Sermon - Epiphany II 2022 - John 2:1-11

Marriage at Cana, Jacopo Tintoretto, 1561

Have you always gotten exactly what it is that you’ve prayed for? Probably not. It’s not unusual that in answer to our prayers, God at times says “no” to specific requests, but gives us what it is that we actually need. Our Introit today from Psalm 66 introduced us to this topic: “Come and see the works of God; He is awesome in His doing toward the sons of men. Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me!” In the Collect of the Day we prayed to God who “governs all things in heaven and on earth” that He “mercifully hear the prayers” of His people. 

In our Old Testament reading from Exodus, it took place right after the whole Golden Calf incident, in which Aaron made the golden calf at the people’s sinful request. Thousands were killed by the Levites and a plague as punishment. God refused to be present with the people because His very presence would consume them all. The people were stripped of all their ornamentation.

So Moses went to the Tent of Meeting where God would dwell to speak with Moses, but a young man Joshua was there and refused to leave. What was this all about? So Moses prays to God: “Please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight.” And God says: “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Or in other words, God said “no, I’m not going to show you My ways.” Moses wasn’t permitted to know what was all going to happen with Joshua and in the future. God told him that He would be with him and give him rest, and that was going to have to suffice. Moses would have to live by faith.

So having just been told no, Moses asks for something even more incredible, “Please show me your glory.” And again, God says “no.” “I will make all my goodness pass before you…But, you cannot see My face, for man shall not see Me and live.” God’s glory would destroy Moses, it’s too much! But God doesn’t ignore Moses’ request, since He gives him something else. “And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.”

God told Moses “no” to his requests because those things were not good for Moses. But God does always answer prayers, and so God didn’t just leave Moses hanging, but He gave Moses what He could give him. God does this with us too. We pray to God and ask Him for something, but God says “no” and gives us what is good.

In this way we’re kind of like toddlers. Toddlers ask their parents for things which they don’t understand, so their parents say “no” and give them something else. It doesn’t do any good to just say no, since the toddler will just keep asking and then throw a fit, so something must be given as an alternative. For example, a toddler wants to read the book her father is reading, but the father knows she’s not ready to read the book, she’ll find it boring, and will likely just tear out pages, so he gives her a board book with nice pictures to look at instead.

In a sense that’s how Jesus, the Lord of the universe and the Son of Mary, treats His mother at the wedding at Cana. “When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”  

You can kind of picture this. Jesus had just begun His public ministry, He had done no signs or miracles yet. Mary is perhaps helping with the wedding, or knows the family intimately, and suddenly the wedding reception is ruined, they’ve somehow run out of wine! What an embarrassment to the hosts! This would have been socially devastating to the newly married couple, starting off their new marriage by not buying enough wine. So here’s Mary walking around in a fluster and mentions to her Son that they ran out of wine.

Jesus’ response is fair enough. I’d probably have said the same thing to my mom if I were in that situation: what am I supposed to do about it? What’s this have to do with me? I’m one of the guests, I’m here to drink the wine, not buy it. But I’m not God, Jesus is. So Mary, perhaps inadvertently, prays to God, and God says “no.” 

But Jesus does offer something else, He says “My hour has not yet come.” While it’s not yet His hour, this does imply a great promise that His hour would be coming! There will come a time when Jesus will resolve all problems and cure all our woes, He would accomplish that in His hours on the cross, and we will experience that joy in paradise. His hour is yet to come when Jesus will celebrate the great marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom, a feast of aged wine well refined!

Whether or not Mary understands all of this while she’s worried about the wine in Cana is kind of beside the point. She just tells the servants to do whatever Jesus says to do. Perhaps she figured the party was over and Jesus would instruct the servants to start cleaning up or dismiss the guests or notify the master of the feast that they’d run out of wine.

But then instead of telling everyone to go home, Jesus performs a great miracle! His hour when He will provide a feast at the heavenly banquet hall has not yet come, but He will offer some temporary reprieve to their misery. “Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “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.”

The Lord provided for those in Cana and He answered prayer. I’d hazard a guess that Mary wasn’t expecting Jesus to provide a whole bunch of wine like He did. She knew He was the Messiah, but up to this point He hadn’t done signs. Like John tells us: “This, the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory. And His disciples believed in Him.” But even though Mary wasn’t expecting a miracle, she still heard her Lord tell her “no” and she wasn’t upset about it.

We have much to learn from Mary. When our Lord tells us “no” in answer to our prayers, we would do well not to behave like a toddler and throw a fit, but instead be like Mary and calmly receive from the Lord whatever He will give us. God does answer our prayers, even if at times He says “no,” He will give us what is good.

We have much to learn from Jesus as well. We’re still in the season of Epiphany, the season where we celebrate that God is made manifest to us. Today the epiphany we have is that Jesus is incredibly sympathetic to our needs, even when our needs are rather mundane in the whole scheme of things. Jesus had just begun His public ministry. Jesus is God in the flesh, the One through whom all things were made and are sustained, He is without a doubt the busiest man to have ever walked on earth. However, He still takes the time to go to some wedding, and at this wedding, solve a problem and answer a prayer to a really rather minor thing. He is God and yet sympathizes with even our smallest problems.

We complain about being too busy, can’t get everything done, no time for prayers or Bible Study or even church sometimes. Yet, the Lord of all the universe takes the time to deal with each of us, to answer our prayers, to listen to our complaints, and then find a good answer to our prayers. What a grand epiphany to realize that Jesus has such sympathy for all of us and cares for us so deeply.