John 2:1-11- Epiphany
II - January 15, 2012
Miraculous
Mercy
The
word miracle is generally defined as something that we can’t explain by natural
cause. But that’s not always how the
word is used. At the birth of a child,
for instance, people say, “What a miracle.”
But babies are about as natural as it
gets. Sure it’s amazing, but if that’s
the standard for what we call a miracle, then we should just as much call the
germination of a seed a miracle. Or the
growing of a little sprout into a full-grown vine. Or the ripening of a grape, the fermentation
of its juice into alcohol, the perfection of a fine wine. Amazing! Yes. But all of this is perfectly natural; so it’s
technically not miraculous at all. In
nature, God turns water into wine every day.
But outside of nature, God did this
only once. When we talk about miracles
in the New Testament, we’re talking about specific things that Jesus did that
go beyond God’s normal activity in the natural world around us. These miracles, which the Apostle John calls
signs, serve three purposes which we’ll consider this morning: 1st - Jesus’ miracles reveal
His glory as the Son of God, 2nd
- they were performed for the benefit of others, and 3rd - they teach something still today about His mission
as the Savior of sinners.
I.
Unlike the birth of any baby today,
the incarnation of God’s Son was a
miracle. St. John makes reference to
this miracle in the prologue to his Gospel: “And the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us.” But then John
continues with the following words that describe events that occurred years
later: “and we beheld His glory,” he writes, “the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” This glory of which John speaks of beholding
was first beheld in that portion of his Gospel which we just heard.
It
took Jesus 30 years before He manifested the fact the He was God. Talk about patience. Of course, Mary knew it all along. Although she didn’t always understand what He
did and said and why—there was always
more for her to ponder in her heart than for her to comprehend with her mind. But she knew who her Son was, and she knew
what He was capable of doing. And that
is why even before we hear of the first miracle that Jesus performed, we hear
Mary make a bold request to her Son, and in this request, we hear the Church’s very
first prayer to Jesus: Help.
What
a wonderful prayer. That’s what we pray,
Help—Help us Good Lord. When we pray for Jesus to help us, we are
praying for Jesus to manifest Himself as the Son of God our Savior. And that’s exactly what Mary prayed for
too. But look at what she said. All she actually did was plainly state her
predicament. “They have no wine,” she
said. Simple enough. And that’s what we do. We bring to Jesus not some convincing appeal
as to why He should help us. We simply
lay before Him the obvious – what we lack – what only God can fill – all our
problems. In this lesson, Mary teaches
us the confidence of prayer that the Christian Church assumes toward
Jesus.
But
look at how Jesus responds. “Woman, what does this
have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”
It almost sounds disrespectful, doesn’t it? Calling her woman. But on the contrary, this is how Jesus
honored her. Not only was the title of ‘woman’ a respectful title in those
days, but by calling her woman, Jesus
also confirmed her faith in Him. He did
this by hearkening back to that first promise of the Gospel that God had made
to Adam and Eve. “I will put enmity between you and the
woman,” He said
to the devil, “and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you
shall bruise His heel.” By addressing
Mary as ‘woman,’ Jesus essentially
said to her, “Mother, you were right to
ask for help from Me. I am the Seed of
the woman; you are the woman. You were
right to look to the Son of God to save you from all your troubles.” All this in the word woman. J
“Woman … My hour has not yet come.”
With these words, Jesus conceded that He had an hour
that would come—an hour when His heel
would be bruised by the one whose head He had come to crush – an hour of
darkness on the cross where God would die for the sins of men as the eternal
Father turned His angry face from His eternal Son. A time was set for Jesus to reveal Himself as
the Savior on the cross. But this time
had not yet come. What had come was the time for Him to
manifest Himself as the Son of God. This
was the first purpose of His miracle.
II.
The second purpose of the miracles that
Jesus performed was to benefit others. We
see this very clearly when Jesus turned water into wine. The celebration of a wedding in first century
Palestine was the party of a lifetime.
Great deals of money and time were invested to make a wedding a
wonderful event. And even greater than
this — a couple’s future honor and good name were also invested. To run out of wine would have been more than
a disappointment or buzz kill. It would
have brought shame on them. They had a
huge problem – even if from our perspective it might seem superfluous and
petty. They needed help.
Mary must have been close to the
bride and groom. And so she brought the
problem to Him who was able to help. “[But]
what does this have to do with Me?” Jesus said. Well, that’s a good question. What did it have to do with Jesus? But Jesus wasn’t showing a lack of concern
for the problem. No. He just wanted to
put it in its proper place. What do our problems have to do with Jesus? We should always know the answer to this
question when we pray to Him. And Jesus
shows us the answer by turning water into wine.
He made this young couple’s problem His own.
It’s significant that Jesus chose a
wedding to reveal His glory for the first time.
By doing so, Jesus honored marriage.
He honored that first estate upon which all society is built. He honored that institution that is so easily
despised. He honored that sacred
relationship against which, and within which, I think, most of our sins are
committed.
