Who is Jesus Christ for us Today?

Text: John 2:1-11                                    Second Sunday after the Epiphany

The Rev. Ross M. Wright                                 Church of the Good Shepherd

 

 

The key to the miracle at Cana is the Evangelist’s editorial comment at the end: “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory.”  This sign points beyond itself to Jesus himself.  It answers the question: Who is Jesus Christ for us today?[1]  During the season of Epiphany, this is the question which is put to us.  We have celebrated his birth, but now, who exactly is Jesus Christ?  For us?  Today?  The miracle at Cana answers this question.

And on the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and Jesus’ mother was there.  Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.  And when the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They don’t have any wine.”  And Jesus said to her, “That’s your business.  How does it concern me?  My hour has not yet come.”[2]

Running out of wine at a wedding reception is embarrassing, but it’s certainly not a life threatening situation.  How different this sign is from Jesus’ other miracles!  In most cases, Jesus’ miracles free people from the forces which maim, destroy, and take away their humanity.  He touches the sockets of a blind man, restoring his sight.  He casts out the unclean spirits from people who are convulsed by demonic possession, restoring their sanity.  He opens the ears of the deaf.  But turning water into wine?  What does it mean? 

There is a clue in Jesus’ abrupt response to his mother: “That’s your business.  How does it concern me?  My hour has not yet come.”  When Jesus speaks of his “hour,” he is referring to his passion, the events occurring between Maundy Thursday and Easter morning.  See him on Maundy Thursday evening, celebrating the Passover meal with his disciples, seated before the roasted lamb and the cup of wine.  He says: “The hour has come for the Son of man to be gloried” (Jn. 12:23ff.).  See him in the Garden of Gethsemane, in the darkness, contemplating the ordeal before him.  He prays: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you” (Jn. 17:1).  So we must understand the miraculous transformation of water to wine in light of Jesus’ self-offering for the sins of the world.  Jesus is “the crucified God,” according to Martin Luther.  God gives himself to us as Jesus pours out his blood.  This gift is expressed by the 17^th century Anglican clergyman, George Herbert, in his poem, “The Agony:”

Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,

Which my God feels as blood; but I as wine.[3]

It is also expressed in the hymn: “Glory be to Jesus, who in bitter pains, poured for me the lifeblood, from his sacred veins.” 

            So in light of Jesus “hour,” let us look again at this miraculous sign:

His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”  And there were six water jars for ritual purification, according to the Jewish custom, each containing twenty or thirty gallons.  Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.”  And they filled them right to the brim.  Then he said to them, “Now draw some out and offer it to the headwaiter.”  And they took it.  And when the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, not knowing where it came from, though the servants who drew the water knew, the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, then when people have had their fill, he brings out the cheap stuff.  But you have kept the good wine until now.”

 

Jesus is the new wine, which surpasses the Jewish ceremonies of purification.  We are like those six large water jars – we are standing here, waiting to be filled brimful with the Spirit of Christ.[4]  When Christ is present in the power of his Holy Spirit, the old forms are renewed and become a source of life.  The familiar service of Holy Communion, even if we have heard it hundreds of times, is suddenly filled with new meaning.  When Jesus shows up in a service of Holy Eucharist, we hear the promise that we are clean, that God delights in us like a groom watching his bride walk down the aisle. 

            What would it take for you to be clean?  “Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me,” the psalmist prays (Ps. 51).  What would it take for you to have a clean conscience, to know that the stains from past acts and present remorse have been dealt with?  “Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”  In Macbeth, Shakespeare captures the desperate attempts to be cleansed from that which stains our conscience.  Lady Macbeth, after the murder of Duncan, looks at her blood stained hands and cries: “Out, damned spot! out, I say!  . . . .  What, will these hands ne’er be clean?”[5]  There is in each of us spots that we wish to wash away, but cannot.  The stab of guilt, the accusing conscience, testifies to our need for a cleansing power greater than any atonement we can make. 

            We have been washed in the blood of the lamb of God, Jesus Christ.  This cleansing exposes all of our attempts to cleanse ourselves.  We can tidy up the outside, but we cannot not touch the inside.  Jesus exposed the religious people who thought that by avoiding certain foods, by going through ritual cleansing of pots and hands, you can be clean.  He said: Look, there is nothing on the outside of a person which he eats or ingests which can defile him.  The problem is not “out there” but “in here,” in the heart.  “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.”[6]  Do you see how much more radical this is than all our attempts to cleanse ourselves through compulsive neatness or by the need to be perfectly dressed? 

Who is Jesus Christ for us today?  He is living bread, superior to the manna which Israel collected in the wilderness.  He is living water, which we drink, and know that we will never be thirsty again.  He gives new birth into a new world – as radical as the trip we made from the darkness of the womb into the light of the delivery room.  Jesus has called us to his service of Holy Eucharist, which is a foretaste of the wedding feast of the kingdom of God.  Jesus said of the heavenly banquet: “They will come from East and West, North and South and sit at table.”  It is here, in the ministry of word and sacrament, that we catch a glimpse of the glory of Jesus.  This is the meaning of the miracle of Cana.  This is how our discipleship grows and deepens.  Now we can say with John the Evangelist and the disciples: “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten Son, full of grace and truth.”   

 

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christology, trans., John Bowden (London: Collins, 1966), Introduction.

[2] My translation here and throughout, unless otherwise noted.  For this translation of the Hebrew idiom translated in RSV, “What concern is that to you and to me?” see Raymond Brown, The Gospel of John (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 99.

[3] The Agony (1633). 

[4] Michael Marshall, “By Hook or by Crook” in The Anglican Digest, Lent, 1989, 62.

[5] Macbeth, Act V, scene 1. 

[6] Mark 7:1-23; particularly vv. 21-23; RSV.