Second Sunday after the Epiphany

St. John 2:1–11

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The hymn we just sang, Of the Father’s Love Begotten, is one we sing on Christmas Day. But it’s also a good hymn for the Epiphany season. Consider how these words work for Christmas and Epiphany: And the babe, the world’s Redeemer, First revealed His sacred face (LSB 384:2). When did Jesus first reveal His sacred face? Well, certainly at His birth. But then you could also say this at His Baptism, when the Father and the Spirit revealed that the Man, Jesus, is in truth the Son of God. And then also you could say it at Cana, where the world’s Redeemer performed His first miracle. He changed the water into wine. This, the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory. That was also how He revealed His sacred face—this time, for the first time, with a miracle.

But there’s another line in the hymn we should connect with today’s Gospel: Now He shines, the long-expected; Let creation praise its Lord Evermore and evermore (384:3). Epiphany is all about the shining of Jesus—the epiphany-ing of Jesus—the manifestation of His glory. And when the Lord of creation reveals Himself, then His creatures recognize Him and respond to Him by doing what He has given them to do. That is, they praise Him. Praise is not only singing and extolling, but also action, living and doing what God would have His creatures do. Now He shines, the long-expected; Let creation praise its Lord. The water at Cana saw its Lord and blushed.* The water responded to its Lord and so praised Him by becoming wine. Water and wine are the Lord’s creatures and they praise Him by doing what He has them do.

And let’s not forget another creation of God that witnessed and benefited from our Lord’s first miracle: marriage. Marriage is a creation of the Lord—male and female He created them… and they shall become one flesh (Gen. 1:27 & 2:24). So, this miracle happens at a wedding. Water and wine praise the Lord for the gift of marriage and for blessing it. The Bible tells us that wine is given to gladden the heart of man, and we certainly should be glad at a wedding. Besides being celebrations of love, weddings are celebrations of life! And celebrations of the Lord who gives life! 

A wedding gives us a glimpse of Eden, where the Lord brought man and woman together and blessed them: Be fruitful and multiply! A wedding is a renewal of God’s promise to create and bless life. The husband and wife are pro-creators, God works through them. He loves marriage and He wants man and woman to find delight in each other. He loves children and He wants to bless families. What’s my point in all this? The miracle at Cana shows that the Lord loves His creation and He loves to bless it. And marriage is a part of that blessed creation. The Lord loves fruitfulness and wine. He loves husbands and wives serving and enjoying each other. He loves the children that come from those men and women. He loves the beautiful world He made and He wants it to flourish.

And this is why the Church cares so much about things like marriage, because it is intimately connected with the whole created order of things. God’s Law is not arbitrary or random. God’s Law is His will, that is, it’s His design for this creation and life. What’s more, the design of God’s creation reflects who He is. Creation is fruitful and delightful because the Word Himself, who created all things, bears fruit and gives delight. And creation is orderly because God Himself is orderly.

Within the Holy Trinity, the three Persons are equal in glory and substance. Yet, God the Father is the Head of the Son, and this is good. That means Christ is the Head of His Bride, the Church. And Man is the head of woman, and that is good. We heard this in Ephesians 5, but Paul also teaches it in 1 Corinthians 11: I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. This is not something for us to roll our eyes at, or sigh about, or be embarrassed about. Headship, authority, and hierarchy are built into creation because that is who God is and so that’s how God creates and sustains and blesses life. We need to see the big, beautiful picture of God’s world.

If we rebel against His order, we also sacrifice His gift of life for the sake of our own selfish ideas, and we destroy His blessing. But this is exactly what the prevailing attitudes have done in the past century, and we are seeing their devastating results. We tried to sterilize and control the love between a man and a woman, so we could seize this precious gift and twist it for our own selfish and perverse lusts. We suppress and even kill the life that God wants to give. We try to take the strength away from our men to subdue them, and we try to take the beauty away from our women to make them more like men. And what do we have from at least a century of this? Disease, murder, rape, abuse. Many fathers have vanished, and many of the fathers that remain aren’t sure what they’re supposed to do. There is dishonor for men and shame for women, while people just keep using each other for momentary gratification.

We need to recover God’s good design for His creation. We need men to be men, strong and noble, and women to be women, life-nurturing and gentle. Should men also be gentle and are women also strong? Absolutely, but not in the same ways. They are not interchangeable. Men and women are different, and this goes beyond our physical bodies. We have different virtues, different qualities. God created us this way, He has given us different things to do, and this is good. We need husbands and wives to receive God’s blessing to be fruitful and multiply. And all of us, whether we have children or not, should cherish them as a real gift and blessing from the Lord, and hold up the raising of children as one of the greatest works you can do in this life. That is why hundreds of thousands of Christians marched in Washington DC this weekend in defense of the unborn (though you wouldn’t know this from the news. They report the Women’s March, but not the March for Life). But Christians don’t demonstrate like this because we care about a particular political side, but because we know and love God’s design for life.

The Church is not simply the morality police. The unbelieving world calls us Misogynists (women-haters) or even more generally, Misanthropes (haters of humanity), because we tell them they must not do what their evil minds want to do. But we’re not out to ruin life and fun. The Church is on the side of creation, humanity, beauty, life, human flourishing, human enjoyment. We know what is good, what God has created, what He wants to give us. When we keep His Law, when we live according to His design, we are joining into that big, beautiful picture of life that God has made for us. When we do that life is better and God’s blessings are given. 

And so, by taking our place in His creation and gladly doing what He has given each of us to do, we are praising our Lord. We are acting like that water turning to wine. This is even why we give thanks for our food and enjoy it, like we will soon do today. Food is not merely for sustenance, but as a gift from God, food is meant to be enjoyed and shared, to show love and help build community. And when we receive our food in this way, the way it’s meant to be received—with thanksgiving—then the food is blessed and it is used to bless us. Jesus blessed the water, and He used it to bless the marriage. He showed His glory as the Creator and Giver of Life. And His creatures, both the water and the bridal couple, responded in praise and thanksgiving.

At the center of this grand design is what Paul calls the Great Mystery—the great Truth Himself—in Christ all things hold together (Col. 1:17). The Lord Jesus is the Bridegroom for the world. He loves His creation and He redeems it. He blesses His creation and elevates it to a life that will never end. Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25–27). He loves His Bride the Church in this way, and so He prepares her—He prepares us—for that Day when we will be ushered into His beautiful presence. Then His glory will be fully manifest, fully epiphanied for all of us to see. Then the Bridegroom will be with His Bride and the wedding feast will begin.

The miracle at Cana is marvelous in so many ways, but it shouldn’t come as a complete shock to us if we know our God, who loves His creation, and loves to see us enjoy His creation, and will one day re-make His creation. The prophet Amos foresaw it: The mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it… My people… shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,” says the Lord your God (Amos 9:13–15). Our Lord will return, He will show His glory, and His new creation will break forth in joy. Then we will truly be able to sing, Now He shines, the long-expected; Let creation praise its Lord Evermore and evermore.

In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.

* Best source for this quote is from a Latin poetic work by Richard Crashaw, a late metaphysical poet. But I also found vague references to Lord Byron and Alexander Pope.

Artwork copyright (c) 2010 Edward Riojas. Used by permission.