Holy Matrimony of Brianna Rae Higgins & Carson William Rygh

(Audio)

Matthew 19:4-6; Ephesians 5:1-2, 22-33; Genesis 2:7, 18-24

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Falling in love. Have you ever stopped and taken a moment to consider those words? Falling in love.It’s almost like you tripped over something and, “Presto!” you found yourself with a skinned knee, a sore back, and, unexpectedly, in love! How’d that happen? Was it like an accident, a coincidence, or something else? Of course, what we mean by falling in love is that you weren’t really looking for it or expecting it; it just kind of happened. Kind of the way you Anna and Carson fell in love. You found yourself together in a study abroad experience that hadn’t gone the way you planned. You became friends. And then, “Presto!” you realized that you had fallen in love. That was back in 2023. However, today, August 23, 2025, you realize that there was more to your falling in love than mere accident, coincidence, or chance. You’ve even come to see God’s guiding hand in your coming together, your falling in love, and in the promise and commitment you are about to make to each other this day.

There are no coincidences. The LORD made them male and female. The LORD saw that it was not good that the man should be alone. The LORD made for the man a woman, a wife, and brought her to him. The LORD blessed them that they should be one flesh, be fruitful, and multiply. This is the LORD’s doing. There are no coincidences. Adam didn’t have to go out and find a wife, but the LORD brought husband and wife together, just as the LORD has brought the two of you together.

People today talk about “soul mates.” “You have go out there and find your soul mate.” And so, they peruse the dating circuit for months, sometimes years, looking for, searching for Mr. or Mrs. Right. But you don’t have to go out and find your soul mate. Your soul mate is the one you choose to love, that you commit yourself to care for, that you sacrifice yourself for to preserve and to protect and to care for. Because of your choice, you come to love someone you previously didn’t know, and they come to love you. And love isn’t merely a fleeting emotion accompanied by raging hormones and serotonin levels, but love is patient and kind; it does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not insist on its own way; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but it rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

When we met a few months ago to discuss marriage and to prepare for your marriage today I shared with you a seldom discussed teaching of St. Paul from 1 Corinthians chapter 7: “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” I’m certain that a lot of folks find these words scandalous today. But what is Paul’s meaning? Well, yes, he is speaking of sexuality and sexual relations, exhorting husbands and wives not to withhold themselves sexually from each other, except for an agreed upon period of time for prayer. However, truly there is much more to Paul’s teaching than that. Carson, Anna, your wife, is not only a body. Anna, Carson, your husband, is not only a body. Each of you are a body and a soul, created by God in His image, redeemed in the blood of Jesus Christ His Son for immortality and life with Him forever. I think we all understand that a husband is to care for his wife’s body, her health and well-being, and a wife is to care for her husband’s body, health, and well-being, how much more then is a husband to care for his wife’s soul, and is a wife to care for her husband’s soul? Yes! Carson, you are not just marrying a female human, but you are committing yourself to care for, nurture, protect, and preserve an immortal soul. And the same is true for you Anna. You have each individually been baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection, and you each individually share in His immortal life. The soul of your wife, the soul of your husband, is as much a precious treasure to be cared for, protected, and preserved as is their body. Each of you is taking on a sacred charge today to care for, nurture, defend, protect, and preserve the other in both body and soul.

Today the LORD is making you a home. I don’t mean that He is building you a house, but the LORD is making you, Anna & Carson, to be a home. Husband & wife, father & mother, and children, should the LORD bless you with them, are the fundamental unit of society, created, instituted, and established, not by man, but by God. The home, the marriage of one man and one woman, and the family are the locale and means through which children are raised in the knowledge and fear of the LORD, civilization and maturation occur, and charity, mercy, forgiveness, and love are learned and cultivated. It is no wonder that Satan attacks marriage and the family, for they are the means through which the LORD causes and sustains stability and order, kindness and charity, peace and love, and all that is good. Yes, Satan will attack your marriage, your family, and your home. The only defense against his attack is the Word of the LORD and His blessed Sacraments. What I mean is that you must make the LORD and His Word and Sacraments a central part of your marriage, your family, and your home if you hope to remain strong against Satan’s attack. Go to church regularly. Pray in the morning and evening and give thanks before meals. Be quick to forgive and do not harbor resentment. Remember your marriage vows, remember your baptism, remember the forgiveness and mercy and love you have received from your LORD in and through Jesus Christ your savior. Jesus is truly the third partner in your marriage. The LORD has brought you together, and the LORD will bless you and make you a blessing. His is the love with which you love each other. Carson & Anna, remember the LORD, give thanks, receive His gifts, and share them with one another and others, and your marriage will be very good.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Holy Matrimony of Sarah Emily Frank and Grant Paul Tapken

