Sermon: Epiphany 2 - 2021

17 January 2021

Text: John 2:1-11 (Amos 9:11-15, Rom 12:6-16)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

In our Old Testament reading from Amos, the prophet speaks of eternity.  He uses imagery of the people rebuilding their ruined homes and lands.  They plant vineyards and drink their own wine.  And it’s so abundant that the mountains drip with it, and it is “sweet wine.”  This wine will flow off the hills like rainwater, and the best wine will be served then – at the end of time.  

This is important imagery, for Amos was writing to the Israelites as disaster was about to befall them.  In just a few years, ten of the twelve tribes of Israel would be conquered by the cruel Assyrians.  The people would be removed from their own land and homes and either killed or resettled in Assyria as slaves.  They would never be heard from again.

And so the remaining people, known as Judah, had good reason to read the words of the prophet Amos.  For in spite of what happened to Israel, and in spite of what was to come to Judah as well in a few hundred years – in the end, the people of God will plant vineyards and drink wine.

To plant a vineyard means you own your land.  It is secure.  It is safe from invasion.  Amos speaks the Word of God: “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.”  You only plant grapes, tend the land, and leisurely drink the product of the vineyard if you are free from worry about invaders.  Of course, the opposite is also true.  If you are under constant threat, you will lack wine.

This imagery of what God has in store for us in eternity appears again in the Scriptures – as our Lord Jesus Christ attends a wedding.  And at the feast, “the wine ran out.”  This lack of wine is, of course, a social embarrassment.  It is a bad way to start a marriage.  

Our Lord fixes the situation by being God, the Creator.  He takes water from the old stone jars used for the “Jewish rites of purification,” and He miraculously turns the water into wine.  And so, our Lord Jesus Christ takes a lack of wine – which is the case if you are under threat of attack or if your situation is perilous – and He changes everything, by His Word and by His deed.  The lack becomes abundance.  The worry becomes rejoicing.  And like the wine prophesied by Amos, this is the very best of wine.  

We know this because the “master of the feast tasted the water now become wine.”  He said to the bridegroom: “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine.  But you have kept the good wine until now.”

This is a clever way of teaching us about Jesus, dear friends.  For He is the Church’s Bridegroom.  And He doesn’t serve the good wine up front, not wanting to waste it later.  Rather Jesus, ever countercultural, serves us the best at the last, in eternity, when our troubled world will be at peace, when we will own our own land and will leisurely plant vineyards, and we will enjoy the fruits of the earth unmolested.  And it will be abundant and magnificent.

Wine is associated with wedding feasts.  It is central to the celebration.  It is part of the hospitality and the rejoicing.  It represents the pinnacle of what our Lord’s created world has to offer.

And think about the Lord’s Supper, dear friends.  For it is a little taste, an appetizer of what we will enjoy in eternity.  For what makes this bread and wine extraordinary is not the early element itself.  What makes this bread and this wine unique is Jesus.  For just as His word and His will turned the water into wine and shared it with the guests at the feast, Jesus takes wine, and at His Word, it is His blood, “shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”  This bread, according to the Word and command of our Lord, is His body, given for you.  For just as bread is kneaded and baked, and just as wine is trampled and aged – our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died, offering His body and blood for us, shared with us at table, a picture of the wedding feast to come, when we the Church will sit at table with our Bridegroom, drinking the fruit of the vine with Him in eternity.

And so the Eucharist is this prophetic foretaste, dear friends.  Jesus invites us to His table, to His supper, to His sacrifice that atones for us, to His fellowship in eating and drinking together.  His Word has done this.  His love has made up for our lack.  His will has given us everything to be enjoyed in eternity.  And no evil shall come near us – not the world, the devil, nor even our own sinful flesh.  For we will be completely renewed, and we shall be safe and secure on our own land, with vineyards producing the finest grapes which will become the finest wine.  

And we will feast together in eternity: Jesus, the Bridegroom, and we, the Church, His bride, whom He loves and for whom He lays down His life.  

What is interesting is the Lord’s mother’s advice to the servants.  She does not seek glory for herself.  She points everyone to her divine Son: “Do whatever He tells you,” she says.  

First and foremost, our Lord tells us to believe Him, to hear His Word, to receive His gifts, to rejoice at the Good News of salvation, to receive Him in His body and blood, to live a life of prayer and confession and waiting for His return.  “Do whatever He tells you.”  What He tells us, dear friends, is in His Word.  

In our Epistle reading, St. Paul lists a litany of things that we Christians ought to be doing.  And all of these things are things that our Lord Jesus Christ has also told us to do.  For we are the Bride of Christ.  The advice that we men often give one another: “happy wife, happy life,” is backwards in terms of Christ and the Church.  For in that case, “happy life, happy wife.”  In other words, if we strive to live as St. Paul teaches – which is really what our Bridegroom Jesus teaches – we will have a happy life, and we will be happy as the Bride of Christ.  

“Let love be genuine.  Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good,” says Paul.  Be honorable and zealous to serve the Lord.  The apostles also says: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”  We should look out for other Christians, be hospitable, and we are to bless even our persecutors – which is what our Lord exhorted us to do in the Sermon on the Mount, which He Himself did when He died for us.  We must “rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”  Let us live harmoniously with each other.  And never be arrogant or think too highly of yourselves.  

“Do whatever He tells you,” says the Blessed Virgin Mary.

We don’t do all of these things in order to impress God so that He saves us, rather God saves us, and so we should strive to live a good life out of gratitude to God and love for our neighbor – especially our brothers and sisters in Christ.  

It is fitting, dear friends, for us Christians not only to share the table of the Lord’s Supper and to drink the wine that is His blood, it is also a blessing to enjoy the hospitality of Christians joining together to break bread and drink wine at the table, calling to mind the Lord’s love for us which we enjoy in love for one another.  And when we do share the table with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we look forward to the end of time, when “the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it,” when we are secure in our lands and homes, when our doors are open, and when we “shall never again be uprooted” by sin, death, and the devil.  

And let us reflect on the “life of the world to come” when we come to the table of the Lord’s Supper, eating His body and drinking His blood, for Jesus has saved the very best until now, and we will enjoy the fruits of this vineyard even unto eternity.

Amen.

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