Sermon by Pastor Robert Green, 2nd Sunday after Epiphany, 1/20/13,
Ascension Evangelical Lutheran Church, WELS, Harrisburg, PA, based on John 2:1-11
In times of doubt, what do Jesus’ miracles mean for you?
Would you put your faith in the hands of a faith healer who claimed to work miracles of healing? I knew a lady whose son had cerebral palsy. One day a man, who worked for a faith healer, was driving by her house and saw the boy in a wheelchair. He stopped and invited the family on an all expense paid trip to a town where a TV faith healer did his program. He wanted her to come so that the faith healer could heal her boy. The lady asked me if I thought she should go or not. I asked her, what reason did she have to put her faith and trust in the faith healer. She told me the man was famous and had a TV show, so there must be some validity to what he did, for there were gifts of healing in the times of the apostles, as the reading from First Corinthians for today attests. I told her there is nothing in Scripture that promises there will be faith healers in modern times.
There is a greater question in life than why would someone put their faith in a faith healer. The greater question is why anyone would put their faith in a man who lived two thousand years ago and trust that somehow he was able to reach over time to take their sins away. After all, which is the greater miracle to heal a sick person or to save a sinful soul? How do we know that the man Jesus is our Savior? The Christian Church has long been concerned on how to encourage all to believe Jesus is God’s Son the Savior of the world. That is why the Christian Church developed the Season of Epiphany as a time in the church year in which the readings and sermon focus on the revealing or manifestation of the man Jesus to be the Christ, the one anointed to be our Savior.
How do you know or upon what basis do you believe that Jesus is your Savior? The true and short answer is simply because the Bible tells us so. Faith is trust in what God reveals to us about himself in the Holy Scriptures, therefore simply taking God at his Word that Jesus is the Savior, should suffice for any soul. However, God knows the struggles of faith that strikes the heart of every soul. Therefore, he does not just tell us one time and in one way that Jesus is the Savior, for he shows us many manifestations of his divinity in the hundreds of prophecies that Jesus alone fulfills, in the proclamation of the angels his birth declaring him the Savior of all, and at his baptism when God said, “This is my Son.”
Jesus himself showed he was the Messiah in all that he taught, in his life without sin, and the many miracles he performed. While many prophets were able to perform miracles in the name and power of God, only Jesus performed miracles in his own name and power, for he was and is true God. Today we consider Jesus’ first miracle as a revelation or manifestation of his divinity. This was the miracle of changing water into fine old wine at the wedding in Cana. It is good to ask “Why study this or any miracle?” and to consider in times of doubt, what do Jesus’ miracles mean for you?
Hear the Apostle John’s description of Jesus’ first miracle from John 2, “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."
This was early in the public ministry of Jesus, he had been baptized, spent forty days in the wilderness while the devil tempted him, and had began the process of grooming men to become his disciples. He made contact with Peter, John, Andrew, Phillip, and Nathaniel and invited them to follow him. Andrew told Peter that they had found the Messiah, referring to Jesus. No wonder these gave heed to the invitation to follow him. He would not call them into full time discipleship for nearly a year. Three days later, Jesus’ mother, Jesus and these disciples all attended the wedding in Cana.
Jesus’ mother Mary of course knew her son was God’s Son, the Son of the Most High, as the angel Gabriel told her. Yet, neither she nor anyone else had yet seen a miracle by Jesus. The Scripture does not tell us why at this moment in time Mary anticipated the first miracle. Perhaps she sensed the inevitable revealing of her son to be divine was soon to take place. For whatever reason, Mary chose to ask Jesus to do something about the need for more wine and it seems she anticipated a miracle as she told the servants to do whatever he told them.
It is clear that Mary was taking matters in her own hands to have Jesus perform this miracle, for Jesus responded to her request as one chastening another for meddling and said, "Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time has not yet come." A more direct translation would be, “What business of mine concerns you?” In other words, Jesus was gently pointing out to his mother that it was not up to her to tell him to do divine acts. It was wrong of Mary to interject herself into Jesus’ business. His business was doing his Father’s will. We can also wrongly interject ourselves into Jesus’ business when we try to make God our personal genie to correct life’s problems and mistakes. We can pray to our Lord for a miracle anytime we want to, but we can not control God. He will do what he will do, in his good time.
Though Jesus told Mary, “My time has not yet come,” ironically, the time was very soon the right time, for then Jesus went on to do the miracle. For, as John tells us, “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.” 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." Jesus could have simply left the wine in the jars and told the servants to serve it. But he wanted to make it clear to all what he had done. In telling the servants to take the wine to the master of the banquet, Jesus knew the full extend of his miracle would become clear.
The master of the banquet, an expert in wine, revealed the power of Jesus not to just make wine, but to make fine wine, for he judged the wine made from water to be the best wine. Wine is at its best after it has aged. Jesus made the new water to become old wine. Jesus did much the same when he created the earth. John tells us in John 1 that all things were made by Jesus. When the earth was formed, it was already an old earth. If a scientist were to exam the earth on that first day, he would rightly have the opinion that the earth was millions of years old, for that is the way God created it to be.
We need to be careful not to make more than we should about the master of the banquet saying, "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." This is not giving validity to drinking until drunk at a wedding as if Jesus gave at least tactic approved simply because he was there and created more wine to drink. The master of the banquet simply was making the point that normally the best wine is served first, it is not held back, yet the wine from the jars was by far the best and had not been served first. The words for “guests have had too much to drink” can be translated; “the guests had drank freely,” simply meaning already the lesser wine had been served.
It is interesting to note that we are not told if anyone ever told the master of the banquet, or the guests, where the wine came from. It would be incredulous if the servants keep it to themselves. John tells us, “This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee, thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.” The Scripture teaches us that faith does not come from witnessing a miracle; rather it comes from hearing the Word. Faith is a gift from God the Holy Spirit and the Spirit uses the Word and the sacraments to bring us to faith and keep us in faith. The miracle gave reason to the disciples to listen to Jesus and his Words, for he was not just a man, but the divine Son of God, the Messiah.
In times of doubt, what do Jesus’ miracles mean for you? While I can understand why a parent might want to go and see a faith healer, just in case the healer might succeed, I cautioned her to consider the risk of trusting someone who claimed such great power. The healer would have to claim that any healing depends on faith, not his faith, but her son’s faith. If the boy was not healed, the healer would just blame his lack of faith. I asked her if she really wanted to have her son think that his horrible condition continued because he had little faith.
I encouraged the lady not to go to the faith healer because I am very skeptical about the claims of anyone that he or she has divine powers. There were certainly gifts of healing God gave to certain people, but the church fathers have written these died out in the Second Century, which makes sense, for by then the Scriptures were complete. A miracle of faith healing never brought a soul to faith, but such a miracle gave the people of the time reason to listen to those who taught the faith. Now we have no need do miracles to get people to listen to us, for we have the completed Scriptures to share.
In times of doubt, what do Jesus’ miracles mean for you? When you have doubted or struggled to share the truth about Jesus, remember the miracles, for each miracle reveals your Savior’s glory as true God. May your study of Jesus’ miracles give you reason to put your faith in him, for we have a God who changed water into wine, and used that same the power to take your sins away by putting them on Christ, the greatest of miracles, to save you, so be strengthened in faith and believe him. To God be all glory, amen!