Second Sunday after Epiphany 2022

John 2.1-11 – The Wedding at Cana

January 16, 2022

“They have no wine.” With these words the mother of Jesus invites Him to reveal Himself, that He is the Christ. But He responds to her, “Mine hour is not yet come.” The hour for what? The hour of His glorification.

For us, glory is connected with success. We are glorified if we achieve something, when we are victorious in an effort. Glorification comes in earning a degree, landing a job or promotion, getting married, having a child. People throw parties and give presents. The glorification of Jesus is just the opposite: His glory is marked not by success but by seeming failure; His glory is not in gain but in loss; His glory is not in obtaining life for Himself, but in dying. All this is what our Lord Jesus means when He points to His hour. “Mine hour is not yet come.”

Again and again this same idea recurs in the Fourth Gospel. John 7: “The Jews sought to take [Jesus], and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour was not yet come.” And in ch. 8: “These words spake [Jesus] as He taught in the temple: and no man took Him, because His hour was not yet come.” Finally, in the prayer in Gethsemane just before He is arrested, Jesus prays, “Father, the hour is come! Glorify Thy Son!” His glory is in His cross, the hour where He gives His life to and for the world.

So when His mother says, “They have no wine,” Jesus gently rebuffs her request to use this opportunity to manifest the power of His divine nature. “Mine hour is not yet come.” But there seems to be a contradiction, doesn’t there? For after saying these words, He proceeds to provide wine for this marriage feast. Yet there is no inconsistency. The point is this: Jesus’ glory as the Messiah will not be fully revealed merely by changing water into wine, or by any other such miracle. In fact, the word “miracle” in today’s text is better translated as sign. What Jesus does is a sign, pointing us to the great event that will fully reveal who He is and what His work is.

As an integral part of this sign, the Lord does not simply cause jugs of wine to appear *poof!* out of thin air. Listen carefully to the details: “And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews.” Six is the number of man, for man was made on the sixth day of creation. Because man—who is identified by the number six—fell into sin, six is also in the Bible a number designating incompleteness/lacking/deficiency. Because of this damaged deficiency, every man needs purification for the sins that he does and the sin that he is, i.e., the sinful nature we all have inherited from Adam. Not out of convenience, then, does the Lord select these six stone waterpots used for the Jewish purification ritual before a meal. The transformation of the water from these waterpots points to the transformation of the entire ritual system of purification – a transformation that culminates in the death of Jesus, where He gives His own blood for wine.

So Jesus answers His mother as He does, and John tells us that this miracle was a sign, so that we won’t miss the most important fact: Jesus does not meet our felt needs of the moment, but He came to meet our true need and heal our deepest wounds. Jesus does remedy the embarrassing situation of running short on wine at the marriage banquet – but He does so in a way that points His mother and His disciples ahead, to what He will truly give: a purification that goes beyond the current ritual. Jesus will give something that brings purity in a full and complete way. Jesus has come to sanctify (make holy) the entire person.

By changing the water of purification into wine, Jesus gives a sign—He points ahead—to a new purifying Sacrament, the wine which is His blood. And this Sacrament then becomes a kind of marriage ritual, where Christ purifies His bride and joins the Church to Himself.

The Holy Scriptures give us several complimentary understandings of the Lord’s Supper. It is a meal commemorating and proclaiming the death of Jesus; it is a participation or communion in His Body and Blood; it is a rite bestowing the forgiveness of sins; and in John, the Communion is food and drink imparting eternal life. In all of these, Jesus points us away from our felt needs, away from our lust for glory and success, away from our fretting and anxiety. He directs us away from the selfishness which leads to death, and towards His sacrifice which leads to life.

In this Gospel, Jesus makes wine, so wondrous as to astonish the master of the feast. But this is mere prelude. Jesus is preparing us for His upper room discourse, where He reveals that He is the true Vine. He who gives the wine that makes glad the heart of man must first drink the dregs Himself. “Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given Me?” In His death He drinks that cup – the same event where a spear thrust brought forth blood and water from His opened side. Now He invites all who long to depart this shadow-world of mortality and sorrow to come to the Father through union, communion with Him: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.”

That same invitation is given to you now. From the side of Jesus flows a river of living water. His blood is the true wine that makes glad our hearts, for it is the pure water of total purification. As John writes elsewhere, “The blood of Jesus Christ … cleanses us from all sin” [1 Jn. 1.7]. You can take Bible passages like that and turn them into prayers. Based on that verse, I like to pray before receiving the cup, “Lord Jesus Christ, by Your blood cleanse me from all my sins, and fortify me against sin’s power.”

The words of the mother of Jesus today are directed also to you: “Whatever He says to you, do it.” And what does He say? Commands that are not commands at all, but promises: “Come unto Me”; “Take and drink”; “Believe on Me”; “Whoever eats and drinks has eternal life, and I will raise Him up at the last day.” ✠inj✠