A Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany
January 19, 2025 at Holy Communion
Isaiah 61:10–62:4, John 2:1–11
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. ☩ Amen.
Today’s Gospel reading, as I hope it does for many others, has me reminiscing about my own wedding. At our wedding, I can’t say that we were subtle enough to serve better wine first and worse wine second, but I do know that the wine did not run out. This fact was noticed by a few of my cousins, in fact, who—let’s just say—made sure that none went to waste. One of them actually spilled the rest of his wine on my vest as he hugged me goodbye, and wasn’t my uncle ever mad! But I remember it with a smile. The stain washed out.
One of the reasons our Gospel reading is so delightful is that, unlike most Bible scenes, it has a punchline. The MC approaches the groom, who has no idea what’s going on, and berates him for getting everybody drunk on the cheap stuff and forgetting to impress them with the vintage first.
But it’s the “punchline” not just because it tempts us to smile, but also because this line contains the point of the scene. In fact, the groom had doubtless served the good stuff first, then that ran out and he served the $10 bottles. When that ran out, he really was stuck, until Jesus intervenes and puts even the groom’s best wine to shame. The order is significant: first good, then worse, then—with God’s help—best.
This same order is what we get in our reading from Isaiah. It promises a time when God’s people “shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate” (Isaiah 62:4). The holy nation had its glory days behind it—the days of Solomon and David—but now, conquered and driven into captivity they felt abandoned and naked. But the prophet foretells a day when God will clothe their nakedness not with the perishable silver and gold of Solomon’s kingdom, but with “a garment of salvation” and a “robe of righteousness” (61:10). He will put a tiara on Israel’s head, will declare that he delights in her, and will marry her (62:4). First Israel does the best it can as a nation, but as time goes on its “best” gets worse and worse until nothing is left. The wine has run out. And that’s the moment when God shows himself. He speaks through the prophet and promises a fulfillment more profound than any they had even in their heyday.
Nature winds down. One of my favourite books of the Bible is Ecclesiastes, which we almost never talk about on Sundays. In the first chapter, the author, reflecting on the repetitiveness of life in the world, moans that “all things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it” (Ecclesiastes 1:8). In Romans 8, St Paul has a similar thought when he says that creation is subject to “futility,” and that the whole cosmos is “groaning in the pains of childbirth” (v 20, 22).
But if nature winds down, God winds up. As St Paul’s metaphor suggests, the joy of birth follows the pains of labour. First there is the joy of conception and pregnancy, then the pain of labour, but then a new horizon of relationship and fulfillment opens up after the birth. This is thirst satisfied, water turned into wine.
But I want to point out one more detail of the story. Jesus doesn’t turn the water into wine until his mother insists, simply and humbly, that he pay attention to the fact that they have no wine (John 2:3). The miracle of satisfaction occurs when human thirst is brought before God.
The truth is that, when good times turn into worse, or when youth and vigour turn into age and weariness, many people see no hint that better things are coming. And suffering is a complex issue. But for ordinary people in ordinary situations who feel like things are winding down, part of the solution may simply be acknowledging that you are hungry and thirsty. You have needs that nature will not satisfy. Nostalgia about better days will not be sufficient; nor will returning endlessly to the simple pleasures with which you know you have been bored for a long time. Your God gives to those to ask and opens to those who knock (Matthew 7:7). The question is not whether God will answer, but whether we will ask.
The most interesting conversation I had this week was one in which we observed that those who take most naturally to religion are those on the extremes of life: either those people at the “bottom” of life whose difficult circumstances press them to look for answers; or those restless, endless strivers always pressing towards the heights, whose thirst for meaning draws them along new and unpredictable paths. Both are people who have a hunger that needs to be filled. They come to God saying, “My wine has run out. I’m not satisfied anymore. But I know who you are, and I know that you can give me something better.”
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6).
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