Sermon: Sign and Nexus
Text: John 2:1-11
Occasion: Epiphany III
Who: Mark Woolsey
Where: Arbor House
When: Sunday, January 22, 2006
Audio link: http://providencerec.com/Sound%20Files/Srmn060122WoolseyJohn02;01-011EpiphanyIIISignAndNexus.mp3
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I. Intro
We are inundated with signs today. For example, the distance from my house to this place is around 50 miles. On that trip today I saw green signs and red signs, enticing signs and warning signs, signs to direct and signs to amuse, signs that attract and signs that bore. Some of these signs I heeded and some I ignored. In John’s gospel today we have a new kind of sign, a nexus, that compels and configures us in ways no ordinary sign can. A nexus is a connection or a tie between two things. Let’s see how this sign, performed at a wedding, is actually a nexus for those we read about.
II. Context
The context for this sign is a wedding. A person’s wedding is one of the three most significant days in his or her life, along with the days of birth and death. Of the three, it is the only one that we can remember. God also attaches tremendous importance to it since He bracketed Scripture with it. Genesis begins with the wedding of Adam and Eve, and Revelation ends with the great wedding feast of Jesus Christ and His bride.
Today’s passage opens with the comment that Jesus, His mother, and His disciples were all invited to a wedding party. It was close to His home town of Capernaum so the bride and groom were probably personal friends of the family. What better way could there be to start a marriage than to invite the Lord of marriage to its very inception? Jesus, by His very presence, honors all wedding parties and tells us this is good and acceptable in His Father’s eyes. We don’t get far into the story until a problem arises - the host runs out of wine. This may seem of small consequence to us today since parties such as this are not that long, and this could be the signal for the whole thing to end. However, in the time of our Lord’s incarnation, a wedding party was much more elaborate and important. Unger’s Bible Dictionary describes the celebration in this manner. In the evening,
After putting on a festive dress, placing a garland on his head, the bridegroom set forth from his house, attended by his groomsmen, preceded by a band of musicians or singers, and accompanied by persons bearing lamps. Having reached the house of the bride, who with her companions anxiously expected his arrival, he conducted the whole party back to his own or his father’s house, with every demonstration of gladness. On their way back they were joined by a party of young girls (virgins), friends of the bride and bridegroom, who were in waiting to catch the procession as it passed. The inhabitants of the place pressed out into the streets to watch the procession. At the house a feast was prepared, to which all the friends and neighbors were invited, and the festivities were protracted for seven or even fourteen days. The guests were provided by the host with wedding clothes, and the feast was enlivened with riddles and other amusements. The bridegroom now entered into direct communication with the bride, and the "friend of the bridegroom ... rejoices greatly" at hearing the voice of the bridegroom conversing with her, which he regarded as a satisfactory testimony of the success of his share in the work. The last act in the ceremony was the conducting of the bride to the bridal chamber, where a canopy, named a huppa, was prepared.
III. Mary’s status
As you can see, the wedding ceremony was much more elaborate then than now. Consequently, the lack of appropriate foodstuffs, such as wine, was of much greater import. Mary, always full of grace, noticed this and conversed with Jesus somewhat thusly:
Mary (with a heavy Jewish-Brooklyn accent): My darling Son, Eli and Miriam are some of our best friends. The wine has run out. Can’t you do something about it? Is that some water in those pots over there? Far be it from me to tell you what to do...
Jesus: Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.
Mary: What can I say, I’m just the mother. (Pointing to the "servants", i.e., congregation) Whatever He says to you, do it.
The first word of Jesus’ reply is quite curious. He calls Mary, "Woman". From this we can adduce that Jesus’ relationship to His mother has changed. He who Luke describes as subject to His mother and father (2:49) is subject no longer. Mary had been lord of the Lord of Heaven and Earth, but her Son has reached His majority. Instead of "Mother" she becomes "Woman". In fact, for the rest of their recorded conversations, He continues to address her in this way, introducing some distance between Him and her. Even when He is dying and tenderly assigns her guardianship to John, He calls her "Woman". Like us, she must humble herself and take her place with the rest of creation under Him. She, too, is sinful and needs a savior.
IV. Mary’s testing
The rest of Jesus’ reply to His mother is quite distressing. "what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour is not yet come." Have you ever prayed for something, and gotten only silence - or worse, a rebuke - in exchange? Listen to Martin Luther’s commentary on this:
But see, how unkindly he turns away the humble request of his mother who addresses him with such great confidence. Now observe the nature of faith. What has it to rely on? Absolutely nothing, all is darkness. It feels its need and sees help nowhere; in addition, God turns against it like a stranger and does not recognize it, so that absolutely nothing is left. It is the same way with our conscience when we feel our sin and the lack of righteousness; or in the agony of death when we feel the lack of life; or in the dread of hell when eternal salvation seems to have left us. Then indeed there is humble longing and knocking, prayer and search, in order to be rid of sin, death and dread. And then he acts as if he had only begun to show us our sins, as if death were to continue, and hell never to cease. Just as he here treats his mother, by his refusal making the need greater and more distressing then it was before she came to him with her request; for now it seems everything is lost, since the one support on which she relied in her need is also gone.