(Audio)

John 2:1-11; Ephesians 5:1-2, 22-33; Genesis 2:7, 18-24

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Our Lord simply loves weddings! After crowning His six-day’s work with the creation of man – male and female He created them – He joined them together in the one-flesh union of marriage and blessed them that they should be fruitful and multiply. It was at a wedding that Jesus performed His first miracle and manifested His glory, turning the water of purification into the finest of wines. In the Revelation we are given to see our glorified Lord, a Lamb standing as though slain, wedded to His Bride the Church. From the very beginning, it has been God who joins together; and from shortly thereafter, it has been man who separates.

Thus, Jesus blessed the wedding at Cana with His presence. He wanted to be there as two of His beloved children were made to be one. Our Lord simply loves weddings! But the wedding party had run out of wine. How many marriages today are at risk of running out of wine? What God created as holy and a fruitful blessing has become bittersweet and fraught with lies, deception, sorrow and pain because of man’s sin. What was to be a brilliant image of the union God would have with man has become but a dim reflection. For, more than our fragmented marriages between husbands and wives, it is our marriage with God that has run out of wine. This Jesus came to restore, but His hour had not yet come.

Jesus’ hour, in John’s Gospel, is the appointed time of His passion and death on the cross. It is a time that will not be forced upon Jesus apart from His will: His life is His to lay down, no one takes it from Him. When His mother informed Him that the wedding party had run out of wine, Jesus replied that it was not a matter of concern between them now, for it was not yet the time for the shedding of His blood. Nevertheless, Mary instructed the servants to do whatever Jesus told them. It seems that Mary, who pondered the mystery of her son in her heart all her days, urged her son along His destined path to the cross so that He would perform this first sign and manifest His glory.

For, Jesus’ glory was manifested, not primarily in the miracle of changing water into wine, but Jesus’ glory was manifested in this first glimpse of His hour of passion that was yet to come. The water in those six stone jars was for the Jewish rites of purification. It was water that had been set aside to purify the wedding party from their uncleanness that Jesus changed into wine. Amongst the sadness and the shame of this wedding party that had run out of wine, Jesus began to take the curse of man’s great divorce from God upon Himself and to fill its place with joy and life, the finest of wine. For, the glory of Jesus is not manifested primarily in wonders and miracles, but the glory of Jesus is manifested in the Lamb of God’s self-offering on the cross.

The wedding of Adam and Eve was an image of man’s wedding with God. That was the first day. Succumbing to temptation, tasting the forbidden fruit, man became the whore and divorced God in adultery. That was the second day. But, on the third day, there was a wedding. The third day is the day of resurrection, the Lord’s Day, a day upon which the sun will never set. Jesus came to turn man’s sorrow and death into joy and life. He came to fill what the Law demands of us to the very brim, and not with mediocrity, but with the finest works, obedience, and love. He came to lay down His life for His friends, the greatest expression of love possible, that they might be restored unto God and live.

Jesus’ first sign at the wedding of Cana points us squarely to the greatest sign, the sign of Jonah, that is Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection on the third day. For, it was from Jesus’ riven side upon the cross that was brought forth His Bride the Church. From the side of the New Adam was brought forth the New Eve in water and blood.

