the cinema, rather than on the television at home. My reason for thinking this is that when I was little we only had a small black and white telly, and one of the great features of the Wizard of Oz is the use of technicolor. The opening sequences in Kansas are in black and white until the storm comes and Dorothy gets carried off by the twister. Then she opens the door of her house and steps out into a wonderful colour landscape. She has arrived in Oz! That’s still a stirring effect when we see it now, but in 1939 it could have been the first colour film that many people had seen. Imagine the impact then. “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more.”

Well today we have heard the Oz moment from John’s Gospel, the wedding at Cana. When Jesus reveals his glory it is as if a whole new dimension appears, like seeing the world in colour for the first time.

This is the third of the gospels of Epiphany, which relate in different ways the manifestation of God in Jesus. From Matthew’s gospel we had the story of the Magi following the star to find Jesus, the one who is born to be king. From Luke we heard the story of the baptism of Jesus, when heaven was opened, the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove, and the voice from heaven declared that Jesus was his beloved Son. And today we have the story of the marriage feast at Cana in Galilee, the first of the signs that Jesus gives in John’s gospel.

All of these stories are about the revelation of God in Jesus. “Epiphany” means “manifestation”, it is about something going public, being seen. And all of these stories, in one way or another, point to what lies ahead in the story of Jesus. They show that the glory of God will be made known in Jesus above all in his suffering, death and resurrection. Epiphany points to the cross and the empty tomb.

So when the Magi came to Jesus, they gave him gold because he was a king, frankincense because he was God, and myrrh. Myrrh for embalming and burial, the spices of Good Friday already mingling with the incense of adoration of the Christ child.

And when Jesus was baptised by John, he went down into the waters of the Jordan and was raised up again, a figure of his death and resurrection, just as is our own baptism in the waters of the font.

But, we might wonder, how is the wedding at Cana hinting at the death of Jesus? There doesn’t seem to be an obvious link. But John is such a good storyteller. The scenes in John’s gospel are like panels in an altarpiece, little pictures full of detail and meaning, which if you see them all at once you can see how the details and imagery connect from one scene to another, bringing out new depths of meaning. 

So, the story of Cana begins, “on the third day”, which immediately is a hint of the resurrection “on the third day” that is yet to come. “And the Mother of Jesus was there.” The Mother of Jesus appears twice in John’s gospel: here in this scene, and at the cross. Jesus says, “my hour has not yet come”. In John’s gospel, the “hour” of Jesus always refers to the crucifixion, which is seen as the fulfilment of everything that Jesus has come to do, Jesus reigning from the cross, pouring out his life, his spirit, into creation. So, too, at Cana we are told that Jesus “revealed his glory”; and in John the glorification of Jesus, like the hour of Jesus, is the cross. 

So in this scene at Cana the glory of Jesus points forward to his death and resurrection. But it also looks to the context of Jewish belief in which this story is told. That is the world which awaits the glory of Jesus. There were six stone waters jars for the Jewish rites of purification. These represent all the promises and hope of Israel, God’s promise that he would purify his people and make them his own. And in fact the jars are of such a size that they would normally be found in the temple, rather than a private home. But they are empty; Jesus commands them to be filled. The law does not need to be abolished, but filled up, transformed, with the glory and grace of God which is what the law anticipates. The ten commandments are not out of date! But they are there in anticipation of grace: if you live in expectation that God will fill you with his Spirit, then of course you will repent of killing, and stealing, and adultery, and so on, because God wants you to be like him, and God is not like that. John has already told us this in his prologue: “the law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

This is what Jesus has come to do: to restore and complete the work of creation, to fulfil the law so that it overflows into grace, to pour out God’s glory into the world. All of this Jesus will achieve through his death and resurrection, and it is foreshadowed in this wedding feast. 

So Jesus gives this sign of transformation and glory, the water becomes wine. The wine of the new creation, the good wine which has been kept until the last, the wine which transforms this wedding feast. 

What are weddings about? Well, amid all the celebration and feasting, the one essential thing that a wedding is about is union, the union of bride and groom. But where are the bride and groom in this story? They seem to be conspicuous by their absence. But the prophets in the Old Testament spoke about the wedding feast of the kingdom of God, which is also about union: the union of heaven and earth, of God and humanity, God’s spirit poured out into creation making all things new. 

And Jesus himself is the bridegroom, John the Baptist calls him that. So here, at Cana, Jesus appears as the Lord come to marry his people, his bride, Israel to whom whom he was betrothed of old, Israel now expanded to include all believers of all races and nations. “Jesus revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.”

And that is the feast to which we are called. Jesus has come to fill up our old vessels of water with the new wine of his kingdom. He has come to pour out his spirit into creation, making all things new. He has come to celebrate the marriage of God and humanity, of heaven and earth. And we are called to this feast of union with God, to be filled with his transforming glory. From Bethlehem to Calvary, from our birth to our death, God’s glory is present in Jesus to transform the world.

Now I’m sure most of us can easily identify areas of our lives which are not filled to overflowing with the glory of God. But this work of transformation is a gift of God to us, not something that we have to achieve ourselves. It is grace, God’s free gift.

That grace is given to us, and the feast of the kingdom is anticipated, in Baptism and the Eucharist, through which God’s transforming power enters our lives under sacramental signs. The new wine of Cana recalls the water and blood that poured out from the side of Jesus on the cross, the tide of sacramental grace which is making all creation new. God’s glory fills up to overflowing the ordinary things of life, bread, wine, water, human lives, transforming them with his presence and his very self. 

The grace of our baptism endures throughout our life, God’s action joining us once and for all to Jesus in his death and resurrection. But the Eucharist brings new grace every week, every day. It is the feast of transformation in which bread and wine, our life and our labour, are transformed by Christ, filled with his presence, made new. Today, as in every Mass, that grace is poured out to fill and transform our lives. One of the Collects for the Epiphany season expresses this very well. It is a good prayer to use in preparation for the Eucharist:

Almighty God,

in Christ you make all things new:

transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,

and in the renewal of our lives

make known your heavenly glory;

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.