Now,
it’s easy to look at how the world around us dishonors marriage. Nowadays, people redefine it even to
accommodate homosexual union. But God
created them male and female. People
justify sex outside of marriage simply by appealing to mutual consent. But what about God’s consent? Some people don’t even look for God’s
blessing at all, but rather prize more highly their own commitment to each
other as though this is what will sustain their relationship. But such marriages crumble as quickly as the
fickle feelings of devotion upon which they are built. A solid marriage needs God. And even within the marriages of Christians, children
have been regarded as a burden to be avoided and prevented rather than as a blessing
to be welcomed from God. Even among
Christians, divorce has become the catch-all problem solver.
What
other sins do we Christians commit against marriage? Do husbands love their wives as they
ought? Do wives honor their
husbands? Do husbands act as worthy
heads? Do they lead devotions at
home? Do wives encourage them? What problems do these cause for us and for
our families?
Look
at the problems that our culture faces right now, and it seems that almost all
of them can be traced to a bad attitude toward marriage. We see many of our own problems have the same
source – whether we’re married or not.
But
when Jesus honored marriage the way He did, He gave promise to ours as
well. He didn’t just honor marriage as
some lofty idea – an institutional ideal.
No, He restored joy to one particular union of a man and a woman whose
names we don’t know. He saw their
problem and He made it His own. He saw
what they needed and He gave it to them.
So
what problems has your sin caused you?
What heart-ache, what regret?
Maybe you can’t even trace it to any given sin at all – but there’s
trouble in your life. There’s worry that
plagues your heart. And not just within
marriage, but in your life in general.
Yet look at what Mary did. She
told Jesus what the problem was. She
didn’t explain it. She didn’t say how it
happened. She simply expressed her
concern to Him who had the power and the willingness to help.
And
look at what Jesus did. He didn’t give
advice on how to plan a better party. He
helped. “What does this have to do with
Me?” He asked. Everything. There is no problem too common or minor for
Jesus to help us with. We may not ask
for or expect, or get a miracle. But by
performing this first miracle as He did on this day, Jesus put all of our
problems in their proper perspective. And
He showed Himself willing to help even us.
But He doesn’t help us just by giving us marital advice. No, He helps us by joining Himself to our
marriages – by coming into our homes. By
providing Himself as the foundation – He
teaches us to forgive one another by forgiving us.
III.
The
third purpose of Jesus’ miracles was to teach us about His mission as the Savior of sinners. And so, through the help He offers us, Jesus
teaches us what our true need is. When
we pray to God for help, when we cast our cares on Him who cares for us, we do
so as sinners. We don’t simply present a
list of fix-it requests so that our lives might be molded to our own
desires. Rather we confess to Him our
sinful desires, and ask that He create in us a clean heart and renew a right
spirit within us. When we present to
Jesus our problems and failures, we present to Jesus our sin—whether you see
the connection between our sins and our troubles or not. Because it is for the sake of the forgiveness
that He wins for us that He also gives us all things.
Now since I’ve been preaching as much
about what Mary did as what Jesus did, I’d like to point out the last thing
that she said. She didn’t say it to
Jesus. She didn’t tell Him what to do or
how to help. Instead she told the
servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”
In the same way that Mary teaches the Church to pray and bring all
petitions to God through Jesus Christ His Son, so also Mary teaches the Church today
and through all ages what to tell Christ’s ministers. Do what
Jesus tells you to do.
We don’t provide our pastors with
programs and methods on how to solve our problems. We don’t call on Christ’s ministers to
manipulate His Divine Service in order to meet our felt needs. No, we call them to do what Jesus gave them
to do—to deliver to us what Jesus earned for us as He lived a life of obedience
in our place to the very law that exposes the source of our guilt and
misery. We call them to preach the gospel
that delivers to each one of us the life that Christ earned for us by giving
His life into death. We call His
servants to humbly heed the word of our
Lord who through them performs an even greater miracle than turning water into
wine—but for our eternal benefit He turns wine into the very blood He shed on
the cross to make total satisfaction for all our sin.
And what greater joy could we reap
than by receiving that which quenches our deepest thirst and greatest need for
a righteousness that we have not produced?
Just as the nervous moments leading up to that first taste-test in Cana were
met with more than relief that the water was wine, so also the heaviest heart
that comes to this altar believing what this blood has won for you, will be met
with more than glad relief, but a pledge of eternal peace from God Himself that
cannot be taken away.
On that day in Cana at a wedding,
Jesus first manifested His glory as the Son of God by turning water into
wine. He helped the seemingly fleeting
need of a young couple who staked their happiness on how much wine there was to
drink. In so doing, Jesus showed Himself
to be happy and able to heal our marriages, to mend our relationships, and to restore
our lost joys. But much more
importantly, He provided a sign – as St. John calls His miracles – a sign by
which His disciples first believed in Him.
And so we fix our hearts on that sign that He prepares today – through
the word you hear and through that which you will receive – that what the Son
of God accomplished for you on Calvary is also yours today. Believe it.
On this we stake our happiness, and our eternal life in heaven.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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