Grant and Sarah, it is still the Third Day, the Day of Resurrection, as we gather here to celebrate, give thanks, and to ask the LORD for His blessing upon your marriage. This is the New Cana, where the Lamb of God stands as though slain, still bearing the marks of His Calvary as glorious life-giving scars. And, the master of the feast, Satan, is stunned, knowing not from whence this precious wine comes (though you know) saying, “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.” Marriage is not easy, but it is blessed by God, and it is an image of one flesh union the LORD desires to have with you, His Bride, the Church. In marriage you have the opportunity to attempt to love unconditionally, agape, even as you have the opportunity to forgive, and to receive forgiveness, when the best you can muster is eros or phileo. That’s ok. Draw your love, your mercy, your forgiveness, your patience, your hope, your peace, and your joy from the everlasting source of all those good things, Jesus Christ. Our Lord simply loves weddings! And He will bless your wedding, He will bless your union, and He will make you a blessing to others to the glory of His Holy Name.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

To be a father is to have a vocation of selfless sacrificial service.

“Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments!” – Psalm 112 ESV

 

Father’s Day did not become a national holiday until 1972 when President Richard Nixon’s administration declared the third Sunday in June a day to recognize and honor the role of fathers in society. In comparison, Mother’s Day became a national holiday in 1914. Whereas mothers are typically honored with gifts of cards, flowers, chocolates, and jewelry, fathers are most often honored with BBQs, picnics, and outdoor activities with the family. Whereas Mother’s Day is primarily a celebration of motherhood, Father’s Day is more a celebration of the family.

 

In Christendom, Father’s Day has its roots in the medieval observance of the Feast of St. Joseph which was celebrated on March 19. St. Joseph, being Jesus’ adoptive father, has been given the title Guardian of Jesus. One of my favorite images of St. Joseph depicts all three persons of the Holy Family – Mary gazing downward upon the infant Jesus laying in her lap, and Joseph, betrothed, but not yet married to Mary, and the guardian Father of Jesus, staring piercingly, not at Jesus nor at his mother Mary, but directly at you, the viewer, as if to communicate, “Be warned! I will protect this child and his mother with my very life!”

 

I believe that it is extremely important to consider that, though Mary was not yet Joseph’s wife, nor was Jesus his biological son, nevertheless, Joseph took up willingly his God-given vocation as husband and father, provider, guardian, defender, and protector of the holy family. Upon learning that his betrothed was suddenly with child, knowing that he was not the father, Joseph was at first of a mind to release Mary from their betrothal in a way that would protect her honor and dignity and, quite likely, preserve her and her child from death by stoning under the suspicion of being an adulteress. But an angel of the Lord visited Joseph in a dream and assured him that the child conceived in Mary’s womb was by the Holy Spirit of God. Joseph believed the word of the Lord and he took Mary to be his wife, and the son she carried he received and cared for as his very own. At the word of the Lord, Joseph took on the guardianship and protection of a family.

 

Are fathers important? God seems to think so. God called Joseph to be a husband to Mary and a father to Jesus. And Joseph, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David before him, believed the Lord and obeyed his word. “Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments!” (Psalm 112 ESV).

 

Joseph’s fatherhood wasn’t about glory, praise, or power, but it was about servanthood, even as was Jesus’ sonship, and Mary’s motherhood. Each of these vocations are unique and distinct and, together, they serve the family, a holy trinity of mutual sacrificial love and service. Thus, in the marriage of a man and a woman, and in the procreation of children, there is a beautiful reflection of our holy Triune God himself as each person performs their unique and necessary role in relation to the others.

 

To be a father is have a vocation of selfless sacrificial service for your wife and children. Perhaps this truth is reflected in the family traditions of Father’s Day, enjoying a BBQ or a picnic with the family, playing games with your children, and enjoying God’s creation together.

 

Heavenly Father, from whom all fatherhood is named, we give You thanks for our earthly fathers. Give them confidence in their station and zeal for their task to care for their families faithfully. Make them examples to their children of godly life and love of Your Word. Bless their work of bringing up children in the fear and instruction of the Lord and give them the comfort of Your absolution over all their shortcomings. Gather us together with all our fathers to Your eternal household; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

 

Rev. Jon M. Ellingworth – Pastor, St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church – Waverly, IA

This article ran in the June 13, 2024 edition of The Waverly Democrat Newspaper

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany (Epiphany 2)

(Audio)

