An epiphany in the water
John 2:1 On the third day a
wedding took place at Cana in Galilee . Jesus' mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his
disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was
gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine." 4
"Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time has
not yet come." 5 His mother said to the servants, "Do
whatever he tells you." 6 Nearby stood six stone water jars,
the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to
thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars
with water"; so they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he told
them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet."
They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that
had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though
the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside
10 and said, "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the
cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved
the best till now." 11 This, the first of his miraculous signs,
Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee . He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their
faith in him.
A few weeks ago we celebrated the
Festival of the Epiphany of Our Lord. Today is the second Sunday after the
Epiphany. Our church’s name is Epiphany Lutheran Church . Our church began
86 years ago in January, during the season of Epiphany. But what is an
“epiphany?” An epiphany is an appearing, a revelation, a divine manifestation
of glory. That’s why our church’s logo has Jesus with His arms raised and rays
of glory coming from Him. He is revealing Himself in an epiphany to the world.
An epiphany is also a sudden insight or realization of something important,
usually initiated by a common experience. For example, the title of my pastoral
blog is “I’ve had an epiphany!” An epiphany may appear ordinary, but it is
actually life-changing.
On Monday, our voters approved spending
$45,000 to improve the exterior of our church building. A question was asked in
the meeting about whether it was important to retain the English Tudor look of
our church. I explained that the history of our congregation is that our
founding members came from First Evan. At that time, First Evan was still
conducting worship services in German. Our members started a congregation two
miles away from First Evan – a long distance 80 plus years ago – to do more
mission work to the English speaking people of Racine . The official name
of our congregation – in case many of you didn’t know it – is The English
Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Epiphany. Kind of a mouthful. But the
English Tudor look is part of our name, our history and our heritage.
But there’s something I didn’t mention
at the meeting. It would definitely be less expensive to have all horizontal
siding, instead of making all the cuts for diagonal, horizontal and vertical
pieces to retain the English Tudor look. However, then the church would look
like a big house. And you might say, but it will still look like a big house, a
big English Tudor house. And you would be correct. But I think the forefathers
of our congregation were onto something. They built a church to look like a
house, but be different than all the houses. It fits in, yet it is different. It
appears common, and yet there is something uncommon and special about it. The
building may appear ordinary, but upon closer examination, there is something
life-changing within this building. It is an epiphany!
There was an epiphany in the water of
the Nile River . Pharaoh would not
let the enslaved Israelites go out into the desert to worship their Lord.
Pharaoh didn’t believe Moses’ words. He didn’t consider Moses’ God to be a true
God. He thought Moses was just trying to get a day off of work for the
Israelites, and maybe even lead them to escape. So, in the presence of Pharaoh
and all his officials, Moses raised his staff over the Nile River and all the water
turned into blood. All the water. Even the water in the ponds, streams and
buckets turned into blood. That day, God revealed His glory and power in the
water. He also revealed His divine justice. There was an epiphany in the water.
Jesus, along with His mother and new disciples,
were invited to a wedding in Cana . But during the long wedding celebration, a huge gaffe
took place. The celebration was probably slated to stretch for a week or so.
The new bride and groom’s marriage had just begun, and there was already a big
problem – by the third day the wine ran out! Mary enlisted Jesus’ help. Jesus had
a simple solution. He instructed the servants to fill six 20 to 30 gallon stone
water jars with water. Water may be the health drink of choice today, but it
wasn’t the wedding celebration drink of choice in Jesus’ day. The servants
obeyed Jesus and filled those six stone jars with water. Then, miraculously,
Jesus changed that simple, ordinary water into the best of choice wines. Not a $3
bottle of Winking Owl wine from Aldi, but a fine $3,000 bottle of French wine.
That day, Jesus revealed His glory and
power in the water. He also revealed His divine grace. There was an epiphany in
the water.
Jesus appears to fit in, but He is
different. He appears common, but there is something divinely uncommon about
Him. He may appear ordinary to everyone at the wedding, but upon closer
examination, there is something life-changing within Him. John reports that this was the first of
Jesus’ miraculous signs. He thus revealed
His glory. But in the Greek it literally says, “He epiphanied His glory.”
This happened in Cana in Galilee . Not in Jerusalem , not in the temple,
not in Rome . In lowly Cana , in the backwoods
of Galilee in the north, a place despised, looked down upon; a land
of half-breed Israelites and religious heretics. Isaiah prophesied, “The people walking in darkness have seen
a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has
dawned” (Isaiah 9:2). Into the darkness of the Gentiles, upon the dark shadow
covering Galilee , Jesus first shines the light of His
glory. Out of the ordinary comes something extraordinary!
We might have expected Jesus to do a
greater or more significant thing for His first miracle. Changing water into
wine seems rather mundane when compared to opening the eyes of the blind,
giving hearing to the deaf, enabling paralyzed men to walk again, and raising
the dead. But from that simple, common water, Jesus begins to reveal His glory
to the world!
