Bible Reading: John 2:1-11
January can be a difficult month? Lots of recovery and coming ‘down’ after the ‘up’ of Christmas. Long, dark, cold evenings. Perhaps a sense of foreboding about the year to come. Despite all that, this season is full of sparkle and promise and so is today’s reading from John’s gospel.
Epiphany means ‘shining out’ and for these weeks which follow the Feast of Epiphany we are given examples of the light of Christ shining out – something we may be glad of in these dark, cold winter days and something which can re-energise us in the first few weeks of a new year. There is much here about new beginnings and starting again. In our Gospel passage we heard how Jesus transformed a wedding bringing joy and celebration to those who were there.
Perhaps as you read it today, the very first few words grabbed your attention – ‘On the third day’, making a connection with the Resurrection of Jesus, which took place ‘on the third day’ and so perhaps sending us another message too, that this is going to be a story about a new order, a new start, a new kind of life?
Moving on into the story, we discover that Jesus and his mother are both guests at a wedding. At some point disaster occurs – at least, in a culture which holds generous hospitality in very high regard, it’s a disaster – the wine runs out. This is going to mean embarrassment and shame for the families involved and the happy day of celebration looks like turning into a day of grumbling and discontent. Until Mary, the mother of Jesus, decides that this is something Jesus can help with!
Jesus does not sound thrilled at being brought in to help – ‘No mother, it’s not my time yet.’ His mother disregards his protests and tells the servants to do whatever he tells them to do. Unable to escape from the situation, Jesus tells them to fill some extremely large jars with water and then, without any song or dance or incantation or ceremony, the water becomes wine. Not just a few bottles, but more than 120 gallons. The party is rescued. The chief steward is completely amazed, not, it appears at the quantity of the wine, but at its quality.
Why, he asks the bridegroom, have you kept back this superior wine until the end? I imagine the bridegroom has no idea how to answer that!
John goes on to describe this as the first of a series of ‘signs’ which Jesus performed. A sign of what? John suggests it was a sign of glory, the glory of God demonstrated in human form in a remarkable way.
John also tells us that as a result of these signs, the disciples believed in him, so it was a sign that Jesus was worth following, worth believing in.
• Was it also a sign that whatever God does is of the highest quality imaginable? That God is not content with mediocrity or expediency, but always demonstrates capacious grace, abundant joy, overflowing life?
But it was done without fanfares or announcements – I imagine that most of the guests went home not even knowing where the wine had come from. For those who knew what was going on, however, this was a true Epiphany, a shining out of the light of Christ in a way which brought sparkle and life to a situation which was potentially flat and shameful. For them it was a sign of God’s glory breaking out in a man they knew.
Could that happen today for us? Not the sudden transformation of gallons of water into wine, but the shining out of God’s glory to a world which knows more about shame and dullness? Could we be part of that?
• Could some of the flat and lifeless situations in which we may find ourselves be transformed because Jesus is present – in you and in those around you? • Could any depression or dullness which you may feel in the long weeks of winter be infused with glimmers of hope and light because Jesus is present – in you and in those around you?
On this second Sunday after Epiphany, may the light of God shine into you and out from you wherever you may go this week. Thanks be to God, Amen.
love and prayers Revd Sara

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