John 2:1-11; Romans 12:6-16; Exodus 33:12-23

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I hate to say it, but we are not in a very good position to appreciate and to understand the Gospel Lesson appointed for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany. The reason is that, from our modern and western perspective, we have a very different understanding of marriage and wedding celebrations and their meanings, both symbolic and practical, than did the people of middle eastern culture in first century Israel. Perhaps that explains why so many of us enjoy movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Fiddler on the Roof, and even The Godfather, for such movies depict weddings that are richly steeped in cultural, ethnic, and religious traditions. Such weddings are huge, elaborate events, often lasting for days, and the marriages in these movies are clearly much more than mere contractual agreement between two consenting adults, but they are the unions of families, the joining of cultures, customs, and traditions, even the forming of villages and communities. There are many stakeholders in marriage beyond the bride and the groom. Marriage is never merely a personal and private affair.

Our contemporary understanding of marriage stands in stark contrast to this. Today marriage is extremely individualistic. If you choose to get married at all, it is understood that who you marry is your choice, and your choice alone, and that the approval or disapproval of others, family, community, congregation, is irrelevant and should be of no concern at all. Westerners look at the tradition of arranged marriages in other nations and cultures with contempt and disdain, thinking that such traditions are no different than abuse or slavery. Today marriage can be defined however you choose irrespective of how it has ever been defined before by tradition, religion, or even law. Two men or two women can marry, and there is absolutely nothing in that logic that should prevent multiple men, women, animals, or even inanimate objects from being married; for, when marriage can mean anything, it effectively means nothing. This confusion is the result of supreme selfishness – which itself is the fruit of sin and the very opposite of the love God has called us to and commands – that stands in extreme contrast to the familial, social, and communal understanding of marriage from its beginning in God.

Today it is culturally accepted, and even expected, that a couple will live together before, or instead of, being married. It is considered foolishness if a couple doesn’t give marriage a “test run,” so to speak, to see if they are truly compatible and can live together. This makes perfect sense if you are buying a car, but a spouse is not a commodity, but a commitment, even a covenant. The marriage covenant is a promise you make “to have and to hold… for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.” Love doesn’t view the other person as a commodity to dispense with when he or she no longer satisfies, but love loves all the more, and submits and sacrifices the self for the sake of the other and for the one flesh union the LORD has blessed them to be in holy marriage. And yet, legal no-fault divorce has been generally embraced by Christians today as necessary and good, certainly not a sin. As for cohabitation before marriage, technically, it’s not the living-in-the-same house part that is wrong, but it is premarital sex that God forbids. Hypothetically, a couple could insist that they share a domicile for economic reasons, for convenience, or for other reasons but that they do not sleep together. However, the couple should understand two things. First, they are going to give everyone the impression that they are sexually intimate because that is typically the case for couples who live together, thus giving the appearance of sinning. Second, living together in such close proximity will be a continual temptation inspiring lust in the heart if not physical sexual activity. Again, today people will say that it doesn’t matter what other people think, but that is a sinful, selfish lie, and cohabitation before marriage is a bad confession for a Christian couple to present before others, and it does not honor God’s name or marriage as He instituted it.

So, for us to truly understand the Gospel account of the Wedding at Cana, it is necessary for us to embrace the rich cultural meaning of marriage and the wedding celebration in Jesus’ day. Weddings in Jesus’ day were massive feasts for the entire village. A wedding party could last an entire week, put everything else in the town on hold, and be the most important local event of the entire year. Somewhat parallel to our modern customs, there were many folkways and mores attached to the ancient village wedding: A contract between families, cut by mutual agreement over a sip of wine; A betrothal period of about one year in length when the bride prepared the home for the couple; And then the arrival of the groom, the procession to the wedding hall, and a grand feast. To neglect the invitation was to send a message that you did not want to be a part of the village. To accept the invitation was a show of friendship and loyalty. In some eastern cultures it was expected, and still is today, that the entire town or village would be invited and that each guest would be given a gift! This understanding is necessary for us to comprehend the magnitude of the disaster that almost befell the Wedding in Cana because they had run out of wine.