You and I prefer the big and the
spectacular. We kind of brush off the ordinary and the mundane. Unfortunately,
we often classify God, His worship and His Means of Grace into the category of
the ordinary and mundane. Worship becomes just another item on our to-do list
for the weekend – clean the house, go shopping, watch basketball, go to church.
Jesus becomes just another person to talk to in our contact list – Grandma,
Dad, our friends, Jesus. The Bible becomes just another place to go to for
advice and counseling – Dr. Phil, our buddies, Pinterest, the holy and inspired
Word of God.
Because we consider God, His worship and
His Word as ordinary and mundane, just items to do, as nothing very special, we
end up paying lip service to God on Sundays but then deny Him in our words and
actions during the rest of the week. If you don’t believe me, look at how you
structure your life. Is worshiping God the number one priority in your life? Is
studying God’s Word, reading devotions with your family and praying with your
children done before any homework or cleaning gets done in your home? Can your
co-workers and neighbors tell that you’re a Christian by the way you talk and
act at work and in your neighborhood? If you’ve even struggled to say yes to
any of those questions, then God is not the number one priority in your life. We’ve
so filled up our lives with activity, business and busy-ness that we haven’t
left room for God. He’s become ordinary and mundane to us.
Let me relate a story to you that I once
heard at a Pastors’ Conference. A circuit pastor, the pastor who helps other
pastors in his geographical area, had a member of one of the churches in that
area come to him complaining, “You know, I just don’t get anything out of my
pastor’s worship service. Nothing.”
The circuit pastor raised his eyebrow and
said, “I’m confused. Does your pastor speak the Word of the Absolution to you
and does he forgive your sins in Jesus’ name?” The lady said, “Oh, yeah, he
does that.”
The circuit pastor asked, “Well, does he
read from the Word of God to you?” She said, “Well, yeah … he does that every
week.”
“Does he preach to you about the
forgiveness of sins that’s yours because of Jesus’ suffering, death and
resurrection?” She replied, “Oh, every week … he does that without fail.”
“And does he put into your mouth the body
and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins?” She replied, “Well, yes …
without fail.”
The circuit pastor inquired, “I’m sorry.
I just don’t understand. What is it you’re not getting out of worship? You get the forgiveness of your sins, you
get the gift of eternal life, you get the Lord’s body and blood. What were you
looking for?” She thought for a moment and then said, “I was looking for a
feeling.” After she left, she thought about the circuit pastor’s words and
later told him, “Well, maybe there’s a little more going on here than my
feelings alone.”
The wonderful thing about God is that His
grace, forgiveness, miracles and salvation are not based on our feelings. They
are all facts. What happens here in church may not seem big and spectacular,
filled with emotions and feelings, but this is where God conveys the miraculous
and marvelous, often in mundane and matter-of-fact means.
Jesus performed His first miracle in a
commonplace town of Cana with ordinary water. These days Jesus
takes ordinary drinking water from the tap and attaches His miracle of saving
grace to it. That ordinary water, now connected with Word and Spirit has become
extraordinary! It takes a newborn infant and makes her a child of God. It takes
an adult and gives him a new birthday, as he is reborn and regenerated in his
baptismal waters. There is an epiphany in that water!
Jesus takes an unexceptional wafer of
unleavened bread and a sip of modest port wine and He makes it into the
marriage feast of the Lamb. He feeds you with the bread of His body and gladdens
your heart with the wine of His blood for the forgiveness of your sins and the
strengthening of your faith. There is an epiphany in that bread and wine!
Throughout his Gospel, John the
evangelist lays out the hard evidence that Jesus is the Savior. He is the
Christ – the one anointed by God to be our Savior. That Jesus is no normal
carpenter from lowly Nazareth , but He really is the revelation of God
in human flesh. That’s why it is significant when this miracle took place. “On
the third day.” John uses that phrase, “the third day,” to tie this ordinary
marriage event to the extraordinary event of Christ’s resurrection “on the
third day.” So whenever you hear “on the third day” in John or elsewhere in
Scripture, you expect big things to happen.
Sunday is thus no ordinary day. Big
things are happening here. Every Sunday is a celebration of “the third day.” It
is on this day when God’s voice speaks to you through the words of Absolution;
when God’s message is carried by the notes and voices in our hymns; when God’s
doctrines are presented in the liturgy; when God’s Law and Gospel are applied
in the sermon and children’s devotion. Those things seem ordinary, commonplace,
things we do every week. And that’s the point! An epiphany is taking place in normal
words, water, bread, wine, music and liturgy!
God is at work in these humble, ordinary
means. Jesus is revealing His glory to you. Whether it is Cana in Galilee or Racine in Wisconsin , Jesus is revealing Himself to you as
your Savior. At the wedding, on the cross, in the font, at the communion rail,
at the altar, in our hymnals, in our liturgies, in our paintings and stained
glass windows, Jesus is revealing His glory to you. This is an epiphany
happening at Epiphany! Amen.
Like the disciples of old, let us put
our faith in Jesus for He has epiphanied His glory to us. Amen.
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