Epiphany 2

John 2:1-11 - Epiphany II - January 18, 2015         
Jesus Honors Marriage

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This morning I’d like to talk about marriage since our Gospel lesson certainly lends itself to such a discussion.  In fact, the entire Epiphany season lends itself to the discussion of marriage.  Consider what we’ve been celebrating during Epiphany and how it speaks to marriage:

God became man and wed himself, so to speak, to our flesh forever – not just to Jewish flesh, but to all human flesh.  The divine Christ will never divorce himself from his humanity.  He remains God and Man forever.  He did not borrow his human nature the way a man borrows the company of a woman to meet some fleeting desire.  No, he assumed a human nature the way a man is permanently joined to his wife and becomes one flesh with her in marriage.  In this way he fulfills his enduring desire to save us.  Through this union of God and Man, this divine marriage of two Natures, Jesus creates new life.  As a faithful Head and honorable father, he cares for the life that his Church gives birth to through Baptism even as he remains with his Bride until the end of the ages.  Since he lives forever, the two shall never be parted, and he will never cease to care for his spiritual children. 

Jesus honored marriage. 

Epiphany 2

John 2:1-11 - Epiphany Two - January 19, 2014           
Jesus Gives Joy to Marriage

Marriage is a divine institution, not a human institution.  Proof for this is that it is still around.  How many human ideas – as good as they were in their time for arranging society – have since grown obsolete?  Take for instance the feudal system of Medieval Europe.  And how many social conventions – as useful as they once were for guiding people’s behavior for the common good – have simply outworn their usefulness?  Take for instance the food rationing of the 1940s.  But marriage is different than these.  Marriage has been constant in its essential form and purpose throughout culture and time.  And that’s because it wasn’t invented by man.  It was invented by God. 

Epiphany 2

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: 1^st - Jesus’ miracles reveal His glory as the Son of God, 2^nd - they were performed for the benefit of others, and 3^rd - they teach something still today about His mission as the Savior of sinners.