All this to-do about wine? Unfortunately, our American culture, largely shaped by puritanical pietism in its prudish restrictiveness and in its rebellious indulgence, has demonized the drinking of wine and of all beverages containing alcohol. Therefore, we miss out on the importance of wine in ancient world and of the goodness, joy, and blessing that it symbolized for people. Wine was understood as a good gift of God. It was a symbol of joy and happiness and of God’s blessing. Throughout the Bible, both in the Old and the New Testaments, wine was used and extolled in this manner, its use even being commanded by Jesus in the Last Supper. The bride’s family was responsible for providing the wine for the wedding. As much as a year before the wedding they would have been preparing the wine for the feast, from tending the grapes to their pressing, and then, they would have hired a wine steward to manage the wine to last throughout the entire wedding celebration, serving the good wine first, while the guest’s palettes were sharp, and then the less expensive wine when their tastes were less discerning. However you slice it, the chief job of the wine steward was to make certain that they didn’t run out of wine and cause a social disaster for the families of the bride and the groom. But in the story, that’s exactly what happened.

Now, I know that it’s hard for us to get our brains around this today, but running out of wine at a first century middle eastern wedding was about the worst thing that could possibly happen. It would have meant humiliating shame for the entire family in the presence of the entire town or village. It would have meant the loss of respectability and even livelihood. This was the situation that Jesus was in midst of and was called upon by His mother to remedy. Mary said to Him, “They have no wine.” She might as well have said the bride is dead, as this was a seemingly hopeless situation that no man had the ability to resolve. But Jesus’ response to her seems out of place, almost disrespectful. Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

Well, to understand Jesus’ words, it is necessary that we remember that this account was recorded by the Apostle John, who was present at the wedding and was an eyewitness. John uses the words “my hour” in his Gospel as code words for the Passion of Jesus: His crucifixion, suffering, and death. Thus, what Jesus was communicating to His mother was that it wasn’t yet time for Him to be manifested as the fullness of God’s glory by laying down His life in sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. Nevertheless, Jesus did respond to His mother’s concern that they had no wine. They had no wine; they had no joy; and they were helpless to restore joy to this otherwise festive occasion. The family was going to be humiliated. The marriage had a black mark on it before it even began. Though it was not yet the hour of Jesus’ Passion, nevertheless, Jesus did have compassion upon the people beloved by His Father in heaven and He acted to restore their joy and their relationships and their honor, and He acted to glorify His Father in this first of His signs recorded for us in the Holy Scriptures.

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. The jars represented the Law of God. They represented His holiness and man’s uncleanness, for it was necessary for the guests to be ceremonially purified before they could partake of the wedding feast. Jesus commanded that these jars be refilled with water, to the very brim. This was to indicate that when Jesus would fully manifest Himself and glorify His Father by laying down His life unto death, His death would be for every sin ever committed and for every man, woman, and child who would ever live and die. When He commanded that the wine be taken to the master of the feast and he tasted it, He had to confess that the water in the jars was not water at all, but that it was the finest of wines. For, not only would Jesus fulfill the Law for us completely in the hour of His Passion, but He now offers us rich and abundant grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness freely through faith in Him.

This is why in one prominent cathedral in Manhattan the inscription around the baptismal font reads “This, the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory; and his disciples believed in Him.” As the wedding at Cana was the first of Jesus’ signs, so Holy Baptism is His first sign among us. Baptism is a sacramental miracle, an even greater sign than turning water into wine. The words inscribed near that font remind us that Jesus is still manifesting Himself to us every time we gather around font, pulpit, and altar.

The master of the feast was stunned, and he remarked, “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.” Indeed, when Jesus makes everything new, the new is even better than the old, even before the old became corrupted! Likewise, when Moses asked to see the Father’s glory, he was permitted to see only His backside, for no man can see the face of God and live. And yet, in the resurrection on the Last Day, we will all behold Him face to face. And so, even now, Jesus is present with us, though He remains veiled in Word and water, bread, and wine, but then, then we shall see Him face to face.

