Sermon delivered on the second Sunday after the Epiphany, January 17, 2010, at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Lewis Center, OH. If you would like to hear the audio version of this sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What is the Human Condition?

Good morning, St. Andrew’s! Last week we talked about how the biblical narrative is a story of God’s people in exile and what God has done and is doing about it. We saw that our Lord’s baptism was a manifestation of his vocation as Savior of the world and that our own baptism is an outward and visible sign of God’s promise to put and end to the alienation and exile our sin has caused.

Furthermore, we saw that when we really do accept God’s wondrous love for us, it inevitably produces a desire in us to love and serve him all of our days. Today I want to continue to develop this idea. Taking our cue from today’s Gospel lesson, I want us to consider what it means for us to be signs of Jesus.

In today’s lessons, we see more evidence that the human race left to its own devices is a people in exile. Isaiah talks about Israel being called “Forsaken” and “Desolate” and this would surely have struck a resonant chord for a people in literal exile from their land.

Paul reminds the Corinthians of their days in exile before Christ claimed them when they were enticed and led astray to idols. We remember just how many things in our lives entice us and lead us away from God: money, worries, jobs (or lack of them), power, prestige, fear, and doubts, to name just a few.

On a more mundane level, we see the practical problems of living in a fallen world illustrated in today’s Gospel lesson. The wedding feast has run out of wine and this would have been more than just a minor social gaffe for its hosts. This reminds us of all that can go (or has gone) wrong in our own lives: fractured relationships, missed opportunities, embarrassing personal or professional moments. We can relate to the problem the hosts of the wedding faced because we have been there and done that.

Closer to home, three of our members lost their mothers to death this past week and who among us can remain immune to the awful devastation and destruction that descended upon Haiti and left hundreds of thousands dead or without food, shelter, or water? We are indeed a people living in exile, desperately in need of redemption.

Where is God’s Grace?

I can hear some of you now. “Ah, Fr. Kevin! Another one of your feel good sermons!” But hear me out. I was about to say before I so rudely interrupted myself that we should not dwell too long on the signs of exile in today’s texts lest we miss the hope and promise contained in them. God has done and is doing something to end our time in exile and restore us to be the creatures he created us to be. We get a hint of God’s wondrous love for us in Isaiah when the Lord promises sinful and rebellious Israel that he intends to redeem her. She will no longer be his unfaithful bride as he had reminded her she was elsewhere in Isaiah and through the prophets Jeremiah and Hosea. The prophet compares Jerusalem’s new relationship with God to the happiness and intimacy of marriage at its best. And as we read these gracious word’s we dare hope they apply to us too because we know the One who loves us and has given himself for us despite our unfaithfulness.

We also see this promise to redeem Israel echoed in John’s Gospel. The very fact that the context for this story is a wedding reminds us of the language in Isaiah’s passage today. The wine has run out and the only thing available are empty jars that were used for ceremonial cleansing. The empty jars remind us that despite Israel’s unfaithfulness (as well as our own) and the emptiness it causes, God is working through Jesus to redeem her (and us). When we see Jesus change the water into wine, one of the biblical symbols of joy (see, e.g., Psalm 104:15), we see our Lord bring fullness where there is emptiness, joy where there is disappointment, and a power to transform the ordinary into something sacred. We reflect on this and we dare to hope that just as Jesus did for those at the Cana wedding, he is even now doing the same for us in our moments of emptiness and disappointment.

John also points us to our ultimate hope for having our exile ended when in the story Jesus tells his mother that his hour had not yet come. “His hour,” of course, refers to his death resurrection, and ascension, the climax of God’s story of salvation that signaled a permanent end to our exile from God, a promise that will be finally consummated when our Lord returns again in power and glory to finish the work he started at his First Coming. And if by the grace of God we have faith to accept the wondrous gift of himself that he offers to each of us, we can be nothing but profoundly thankful for this life-giving and exile-ending gift.

Where is the Application?

As we saw last week, when we begin to realize that God loves us despite our sins and ugliness, and wants to heal us from all that separates us from him, our thanksgiving inevitably results in a desire to love and serve him. Both John and Paul have good news for us on this front as well because both remind us that we have a Power that is not our own to help us love and serve our Lord Jesus.

