Great expectations
Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany, year C
Bible reading: John 2:1-11
Here we are between the two drinking fests of New Year and Australia Day, and we could wish that Jesus would turn the wine into water. But no! Here we are on the second Sunday of Epiphany and Jesus turns the water into wine, gallons of it – 700-800 litres of it.
This is too much to stomach for some. A very godly woman in one of my parishes was convinced it must have been grape juice! I don’t think so. There is something right in your face about this story. Water into wine – 700-800 litres of the best drop; this is a sign pointing to something really important about Jesus. This shows us Jesus’ glory, or what Jesus is all about. This is Jesus’ first sign – his first big chance to show you what he is like – and he turns water into wine.
- He doesn’t walk on water
- He doesn’t calm the stormy water
- He doesn’t part the waters and walk through on dry land
- He doesn’t have water run from his pierced side.
None of these – he turns water into wine.
Somebody has said: If you chase two rabbits, both will escape. There seem to be a lot of rabbits in this story. If we seek to chase them all, we may go home exhausted and hungry.
So which rabbit shall we chase?
- We could chase after Mary coming to Jesus and saying: they have no wine, expecting him to do something about it. What an example to us all to go to Jesus in all our needs with the expectation he will act.
- We could chase after Jesus’ reply to Mary: Woman, why do you want to involve me? We could say that Jesus is following his Heavenly Father’s will, not the will of humans, even his mother.
- We could chase after Jesus oft repeated words: my hour has not yet come, and see how they finally lead us to the hour of his suffering and death on the cross.
- We could chase after the six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification; and explain how Jesus has come to replace the legalistic wine skins of the old covenant, with the overflowing grace of the new covenant in his blood.
- We could chase after abundance of wine as evidence that the age of the Messiah has come, when the vats shall overflow with wine. Joel 2:24.
- We could chase after how Jesus turns the water into wine and how this points to Jesus giving us his blood of the new covenant in the wine of Holy Communion.
- We could chase after how Jesus did this, the first of his signs, and examine the seven signs in John, and how they all reveal Jesus to us as Saviour and Lord.
- We could chase after how this sign, revealed Jesus’ glory, and go on to show that the true glory of Jesus is seen when he is lifted up on the cross for us all.
- We could chase after the result of this story… and his disciples believed in him, and trace it through to John’s word to us all in John 20, that he wrote
these signs that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
I have listed nine rabbits here, nine directions we could go with this first sign Jesus did. So which rabbit shall we chase? If we chase them all, they will all escape. They are all worth chasing, but if we attempt to chase them all, we’ll go home hungry and exhausted.
I’m going to chase one I haven’t mentioned and hope it summarises them all: great expectations.
The revealing of Jesus raises our hopes and gives us great expectations. The revealing of Jesus in this sign, and in his other signs, sows seeds of faith into our hearts, and leads us to grow in faith and love and worship and witness.
Let’s picture it this way. The Gospel of John, like the other Gospels, tells the story of Jesus revealing himself, or his glory, to the disciples. Jesus does this by calling his disciples to follow him all over the country on a ‘show and tell’ journey. He shows them that he is the Son of God through seven signs. He tells them that he is the Son of God through seven I am sayings. After each show or tell there are often long discussions and debates with the religious leaders. As the ‘show and tell’ journey progresses, the hopes and the expectations of the disciples slowly rise, whereas the eyes of the religious leaders mostly become blinder, their hearts harder, and their wills more determined to kill Jesus.
It’s a three-year journey for the disciples, and though they grow in their understanding of Jesus, mostly they don’t get it. They have glimpses of insight and faith, as in today’s story. But by the next story where Jesus speaks of destroying and rebuilding the temple in three days they are again in a fog, and we’re told that only after he was raised from the dead… they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken
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Even though Jesus showed and told them over and over that he was the Son of God, the disciples were so trapped in the sea of unbelieving humanity that they could not clearly see the Son of God walking on the waters.
Even though Jesus changed 500 litres of water into wine, and even though Jesus fed 5000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish … the disciples still struggled to see and believe.
No wonder that when the hour of Jesus suffering and death came, one betrayed him, another denied him, and they all forsook him. With such a struggle to believe, no wonder when a replacement had to be chosen for Judas it had to be one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us
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But once the disciples were convinced of the resurrection of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit had filled them, they were bold in their faith, and they expected Jesus to do the same through them, as he had done before them.
Do you have high expectations of Jesus? If not, I suspect it is because you have not walked the ‘show and tell’ journey with Jesus in the Gospels, and with the Apostles. The more we get to know and see Jesus, the more we grow in faith and in expectation.
- Perhaps we have to read the story of turning water in wine, each day for a week, to begin to believe that God can make great changes in our lives.
- Perhaps we have to read the feeding of the 5000, each day for a week, for us to believe that God can provide for all our needs for time and for eternity.
- Perhaps we have to read the story of the stilling of the storm, each day for a week, for God to take away our fears & give us courage to step out boldly to follow him.
- Perhaps we have to read the passion story over and over to grasp how much God loves us, and forgives us, and wants to save us, and raise us to eternal life.
Jesus turns the water into wine, feeds the 5000, raises the dead, dies and rises from the dead to give us eternal life. His grace is sufficient
… his grace abounds
… He gives abundant life
… he is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine
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God has said and done amazing things for us in Jesus Christ. We can go out into the world expecting that he will do great things through us to bless others. Amen.