Epiphany 2

Epiphany 2 (John 2:1-11)

“Do whatever he tells you to do.”

God specializes in transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Jesus performed his first miracle at the age of thirty. He was attending a wedding celebration. He went to celebrate an important but common event in the life of the community. He did not go to the celebration to perform a miracle.

Miracles are by definition rare occurrences. They represent a special manifestation of the real presence of God for a specific purpose. A true miracle announces the divine presence at work in the world. Jesus was not ready to announce to the world his ability to perform miracles.

At that time and place and culture people interpreted miracles as evidence of divine power. In the popular mind a miracle was an amazing and fearful event. Jesus performed his miracles from the place of love not power. Jesus performed miracles to help people understand the real presence of God in the categories of compassion, kindness and transformation. People generally experienced miracles in the categories of command and control, of rewards and punishments, as well as a divine demand for abject submission to God’s will.

As with all of the miracles Jesus performed, this first miracle meets a human need and is understated. Unlike the way we modern people portray miraculous events, there was no mystical music or shimmering lights or special effects. There was no thunder and lighting. There was a soft word of instruction. The only people who even knew that a miracle had taken place were Mary, the inner circle of disciple and the few servants who had filled the stone jars with water then drew out wine.

The need Jesus met was very practical. This was an honor based society. As a honor based society it was also a shame based culture. Clearly, the person the hosts had hired to provide the food and drink had underestimated the need. But, the community, for weddings were community events, would blame the host family and the host family would live with the dishonor and the shame for many years.

Holy Mother Mary knew this. Perhaps she was related to one of the families. Her own identification with the family motivated her to help. It is important to understand that traditional cultures believe the basic unit of society is the family. It is what we today call the extended family.

Traditional marriage is about family not about the individual. That is one of the basic reasons why traditional marriages are arranged marriages. The idea that individual romantic feelings define marriage was absurd to a traditional culture. They knew that romance was a mild form of temporary insanity- certainly no foundation for a lasting marriage.  

Traditional marriage only works well within the context of the traditional family as supported by a traditional culture. The broad underlying ethic of a traditional culture is: we are all in this together. If one of us suffers we all suffer. If one of us rejoices we all rejoice. Mary lived by this ethic. And so, when Mary became aware of the problem she wanted to help. She turned to Jesus. She did not know what he would do. She only knew he could and would solve the problem. There is a principle here. If you experience a problem take it to Jesus in prayer. You may also ask Holy Mother Mary to pray for you. If you take that second step then be prepared for Mary to instruct you: do whatever Jesus tells you to do.

Now, a marriage feast in the ancient world lasted for several days and sometimes as long as a week. All relatives, friends and neighbors participated. It was a threefold celebration of the happy couple  as they met for the first time, the families as they forged a new alliance, and the wider community who had a vested interest  in preserving society, culture and religion. Why? Because they understood that we are all in this together. We all need help. We all have the responsibility to offer help.

There was also a religious component to the celebrations. Through Moses God had revealed that He is love. Through the prophets God revealed that the shape of that love could be understood through three specific kinds of human relationships: Father to child, Husband to wife, friend to friend.           

People understood the wedding feast to be a foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus would more specifically develop this theme in the phrase: the marriage feast of the Lamb.  The spiritual underpinning of this miracle forms the transition from the Old Mosaic Law based covenant to the New Jesus grace based covenant.

The stone water jars represent a misunderstanding of the Law. The people who used them, most likely Pharisees, had developed elaborate purification rituals to reinforce their belief that they could keep the Law by their own actions. The failure to provide a basic component for the feast, the wine, symbolizes how the human made religious customs failed to accomplish what they promised. They could not keep the Law. They could not manifest God’s Kingdom.

When Jesus chooses to transform the water into wine he very subtly but powerfully announces that the Law cannot manifest the Kingdom of God. Grace (the gift of God) plus faith ( Mary’s trust and the servant’s obedience) plus Love (Jesus himself) alone manifests the Kingdom of God.

Jesus saved the day for the newlyweds and their families. Jesus also manifests the underlying principle of the Kingdom of Heaven. That principle is abundant life.

Jesus came to bring life. Jesus came to set us free from slavery to sin. Jesus transforms fear- especially fear of death- into faith. This is his great gift to our species.

One last note on the miracle. When the people taste the wine they are amazed. Normally, you serve one round of realty good expensive wine to impress and delight your guests. Then, you gradually shift to ordinary table wine. The wine Jesus made was the best.

In Jesus, God gives us His best so we will only experience the best.

The process of experiencing the best of divine abundance in our daily lives begins as we become aware of the problem. Once we become aware of the problem it is important to turn to Jesus for help. Next, we ask for Holy Mother Mary to pray for us. Then we follow her advice: Do whatever Jesus tells you to do. Make your choices in life according to the principles of love that Jesus teaches. Set your priorities according to the design of the Plan of Creation.

The best way to live in this world is the Jesus Way of grace (giving) through faith (trust in God) by love (who is a person – Jesus himself.)

Only Jesus can take the distorted forms of false religion and transform them to be vessels of grace. He can do that for the institutions of any religion or of no religion. He can do that because he himself is eternal love manifesting in this world.

Only Jesus takes the bare minimum of our lives and transforms them into the most amazing and abundant life we can experience.

Holy Mother Mary always points us to Jesus. And, she always gives her maternal instruction to us: do whatever Jesus has told you to do from the pages of scripture as applied to the circumstances of your daily life.