In fact, Jesus seems to have somewhat of a mean streak in Him. Remember what He said to the Syro-phonecian woman who begged Him to cast the demon from her daughter? "Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs" (Mark 7:27). A mother’s girl was in extreme duress and Jesus calls her a dog. What WAS He thinking? Yet even His severity is mercy. These are not acts of cruelty, but testing. He is drawing out of them that which is most important. Ponder Mary’s meek response, "Whatever He says to you, do it". Listen again to the great reformer again as he comments about this:
This is where faith stands in the heat of battle. Now observe how his mother acts and here becomes our teacher. However harsh his words sound, however unkind he appears, she does not in her heart interpret this as anger, or as the opposite of kindness, but adheres firmly to the conviction that he is kind, refusing to give up this opinion because of the thrust she received, and unwilling to dishonor him in her heart by thinking him to be otherwise than kind and gracious - as they do who are without faith, who call back at the first shock and think of God merely according to what they feel, like the horse and the mule, Ps 32,9. For if Christ’s mother had allowed those harsh words to frighten her she would have gone away silently and displeased; but in ordering the servants to do what he might tell them she proves that she has overcome the rebuff and still expects of him nothing but kindness.
This is the essence of Godly faith - to trust God to be gracious even when circumstances seem to tell you otherwise. Mary’s prayer was persistent, but not insistent.
V. The Message
As you know, Jesus in His own time orders the water pots to be filled with water and He transformed them into wine. This is a miracle, but it is more than just a miracle. It is, as John calls it, a sign. The first part of a sign is that it is a miracle with a message. Here’s what the Rev’d William Beata said about it in one of his sermons that I read during my research on this passage:
Many Old Testament prophecies about the Messianic age talk about a time when wine would flow liberally. In Isaiah 55:1 the prophet declares “everyone who thirst come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price”. He talks about a time when everyone shall see the glory of the Lord and this is repeated by Amos in the words “the time is surely coming, says the Lord, when the one who ploughs shall overtake the one who reaps, and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they 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”. So Jesus’ miracle is in a sense an announcement of the coming of the Messianic age. It is also significant that the responsibility for providing the wine belonged to the bridegroom and Christ is the bridegroom announcing the birth of the Messianic age. Jesus used the occasion of the wine shortage to reveal God’s plan of salvation and redemption to the world.
The servants who knew what happened were witnesses of the birth of this new age. Yet even this does not exhaust the meaning of this sign. You see, the waterpots were part of the fulfillment of the Jewish law of cleansing. There were many laws, both divine and man-made, about ceremonial purifications. These pots were in essence big wash basins. 180 gallons of wash water. Jesus didn’t take pure water and transmute it; He used this dirty water to make the sweetest wine. Why? Because these washpots stood for all the Old Testament Laws that demanded cleanliness, but could not provide it. They washed away dirt but not sin. The wine foreshadowed His blood. What the law could not do, He did with His blood.
VI. The Nexus
This is where we come to the nexus, the connection or tie between two things. This sign tied together earthly substance with spiritual realities. That which is spirit combined with that which is earthly. The result, as we see in verse 11, was "His disciples believed in Him." That is the greatest effect of this sign. Since God grants us favor with Him, forgiveness of sins, restoration of relationship, sanctification, glorification, and anything else you can think of, thru faith alone, it is appropriate that this sign, and many others are occasions of faith. God has come down thru physical things and touched us. This sign effected what it showed. That is, it’s not just a "bare fact" sitting out there for us to digest and make of it what we will. It accomplished that which God set out for it to do - His disciples believed. What God did for them, He also does for us.
VII. The Sacrament
Are you greater than Jesus’ disciples? Is your faith stronger than theirs? It’s not? If they needed this boost then surely we do, too. Where can we find this nexus of the divine mingling with the common? Where God deigns to make Himself known in things we can see and handle? What is it that can strengthen our faith so that even when the heavens are brass, we believe in His goodness, His desire and commitment to rescue us? God, I believe, help Thou my unbelief! That help is right here in this room today. Today, you will witness this nexus of God and His creation. You will touch God. You will eat His body and drink His blood. Come, take the bread and wine, and worship in the heavenly sanctuary.
This is the word of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Soli Deo Gloria!