Thus, today we remember how Jesus restored to joy to a community of people and how the wine they enjoyed then was even better than what they began with. And by remembering this first of Jesus’ signs He performed through which He manifested His glory, we are brought to remember the many other ways Jesus manifested His glory amongst us, demonstrating that He was Emmanuel, God with us, then, now, and unto all eternity.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

The Second Sunday after Epiphany (Epiphany 2)

(Audio)

John 2:1-11; Romans 12:6-16; Exodus 33:12-23

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Our Lord simply loves weddings! After crowning His six-day’s work with the creation of man – male and female He created them – He joined them together in the one-flesh union of marriage and blessed them that they would be fruitful and multiply. And, it was at a wedding that Jesus performed His first sign, or miracle, and manifested His glory. Then, in the Revelation, we see our glorified Lord, standing as a Lamb slain, being wedded to His Bride the Church coming down from heaven. From the beginning, it has been God who has joined together; from shortly thereafter, it has been man who has separated.

Thus, Jesus blesses the wedding party at Cana with His presence. He wants to be there as two of His beloved children are made to be one. Our Lord simply loves weddings. He came with His mother and with His disciples who believed in Him. But, the wedding party ran out of wine. How many marriages today are at risk of running out of wine, or have already run out of wine? What God created as holy and as a fruitful blessing, marriage, has, because of man’s sin, become bittersweet and fraught with lies and deception, sorrow and pain. What was to be a brilliant image of the union God would have with man has become but a dim reflection. For, more than our fragmented marriages between husbands and wives, it is our marriage with God that has run out of wine. This Jesus came to restore, but His hour had not yet come.

Jesus’ hour, in John’s Gospel, is the appointed time of His passion and death on the cross. It is a time that will not be forced upon Jesus apart from His will: His life is His to lay down, no one takes it from Him. When His mother informed Him that the wedding party had run out of wine, Jesus replied that it was not a matter of concern between them now and that it was not yet the time for the shedding of His blood. Mary clearly understood this. Nevertheless, she instructed the servants to do whatever Jesus told them. It seems that Mary, who pondered the mystery of her son in her heart, who heard the prophecy told about Him by Simeon that He would be for a sign spoken against and for the rising and falling of many in Israel, and that a sword would pierce her own heart too, it seems that Mary urged her son along His destined path to the cross that He would perform this first sign and manifest His glory.

For, Jesus’ glory was manifested, not primarily in the miracle of changing water into wine, but Jesus’ glory was manifested in this first glimpse of His hour of passion that was yet to come. The water in those six stone jars was for the Jewish rites of purification. It was water that had been set aside to wash away the wedding party’s uncleanness that Jesus changed into wine. Amongst the sadness and the shame of this wedding party that had run out of wine, Jesus began to take the curse of man’s great divorce from God upon Himself and to fill its place with joy and life, the finest of wine. For, the glory of Jesus is not manifested primarily in wonders and miracles, but the glory of Jesus is manifested in the Lamb of God’s self-offering in death on the cross.

The wedding of Adam and Eve was an image of man’s wedding with God. That was the first day. Succumbing to temptation, tasting the forbidden fruit, man became the whore and divorced God in adultery. That was the second day. But, on the third day, there was a wedding. The third day is the day of resurrection, the Lord’s Day, the day on which the sun never sets. Jesus came to turn man’s sorrow and death into joy and life. He came to fill what the Law demands of us to the very brim, and not with mediocrity, but with the finest works, obedience, and love. He came to lay down His life for His friends, the greatest expression of love possible, that they might be restored unto God and live.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church, His body, and is Himself its Savior. Now as the Church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love you wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for Her, that He might sanctify Her, having cleansed Her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that She might be holy and without blemish. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.

Jesus’ first sign at the wedding of Cana points us squarely to the greatest sign, the sign of Jonah, that is Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection on the third day. For, it was from Jesus’ riven side upon the cross that was brought forth His Bride the Church. From the side of the New Adam was brought forth the New Eve in water and blood.