We see how to take advantage of Christ’s power living in us in today’s Gospel lesson. First, we notice the example of Mary. She brought the problem to Jesus’ attention but did not tell him how to fix it. This required a trust and humility on Mary’s part, the same kind of trust and humility that is necessary if we are to have a life-giving relationship with Jesus. Of course he knows our needs and problems before we bring them to him, but he desires that we do so nevertheless. Once we do, we must be humble enough to acknowledge that Jesus knows better than we do when it comes to fixing us and our problems.

Second, we notice the example of the servants in the story. The water turned into wine because the servants cooperated with Jesus and obeyed his commands. Likewise, when we cooperate with Jesus and obey his commands, we allow him to work in and through us to accomplish his redemptive and healing work. This, of course, requires that we have an active and healthy relationship with Jesus, one in which we acknowledge he is Lord and we are his creatures, one in which we not only talk to him but also stop to listen for his voice through Scripture, prayer, fellowship, and worship.

Likewise, in today’s Epistle lesson, the Apostle Paul reminds us that our faith and service to the Lord are not possible without the help of his Holy Spirit living in us and transforming us, albeit ever so gradually, into his very likeness. It is often hard for us to realize we have God’s Holy Spirit living in us because we are so profoundly broken and because of the Spirit’s gentle nature. He never violates our core personalities or turns us into walking robots. If he were to do that, we would never have a chance to truly love God because love can only be offered and accepted freely, and never issues forth from compulsion or coercion.

That is why it is so important for us to look for the fruit of the Spirit to help remind us he is indeed living in us and helping us do the work he calls each of us to do. Paul explicates this more fully elsewhere in 1 Corinthians and in Colossians and Ephesians. I would encourage you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what he has to say there about how the Spirit manifests himself in the lives of his saints. In the meantime, we can tell we have the Spirit working in us when we love each other, when we start to realize that real life is having a relationship with the living God who should be our top priority in this world, when we work to build up each other, when we dare to speak the truth in love to each other, when we act with honesty, integrity, and transparency, and when we serve each other. When the Spirit lives in us, we also have a power to overcome evil and all that is within us that threatens to destroy us. This doesn’t mean we get it right all the time or that we don’t stumble and fall from time to time. But overall, when we have the Holy Spirit living in us, we see over time that our focus is more on pleasing God and serving others, and less on ourselves. Are you seeing that change in your own life?

Finally, there is one other lesson in today’s Gospel lesson at which we need to look. John concludes his story by telling us that this was the first of Jesus’ “signs” that revealed his glory. A sign points us in the direction of our destination and in our service we too can be signs of Jesus. When others see us loving the unlovable and having a servant’s heart, it is a sign that points them to our Lord and away from us. We all can think of people who were signs of Jesus because there was something special about them. They had a quality that was their own but which also transcended them. Often we cannot put our finger on it but if we pay close attention, we can usually see the very reflection of Christ in their lives. I am not talking about famous people like Mother Teresa. I am talking about ordinary folk like you and me. We all know them and by their lives we know Whose they are. That doesn’t mean they don’t have warts or are perfect or mistake-free. It means, rather, that they are pointing us to Jesus, the Source and Author of all life, assisted by his very Power and Presence living in them. Imagine that, the Creator of the universe is calling you to be his sign and is willing to help you be just that, just as he originally intended when he gave humans dominion over his creation here on earth (see Genesis 1-2). He loves you and trusts you enough, warts and all, to allow you to be his sign. Awesome.

Being a sign of Jesus also reminds us that we are not responsible for producing results because signs always point folks to something greater than us or our efforts. We suddenly realize that serving the Lord faithfully does not require us to be mistake-free or never to stumble. God understands this but chooses to invite us to be his signs anyway. Likewise, we remember that even when we are faithful signs of Jesus, not everybody will accept his gracious offer to have life with him forever. While this is personally a very sad thing for us, it also frees us to go and “love and serve the Lord” because we remember that we only have to use our particular gifts to the best of our abilities in his service. He is responsible for achieving the results.

Summary

The story of Jesus changing water into wine reminds us that the world’s joy always runs out and cannot be regained, but the joy Jesus gives is ever new and ever satisfying. The world offers the best at the first, and then, once we are hooked, things start to get worse. But Jesus continues to offer us that which is best until one day we will enjoy the finest blessings in his eternal kingdom. When that happens, our exile will be ended forever. Until that time, however, we are invited to be signs of Jesus so that he can use us to point others to him so that everyone might have life and have it abundantly. What a great privilege and opportunity for each of us! What a glorious hope is ours in this God of ours who loved us and gave himself for us! And that, folks, is good news, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.