A Sermon by the Rev. Eric Andræ
2nd Sunday after the Epiphany
Eric R. Andræ
St. John 2:1-11.
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Soaked and bloody.
Soaked and bloody…is our Lord – last week baptized in the Jordan River, his hour has not yet come, but soon, soon he will indeed drench the earth with his blood shed from the cross for the sins of the world. Soaked and bloody is our Lord. Soaked and bloody is his Word throughout, soaked and bloody is all of God’s story with & among his people. It’s all about water and blood, blood and water.
Christ turns the water into wine for his first miracle and he turns wine into blood at the supper last. The Spirit hovers over the waters and Cain murderously sheds Abel’s blood at the beginning, and at the end the river of life runs through the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem as we will be gathered around the Lamb from whom it flows and who was slain from the beginning of the world, whose robe is still then dipped in blood.
And you…you entered this world through the water and blood of your earthly mom’s womb, and you were born again unto new life in the water of Mother Church’s womb at the font and are nourished by your Father who provides his Son’s blood for your sustenance at the table – that initial, re-birthing water, like mighty waves, will carry you home to its last act, its final baptismal raising resurrection on the great day when you will see your Lord face to face, including his still-red, blood-scarred hands, feet, and side – from which flowed water and blood on that last day of his holy work week the afternoon after he washed his disciples with cleansing water 2000 years ago and still does the same for you today.
It’s all about water and blood, blood and water. It’s all about birth, pain, suffering, death, departures, the hour, new life.
You know, Jesus was accused of being a wine-bibber and a glutton, a drunkard and partier, a friend of tax collectors, outcasts, sinners.
Have you ever been accused of something so outrageous, so ridiculous, so far-from-reality that you feel like responding, “Oh yeah, you think so, huh?! You think I’m this way or that. Well I’ll show you…, I’ll show them” – and then you take their accusation and put it into hyperdrive. You take what they are saying about you, and you embrace it and expand it; you flip it on its head and put an exclamation point to it.
Well, as if to make a point – and, of course, nothing our Lord does is by mistake or even happenstance; it’s all very, very intentional – so, to make a point, immediately after repeating this accusation against him of feasting, partying, and hanging out with all kinds of undesirables, he then goes to a…party (Luke 7)…and there he allows – he invites? – a whore to anoint his feet with her tears – “the heart’s blood,” St. Augustine calls these tears of repentance – and also with ointment, as she wipes his feet with her hair. This was scandalous, to say the least – a Jewish woman who let her hair down in public, could be divorced; it was a sign that she was available to other men. What’s more, when a ceremonially impure person such as this woman touched a Jew, he would therefore be considered unclean also and would not be permitted to enter the temple area, to celebrate festivals, or to offer sacrifices. But…now one greater than the temple is here, the one who offers himself as the greater sacrifice to cancel her guilt and sin…, the one who offers himself to her as her true bridegroom – for he loved her and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with washing of water, that He might present her to Himself a glorious bride, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish, pure. “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Eph. 5), I speak concerning you sinners and Jesus.
“Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews” (John 2) – it’s no accident, you see then, that he changes them to wine and that he later changes wine to blood and that blood of Christ crucified cleanses you from all impurity and uncleanness, from all sin. By her repentance, this prostitute does make herself available – her heart, mind, soul, her all – she does make herself available to another man, to the God-Man Jesus; and by his merciful Word he makes himself available to her, saying, “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” For “God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
What a party for her, what a celebration! And of course, this type of party, this type of feast [altar], this should not have come as a surprise since his very first miracle, his first sign, was to turn water into wine at a party.
Now, please don’t get me wrong, neither Jesus nor I am saying that he ever engaged in any kind of debauchery or depraved, self-indulgent pleasure-seeking - of course not. It’s not that kind of “party,” so to speak. No, this has nothing to do with self-centeredness or selfishness or loss of control, not at all – for though you know that kind of self-appointed hedonism on your terms in many and various ways all too well…, whether at what we normally call a party, or at dinner or at a ballgame or in the backseat of a car or in an argument in the kitchen or just about anywhere. But our Lord, our Lord knew no sin.
No, at the party at Cana Jesus was truly rejoicing in the love of a young couple – even more so rejoicing in his heavenly father’s love making them one through this wedding. And wine was customary and desired in order to complete, to fulfill the celebration. And thus our Lord, through that same thoughtful and generous love, while thinking not of himself but the others, miraculously provides the wine, too.
And what Jesus was ultimately manifesting in both word and deed – even already at Cana, and also especially with the sinful woman, and most certainly on the cross and coming out of the grave, and in your life here and now – what Jesus brings is the kind of party by and at which you can carouse, revel, celebrate, lose your self in the gratuitous joyful generosity and heaping happiness of measureless mercy and free forgiveness, by which he fills your emptiness, completes and fulfills your joy and your needs, and restores you to your true self as created and redeemed to be by and in him through water and blood. Oh, joy indeed! After all, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?!” No, they celebrate, they feast, they rejoice.
Anyway, whose wedding was it at Cana? It was Christ’s – for he, he is the greater Master, he is the true bridegroom; it’s his unending feast - from the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorways to the Last Supper which is the final Passover and the first communion of the new covenant in his blood to the Lord’s Supper here and now to the heavenly marriage supper of the Lamb, it’s always him, always his, all his, always, all gift! Water, wine, blood, washing…. Now, and still more to come, for as the prophet proclaims:
“It will come to pass in that day
That the mountains shall drip with new wine,
The hills shall flow with milk,
And all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water;
A fountain shall flow from the house of the Lord
And water the desert Valley!” (Joel 3:18).
“The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding guards your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
This sermon was preached by Father Andræ on January 20, 2019 at First Trinity Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he serves as associate pastor.