It is still the Third Day, the Day of Resurrection, and we are gathered here as one body in the water and the blood of our Bridegroom Jesus Christ. This is the New Cana, where the Lamb of God stands as though slain, still bearing the marks of His Calvary as glorious life-giving signs. And, the master of the feast, Satan, is stunned, knowing not from whence this precious wine comes (though you know) saying, “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 the Lamb’s High Feast, the Feast of Victory of Our God. He has fulfilled the Law, filled its gaping tomb-like mouth to the brim with the finest wine of His holy blood. No longer need you repeatedly, ritually return to the water for cleansing, but having been cleansed in His blood once and for all you are clean, holy before the Lord. This feast is but a foretaste of the Feast that is to come, the Marriage Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom that has no end. But, it is all you need for today, for tomorrow, until He comes. Come quickly Lord Jesus. Come quickly, come.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Holy Matrimony of Spencer Richard Warehime & Nicole Rae Geisemann

(Audio) 

Matthew 19:4-6; Colossians 3:12-17; Genesis 2:7

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Every marriage has a beginning: A first glance; a first smile; a first date; a first kiss; etc. For Spencer and Nicole, it all began at the Registrar’s Office at Wartburg when a rather forward young man passed an Add/Drop card to the smiling young lady behind the desk saying, “DROP: All other plans” and “ADD: A date with me at Duo’s.” He’d caught her eye before. She thought he was cute, and that mustache! Obviously, he’d noticed her as well. “Her hair was like a flock of goats,” he thought, recalling the words of the Song of Solomon. She scribbled something on a sticky-note, placed it on the card and handed it back to him. It was her phone number. “YES!” Well, that first date finally came, but it wasn’t at Duo’s, but at Hy-Vee over mediocre Chinese food. However, the location and the food didn’t really matter as they sat and talked for over an hour and the first buds of a relationship began to develop and grow, the fruit of which we are celebrating this very day. Every marriage has a beginning, often very humble, mundane, and ordinary. The LORD works in unexpected ways, but He brings together His children and He blesses them, and He makes them to be a blessing.

Faith was important to them from the beginning, and it wasn’t long before Spencer and Nicole were worshiping together on Sunday morning here at St. John, along with a good number of other Wartburg students and a surprisingly strong representation from the Cross-Country team. After Bible study they could usually be found at Dell’s Diner where they talked about what they had heard at church and other things. In this way, as their relationship began to grow, so did they grow together in their faith. Spencer and Nicole, I remember several conversations with the two of you in my office when you had questions about God’s Word, particularly as it pertained to your relationship. I want you to know how much I respect you and am grateful to God for you for seeking counsel in His Word. And I know that you have continued to seek that counsel as you have prepared for this day, learning from God’s Word about forgiveness and sacrifice, how you can serve each other and submit to each other and encourage each other, and about the importance of having a prayer life and a devotional life in marriage. This is a solid foundation on which you will build and grow even as you are built and grown by the Lord. Marriage isn’t always easy, but it is good, and with Christ at its center it will endure, and it will grow and bear much fruit.

Spencer, you told me that Ephesians chapter five was important to you as well as the Table of Duties from the Small Catechism. Indeed, in such passages the Lord describes and prescribes the godly vocations of husband and wife, father and mother, parents and children, and more. These vocations, indeed, all vocations, begin with humility and love, selflessness and sacrifice, and fear, love, and trust in God above all things. The Epistle lesson you together selected from Colossians chapter three is loaded with St. Paul’s exhortations to godly living that are both descriptive and prescriptive of Christian faith and life and of Christian marriage: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiving one another, harmony, peace, thankfulness, and more. It’s not an exhaustive list. You have surely noticed that these qualities are all selfless, not selfish, in that they flow outward from the self towards others and not inwards towards the self. These qualities are by their very nature selfless and sacrificial. They are qualities that flow from love because they are the qualities of God, who is love, Himself, and of Jesus Christ who is the love of God incarnate.

