The Wedding at Cana

The first Sign

20^th January 2019

Prayers……

The wedding at Cana  - Epiphany week 3 -  an Epiphany a moment of sudden and great revelation,  and yes this the first of John sign is indeed a revelation, an epiphany.

I’m sure like me you often find your running out of things at home, you know when you open the cupboard to make the sauce for the pasta and find there are no tinned tomatoes. Now we have the Co-op close by in Pitlochry, not so near in Blair Atholl, but its open all hours so you can usually get what you need. It wasn’t like that in Jesus day and even todaythins can and do go wrong.

Back to the story as told in John’s Gospel it is his account of a wedding, a wedding in which they run out of something important, not of tomatoes—no, they run out of WINE and that was definitely a “necessary” In fact, there was an old rabbinic saying back then that goes like this, “There is no joy save in meat and wine.” And this was especially true when it came to first century Jewish weddings. Wine was part of the joy of that kind of celebration.

And here we have as I said John telling us of a wedding where they ran out of wine. And what do they do, people didn’t know, now the  Gospel story is quite concise but it appears that Jesus’ mother, Mary, does know what to do. So keep your pewsheets open for reference and lets see what this is all about. Its not just a good story its really important

But, before we go any further, let’s get a good grasp of the SETTING and the CONTEXT Verse 1 says that this wedding and the events surrounding it happened in CANA of Galilee—a village that was very near to Nazareth. St. Jerome,4^th C  who stayed in Palestine, wrote that he could see Cana from Nazareth—so it couldn’t have been more than a couple of miles away, which means the people of Nazareth, Jesus’ home town, and the people of Cana were neighbours. They knew each other. Think of Pitlochry (Bridge of Tilt) and Moulin (Blair Atholl) so you get the idea.

And it would seem that, Jesus’ mother had a very important role in it the wedding festivities. She comes to tell him they have no wine, how did she know, it seems like she was intimately involved in this wedding  maybe having a formal roll, kind of like the work our wedding co-ordinator does with weddings here at Holy Trinity.  And I base this on  John’s account where not only does she know the wine has run out but seems to have the authority to order the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do.

Now there is a tradition which says that Mary was the sister of the bride-groom’s mother—but this is just legend— and we don’t get the specifics. What we do is there is no wine left and this is a disaster as  in Jesus’ day  a wedding was a VERY big deal. The whole town was involved. In fact, in Palestine, the wedding festivities lasted for far more than one day often up to a week (no honeymoons in those days)  and for the hosts to run out  of wine was a very embarrassing thing. Just as it would be today.

So what happens next, well Jesus turns and says to his mother ‘what concern is that to you and me’ which sounds rude, but the mere fact that Mary walks away telling the servants ‘to do whatever he tells you’ suggests this is not the case at all ,or that she has confidence in her son that he will do whatever is necessary to make things right, and he does, telling them to fill the 6 stone wine jars for the rites of purification with water and then when the ‘water is tasted it is wine, not only is it wine but ‘the best wine’.

Now it may seem frivolous  to you that that first miracle, that first sign in John’s Gospel is to turn water into wine,  and I think we have to ask ourselves why? the story only appears in John’s Gospel and it comes between Jesus calling the first disciples and the cleansing of the temple (which are all very serious events) and remember its not until chapter 4 that the 2^nd Sign appears when Jesus saves, cures the royal officials son.

So what this is saying? Well consider, maybe this sign, what it tells us and those who have gone before us is that Jesus (God Incarnate) really cares about the  everyday things in this world, how people feel about the  smaller things that happen all the time in their lives, and that he is with us in all those things, so although healing the sick, (Matthew 4:23) curing a man with an evil spirit (Mark1;23 & Luke 4: 31) come  as the 1^st  miracles in the 3 synoptic gospels and are indeed themselves signs of Jesus divinity, the wedding at Cana is a powerful sign not only of who Jesus is, but a sign that everything matters to God.

And that my friends is the wonderful news we can open ourselves up too, we can share with those around us, that no matter who we are, God cares about what we need, what you need, what I need and not just humans but everything, even the smallest sparrow. It means we are not alone our lives that our personal joys, and struggles are understood. And that is something really worth shouting about.

So on the 3^rd week of Epiphany a real epiphany moment, just think Jesus came among us, God came among us as a human being to share what it means to live and to die on this earth. To share the joys, the excitement, the loneliness, the pain and the sorrow of human existence, and not only that but also to share the earth with all creation and then to take all of that back to the source of all things. IN the beginning the word was with God and was God, the Alpha and Omega.

Surely our greatest discovery  must be that at the heart of the gospels we find Jesus simply showing us by his day to day existence, travelling his human journey in the everyday ordinariness of life,  how to live, how to follow the Way, with all its pain and  pleasure, its heartaches and its hopes, its disappointment and its dreams, and to realise that the sign of turning the water into wine at the wedding at Cana tells us in no uncertain terms that he totally gets it, totally understands the need to express the love of God in ordinary events, and that it is for us too, in our everyday lives and the roles we undertake, in our responsibilities and our relationships,  and it's all modelled for us by Jesus.

It also tells us that our faith does not belong in a separate compartment marked sacred, is not confined to church walls but encompasses where most of our lives are lived in that place some mark as secular. And just as Jesus walked among the everyday lives of those he lived, worked and integrated with, so whatever we do, when cooking a meal, reading the Bible, mowing the lawn, shouting at the partner, grandchildren, our kids or each other, saying our prayers, watching the TV, laughing, crying, bored, excited, angry, sad, or lonely whatever we do ,the life of each person matters. And by changing the water into wine Jesus shows us and here a direct quote from one of my favourite writers Malcol Guite "the profound and liberating things about God  that he reveals to us, His delight in and concern for our own personal life and loves, and His abundant generosity in more than meeting our needs in the midst of everyday life"

But what we also see in this sign  As Malcom Guite also puts it, "is that Jesus also calls us to us to move from the mere outward purity, beautifully symbolised by the water for ritual washing in those 6 jars, to a transformation of inward joy, symbolised by the wine. But most importantly, this sign points to the gift of His very self, His own heart’s blood, given once for all on the cross and received by us in communion"

This sign is both a celebration of ordinariness and an earthed humanity and confirms that nothing and no one is ever outside God’s love and grace.

Epiphany at Cana - Malcolm Guite

Here’s an epiphany to have and hold,

A truth that you can taste upon the tongue,

No distant shrines and canopies of gold

Or ladders to be clambered rung by rung,

But here and now, amidst your daily living,

Where you can taste and touch and feel and see,

The spring of love, the fount of all forgiving,

Flows when you need it, rich, abundant, free.

Better than waters of some outer weeping,

That leave you still with all your hidden sin,

Here is a vintage richer for the keeping

That works its transformation from within.

‘What price?’ you ask me, as we raise the glass,

‘It cost our Saviour everything he has.’ Amen