Wine Abundant. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Bridge

Transcription

1 Wine Abundant Isaiah 62:1-5 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 John 2: nd Sunday after the Epiphany From our Introit: The Lord brought me to the banqueting house. How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. They feast on the abundance of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your delights. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light do we see light. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Bridge I wasn t sure how this weekend would pan out. Putting Wine Abundant on the marquee, the only thing I could have advertised that maybe could have drawn a vaster crowd would have been Lots of Beer. But how wonderful it is that our Lord God is shown caring and, even, abundantly blessing the simple issue of an earthly party (a wedding reception). How tremendous it is that His first sign revealing Himself and the nature of Him (with His Father and the Holy Spirit) is through His presence and obvious overwhelming addition to what we might think as, just, an earthly affair. Pastor Craig and I, both, have the weddings of our kids ahead this spring. On the last weekend of April (the week after Easter), Pastor Craig s daughter, Tara, gets married. One week later, Ben (my son) gets married. Weddings and wedding receptions will be, then, both our festivities, and it s a parents wish that the wedding and reception are pleasant. But (and with far more furvancy) we wish that their marriages (from then on) are blest and that God be the most-influencial partner of those unions (that He would be the premier force driving the new couple s day-today life / the Catalyst more than what anything else could be. That God blesses our children s

2 marriage (well-beyond what He d ever do in the day of the wedding) is begged-for as paramount by parents almost since the moment of their births, which is (beyond their health) what brings a mom and dad (and grandma and grandpa) to their knees most aggressively. We beg (literally) for God s abundant care upon our child s marriage before and after the wedding takes place. Before meeting the one, even, who they marry, we beg God to pick that one and, then, beg that He would be the most-active member of their union of (hopefully) 3, guiding it, blessing it, giving it joy and peace, and (even) controlling it in its movements and efforts and situations and handling of situations (its love for each other and how that gets expressed and worked-out for better and worse / for sickness and health ). Knowing the sacredness of marriage (its sanctity) / His ordination of it / how He considers it to be central to all the structures of relationships that are, both, horizontal upon this earth and, also, vertical, as His with us in the marriage of His Son, Jesus, to us His beloved creatures (most specifically, His Church), how marvelous and telling it is that His first sign John records (His first miraculous deed that epiphanies Him) was to provide an overwhelming amount and quality of wine for a wedding event. That He showed-up and uplifted that weekend and used it to show how He (with His Father and Spirit) want always to do the same type of thing is the gift of revelation that s beyond gift all by itself, THIS we HAVE to know and enjoy and celebrate and link-ourselves-to in every way that we can. Text On the third day (after picking-out disciples not far from there) there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with His disciples.

3 I stop here for a moment. Jesus (I know) has been invited to my son and Tara Fiebiger s weddings. Both couples are currently submitting to the conversations of pastoral pre-marital counseling. That Jesus is invited into their marital plans is known because it extends to this effort, and everyone s praying that the conversations are being taken direly-serious and His Words and will (He) will be (hopefully) inflicting Himself deeply into what s beyond the festivities, but also there-too since there sets the stage for all that s to follow. May God thrust Himself into 4 people s souls in this venture and commitment. May He inflict Himself upon them such that their individual desires would be, first, given over to the desires of Heaven s throne, then onto their spouses and family-responsibilities. And God cares for everything of this, obviously (even the event of the wedding and reception and their pre-ceedings and pro-ceedinging, as well). For those not designing all of that around God in Christ and His presence and centrality, well shame on you. But even without the best of intentions (when, finally, come to Him), things can work-out way-better and well-farther than you could ever have dreamed. Jesus mother came to Him. She heard about the wedding reception s problem (they d run out of wine) so sent the servants to do whatever He d tell them to do what a great way to plan and do any wedding planning, event, and all that follows it. It s almost like (in this case) Mary (His mother) changed the Lord s plans, still expecting help from Him for this circumstance: They have no wine, Jesus mother said to Him. Well, what does this have to do with Me? He asked. My hour has not yet come. See, it s possible that Jesus humanity (while aware of what His big-picture-duty was) might not have had this issue in mind to be His first officially-documented sign, yet made the best of the circumstances as, only He, could.

4 Most certainly then, one can come to Jesus with any issue so SHOULD WITH ALL ISSUES. Of all the messages in today s account, Jesus is shown willing to tackle even the seemingly trivial. Wine for a party? More wine for a party? Feel free to ask yet let Him answer as He did when His mom asked. I other words, ask / seek of course, and especially for wedding and marriage stuff, but don t inappropriately expect (don t answer for Him) but know the right start to ask Him every question then LISTEN. Weddings (marriages), of course, plan (from the very beginning) around His presence and will. You want a wedding planner? Start with Jesus and His Father and Spirit, and the rest is bound to be abundantly better. And know something further: the Bridegroom throughout Scripture has always been the Savior having His wedding (incarnation and baptism), then marriage feast (banquet and Holy Supper gifted yet here on this earth), and marriage to His people (life here and forever), as MUCH MORE EXTENSIVE AND ABUNDANT than that weekend in the town of Cana which makes this is a good place to tell you that Scripture presents to us a love story (an account of Jesus to His bride in us) that s not just on one level (only of our horizonal realm on earth). Actually, how we work together and conduct ourselves among each other (God s use of us among people), is just one aspect of where Scripture presents divine will and desire and hope and blessedness. We ought (certainly) to exert ourselves (learn and express ourselves horizontally) along those terms (influenced and driven by what God demands and blesses). But we do that best and first (in other words, most consistently and effectively and with the greatest and deepest framework in structure and foundation and ability and appropriate focus) when (and only after) we get and appreciate the vertical heights (the epiphanies of Jesus as, Himself, the abundant gift of Good wine).

5 The Old Testament Church knew wine as joy. Inherited, then, by the New Testament Church (and embodied by Christ and translated that way by Him on the night when He was betrayed) as the best wine (Good, as perfect, so wayyyy beyond the adequate that fallen humanity calls good) is Jesus blood shed upon the cross then raised as His life to be drank (in a wedding reception regularly served to you and I from this table which He promises Himself upon). Abundance is ours through the actually-to-be-received gift of the Lord Jesus, ours with the frequency of as often as we eat and drink of the cup. Cana s event, therefore (and so much the more), is before us, and we ve got well more than the 150 gallons to go-through in our eucharistic lifetime. The jars that Jesus fills never bottom out. Application As recent as this past Thursday, Ted Hupp (one of the men of our parish) drank not much more than a drop, but it was a Good drop (of the Good wine of Jesus blood, shed and given for the forgiveness of His sins). We ve all, here, been nourished by Jesus with an abundance of Him (from Him) poured-out in so many ways (the heights of which we can only touch but can never understand all-of). We ve been more than sipping all our eucharistic life, guzzling-actually because every small cup or sip has magnified itself into so many more (and in so many ways). Some of what I saw in Ted s sipping the other day was (a little bit) his challenge and struggle to swallow what he d received upon his tongue, but the rest was a thirst (I could tell) that knew and WANTED the quality and quantity of what He drank. For our duration, drink-up! (with everything that signifies in the Good wine of the Lord Jesus / His blood, sacrifice, and life). May faith enjoy this gift until it enjoys it to the full in the constantly-hefty-pour Heaven s Paradise will give to us. In +Jesus name. Amen.