The Second Sunday after Epiphany - January 16, 2011

The Church Season of Epiphany,
2nd Sunday after Epiphany,
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (January 17, 2010)
"The Sympathy of Christ"

Readings:   
    Exodus 33:12-23
    Ephesians 5:22-33   
    John 2:1-11

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen

The text for today is as recorded in the Gospel Lesson from the 2nd chapter of St. John, especially the following verses...

John 2:1-11 (ESV)

1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

Jesus Christ attends a wedding in Cana, and there He blesses the wedding party with His first recorded miracle, changing water into wine.  It is a contrast of duty and sympathy, contrast but not exclusion.  For Christ’s duty, that is to do His Father’s will, did not fill His life so completely as to leave no room for sympathy. Surely no life was ever so spent in duty. Jesus had just entered upon His campaign of the world’s redemption and was in the act of choosing His apostles. Yet Christ did not plead duty as an excuse by sending a note saying ‘sorry no time must be saving the world from its sins best wishes Jesus’, but rather He came to the wedding with His disciples.

And so one lesson taught at the wedding of Cana was that Christ proclaimed Himself divine. He also taught that He would bless the relationship between man and wife.  Jesus did not come to destroy human nature and relations, but to fulfill them by reconnecting them with God. Christ came to unite, not to scatter.

It would seem that our chief joys and sorrows center in our homes. As at Bethany Christ relieved the deepest sorrows of a home, so at Cana He showed His sympathy with the joys and lesser anxieties of home. The contrast then with this lesson is that we are happy but that we are not happy enough.  No matter how much we want, we want more, brighter, shinier, newer, better, or just more than our neighbor.  But, Earth’s sources of pleasure run dry, or as our hymn would have it, “Earth’s vain shadows flee.”LSB Hymnal #878  At this wedding, Christ manifested Himself as the source of a joy that is richer than that of any thing of human making. The poor flat wine of cheap earthly joy is soon spent from clay jars, so Christ came to give a joy that no other man can give us, that no other man can take from us. It is a gift of a miracle that the wedding is blessed in Cana, it is a gift of a miracle upon the cross that we are blessed.

And so in Jesus Christ is revealed the very essence of sympathy.  Jesus does not feel with others,  but rather He enters into your feelings.  The water was changed to wine, and His gift was given in secret so that none but the servants knew how close this party was to disaster.  Nor did these servants later mention how the supply had been replenished and multiplied. Christ’s gifts of grace are often given and received secretly.

So what was done at Cana is a type of what was to come.  What is a type?  A type is a biblical term roughly meaning a shadow revealing a future truth, like the flood of Noah is a type of baptism, the washing away of sin, and the gift of new life.  So this type, this example of things to come is that all of Christ’s working lead’s to the final banishment of all your sorrows, all that attacks you in this world.  And Christ then points you to God who will wipe away all your tears and the water of sorrow shall be turned into the wine of joy at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

And from that gift of mercy from God in Christ Jesus, it is our duty to display obedience, unquestioning, impartial, practical, and personal mercy and service to others.  God said, “This is my Son, listen to Him.”  We cannot share Christian hope and comfort without rendering Christian obedience. Remember those jugs of water set aside at the wedding were for purification rites to use with those who had been set apart from the community as unclean.  Christ turns that water of purification into wine by His actions not by ours.

Today as we gather together we should be reminded that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, members of one body  We are called to serve one another in love with whatever gifts we have received. The Holy Supper of our Lord reminds us of that too, as St. Paul writes: “Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the same loaf” (1 Cor. 10:17). At the Lord’s Table we all partake of the same bread, we eat a fragment broken from the same loaf. Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body. In Holy Communion Christ describes the sympathy and loving concern the various members of the same body how they should show mercy for one another, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor. 12:26). This is the relationship we enter and gather into with one another as we eat of the same loaf at the Lord’s Table.

We eat and drink in remembrance of Jesus Christ.  He gives us His Body, which He gave into death out of love for you. He gives us His Blood, which He shed for the love of you. This pouring out of Christ’s body and blood reminds us of His love and keeps alive in us a deep affection for Him.

But when He asked that we do this to remember Him, He was concerned not only about our love for Him, but also how His followers’, that would be you and me, how we love one another. Our strength is united affection in our oneness with Christ. For it is His Kingdom which was founded on truth, love, and mercy. Not  by the wielding of a sword, but only by His love did Christ conquer the kingdoms of this world.

And so what holds us together?  It is Christ’s love for us, it is our love one another. If we all love Christ then we must also love one another. This love must keep us united. So Jesus pleads with us to love Him always, because He wants us to love all the other faithful people who love Him too.  And hidden behind these two desires was a third. He wants to be remembered and loved always, because He wants His friends to love and serve all needy people always. We are called to unselfish, self-denying, in humble service to our fellow people and that is to be our life, just as it was Christ’s life and death. 

It is a hard thing to expect of us.  In fact, it is impossible unless we constantly keep true to our ideal of service by means of a lasting affection for Christ. So Jesus pleads to us, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” It is as if Jesus were speaking to us and saying ‘Recall not only Me but everything about Me. Remember how no service was too humble or too lowly. Remember this, follow, My example, and do it for Me. No one can be Jesus, but we can show mercy to others as we have been show mercy by Christ Himself.

When we celebrate the Holy Communion, may we never forget for a moment that what is done is in remembrance of Him. There is probably little danger of our failing to recall that He gave His life to purchase for us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The words “for you” always assure us that in making the price paid for our forgiveness in our own by eating and drinking, we have all that Christ purchased with that price. All that is His is ours — His righteousness, His perfection, His holiness, His glory. We would be strange people, indeed, if we could kneel again in spirit under the Cross and see the Son of God dying out of love for us, without, also loving Him, too. If Communion is just something we do as a mechanical thing, rather we remember Him and love Him the more, as we recall His sacred Person and glorious work of love.  Then Holy Communion is recognized for what it is, that is, it is for you.

But to do this in remembrance of Him means more. We are to remember Him also in His eagerness to find some means of keeping His followers united in their common affection for their Lord. As they remember Him, every disturbing element in their fellowship and in their love for one another is to disappear. The love we have for Him is to unite us. “Love one another even as I have loved you.”  Like changing the water into wine as a blessing, in baptism He has changed our bodies from it sinful nature to the newness of life.  As it was written in Psalm Number 4, Christ fills “[our] hearts with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.”  A marriage was blessed by the abundance of new wine, your life is now blessed by the abundance of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, and so our marriage with Jesus Christ the bridegroom is blessed for us, for ever and ever.  Amen.

The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
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