Second Sunday After Epiphany (C) 2019

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: John 2:9
Theme: The Smallest of Miracles?


Dear friends in Christ Jesus,

Jesus wined the water. Surely, it’s one of His most subtle and interesting miracles. Miracles are an aid to faith. Some of Jesus’ miracles were much more impressive than others. Raising the dead and calming the stormy sea have a different impact than turning water into wine. Jesus didn’t perform miracles willy-nilly. He healed people out of compassion and benevolence. The goal was always to illicit faith or confirm it in the beneficiary and among the witnesses. Faith itself is a miracle; a gift of the Holy Spirit.

Everything Christ did was purposeful. Humans are the undeserving objects of His love. He attended to the physical and spiritual needs of people constantly. But He didn’t come just to ease the suffering of this temporal life. Of course, knowledge that He reconciles us to the Father, that our sins are forgiven, is the ultimate balm for our woes even now. Death is frightening enough even when we know Christ has it in hand. How can it be faced without such assurance? Well, only in defiance or ignorance or foolishness. All human constructions of a blessed afterlife are mere wishful thinking at best or cruel attempts to deceive people at worst.

Any suffering God allows or ordains in your life has the purpose of deepening your faith and whetting your appetite for the life to come. But because it is our tendency to view all painful experiences as evil, we are prone to not only shun them, but interpret them as being contrary to God’s will. And, if we’re honest, defending God against accusations that He is the author of evil is probably not our primary concern. We’re more worried about our own comfort and we are loathe to think that God works in our lives through things that are not only uncomfortable, but even painful and traumatic.

Job is one of the most vivid biblical examples, but there are many others. So, this baptismal life under the cross is always one of becoming instead of one of perfection; one of joy mixed with sorrow. We can’t see the resolution of all evil and suffering, but we press on believing God will bring it to pass. The Scripture says, “we walk by faith, not by sight.”1 And, we hold Romans 8 to be true even when it seems counterintuitive, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”2

The skeptics of our day have no place in their intellectual capacities for miracles. Scientism is quickly gaining ascendancy as a dominant ideology of our times. Trust in the ability of science to solve and explain nearly every problem and question facing humanity is increasingly unchallenged. Technological advances- and some are mind-blowing to be sure- are mistaken for answers to questions of meaning and purpose. The implications are far-reaching.

The focused goal of many who adhere to this philosophy is to systematically deconstruct the biblical worldview. With God out of the picture humanity is freed to define reality within its own parameters. Jettisoned is the ancient conviction that a supreme being will ultimately judge and that there are absolute standards we will be measured against. Of course, under this worldview sin becomes a very fluid concept determined by those who wield power at a particular time in a particular place. We’re already seeing the challenges to societal cohesion. Who will determine who makes the rules and on what basis?

We can think of the entire enterprise of human autonomy as a reversal of the divine order. Constructing God in our own image is a crass inversion of the order of creation. It is the characteristic hallmark of the fallen creation. It is the activity of unbelief. You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think you’re vulnerable to the temptation to make the definition of sin something pliable and flexible. The quickest way to excuse our transgressions is to redefine them as virtues or at least neutral realities. But the thunder of the law cannot be mitigated. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”3 If you don’t feel the weight of your sins or have any real desire for forgiveness, pray that God would deliver you from such a false sense of security.

Dear friends, one of the lessons of today’s gospel account is the discriminating timing and activity of God. Jesus had a timeframe that couldn’t be altered. Mary, His mother, offered His services, perhaps with thoughts of more publicity for Him. But it wasn’t yet time, so Jesus performs a subtle but convincing miracle. His attentiveness was not in doubt, but the details could not be dictated to Him. Everything in your life has a timetable too. If you’re like me, you’re probably hasty when God wants you to be patient, or apathetic when God wants you to be passionate. Human cynicism and general short-sightedness compromise our trust that God knows what’s good for us and when. But Christ is never disinterested. He in never apathetic or indifferent to our needs. Miracles are His specialty. Death itself is no barrier. But for God nothing He does is a miracle, or everything is a miracle depending on what perspective you take.

But that doesn’t mean some things don’t stand out. We have a God who raises the dead. “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will.”4 God will raise your lifeless corpse from the sleep of death, just as He has already done for your soul. His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave- securing your forgiveness- empower you with new life here and now.

It’s a life gifted to you by Him, but a life whose purpose is not one of self-indulgence, but of self-sacrifice. You have a vocation. In fact, you have multiple vocations. You are spouses, and parents, and children. You are mentors, apprentices, and managers, and workers. You have the privilege of serving others and being served by them. You are called to do this with integrity and according to God’s will. You are God’s ambassadors of peace and light in a world mired in chaos and spiritual darkness.

By rubbing shoulders with you, others become acquainted with the miraculous love of God in Christ. Is the fact that your body continues to metabolise nutrients enabling your brain to facilitate countless electrical synapsis translating into the power to make decisions any less miraculous than the turning of water into wine? Is not the marvel of God’s creation a litany of miracles? The ratio of strength to density of a spiderweb exceeds that of steel. The tiny ant can lift a hundred times its own body weight. Every day is filled with miracles. May the Spirit open our eyes to see them!

St. John records the turning of water into wine as Jesus’ first miracle. The theological parallel with holy communion is an instructive one. Just as we may think of Jesus turning the water into wine with the water still being present, so also, we can picture the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper while the bread and wine also remain present. The presence of the one does not exclude the presence of the other. It doesn’t make either reality any less of a miracle. And we’re certainly not suggesting that Christ’s body and blood isn’t truly there in the sacrament, that it’s only a mental image or something. Just as we’re not saying that the wedding guests at Cana were actually only drinking water but were too intoxicated to know the difference.

Jesus wined the water. And because there are no coincidences with God it was not happenstance that He was at a wedding. Christ is our eternal Bridegroom. Amen.

+ In nomine Jesu +

The Second Sunday After Epiphany
20 January 2019
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt
1 2 Corinthians 5:7
2 Romans 8:28
3 Romans 3:23
4 John 5:21