These selfless, sacrificial, and loving qualities were endowed in the very first marriage in Paradise when God brought together the man and the woman He had created and joined them in the one-flesh union of Holy Marriage. God blessed them and He blessed their union that they should be fruitful with His selfless, sacrificial love. Truly, God blessed us all with marriage so that we could know more fully and truly the kind of love and the kind of relationship He wills to have with us. God doesn’t merely will for His creatures to worship Him as our Creator, but He wills to selflessly and sacrificially love us, and for us to selflessly and sacrificially love Him in return; He wills to marry us; and He wills to make us fruitful, together with Him, with the fruits of His love. Now, the first marriage was instituted before our first parents introduced sin into the world, which has made a royal mess of everything and which continues to produce endless suffering and misery. Nevertheless, marriage after the Fall is still a divine, holy, and sacred union and proving ground in which we can learn selflessness and sacrifice, where we can learn to love like God and as God, as we sacrifice ourselves, our selfish wills, and our self-serving desires for our beloved, and as we bear with and endure in patience those times our love is not reciprocated by forgiving and gratefulness for the loving forgiveness of God we ourselves have received but not deserved. Truly, it is in this way, and in this way alone, that the equation 1 + 1 = 1 is valid and true. Each of you, Spencer and Nicole, in selfless and sacrificial love for God and for each other, this day are no longer two, but you are one. Your marriage is to be a reflection, even if tarnished and dimmed by sin, of the perfect, true, and holy marriage of Christ and His Bride the Church.

It is God who has brought you together, just as He first brought Adam and Eve together. People talk about “soul mates” as if your soul mate is someone that you have to go out there in the world and find. I think that is inadequate at best, and plainly false at worst. You did not go out there and find each other any more than Adam had to go out and find Eve. You were brought together, by God, through the myriad, maze-like, life paths you followed, your vocations, informed by God’s word and by prayer, that have brought you to where you are. No, your soul mate is not the one you go out and find, but your soul mate is the one that God brings you to and, in Holy Marriage, you pledge yourself to guard and keep, not only their body and life, but their holy soul purchased and cleansed in the blood of Jesus, unto death parts you. Yes! You are not merely pledging your love and faithfulness to a person this day, but you are pledging your love and faithfulness to a person created by God in His image and redeemed in the blood of God’s Son Jesus Christ. You are pledging your love and faithfulness not merely to a body, but to an immortal soul as well. What I mean is this: Spencer, this day you pledge to be the guardian and protector of Nicole, of both her body and her soul. Likewise, Nicole, this day you pledge to be the guardian and protector of Spencer, of both his body and his soul. You have the authority and the sacred responsibility of guarding and protecting each other through life, unto death, into life that cannot die. As the Lord has given you each to the other as a helpmate and has blessed you to be bone of bone and flesh of flesh in a one flesh union, so will you in faithfulness serve each other in life and deliver each other back to the Lord when He calls. “What God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Spencer and Nicole, when I asked you what you were looking forward to in marriage, you answered, “to see each other more,” “to be together,” and “to set goals together.” On the one hand, marriage will certainly deliver each of these to you, whether you desire them or not. On the other hand, these are mature, healthy, and sensible desires and goals. Moreover, I have witnessed you practicing these things already as you charted the course through college, made job choices while considering Spencer attending seminary, deciding to take a year off to get things in order, right down to the plans you made for this very day. These things you did together, through give and take, patience and understanding, charity and grace, and with not a small amount of forgiveness I am certain. The Lord bless you and guide you by His word and Spirit as you go forward as husband and wife.

In closing, I leave you to reflect upon these words from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians which you have selected to be read today: “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. […] And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Spencer and Nicole, always remember that your Holy Marriage, instituted and blessed by our Holy Triune God, is an icon, and image, of God’s own Divine Family – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As you sacrifice yourselves one for the other, two becoming one flesh, and as, if God should so bless you, you are fruitful and bear children – remember always the third partner in your marriage – your Lord Jesus Christ. It was God who brought Adam and Eve together because He desired for them to know the love and fulfillment of His own Divine Family. He is the love that binds you and makes you one flesh; and He has promised to be with you always. Call upon Him daily for your needs. Thank Him daily for your blessings. Make Him the Lord of your hearts and of your Holy Marriage – and He will bless you and your Holy Marriage. You will be fruitful. And your one flesh union will be “very good.”

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

Holy Matrimony of Frank Vincent Casale and Pamela Sue Everhart

(Audio)

Mark 10:1-9; Ephesians 5: 1-2, 22-33; Genesis 2:7, 18-24

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Our God is a King who serves. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, God as man, “came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” Our First Parents were created in His image, in the image of our Servant King, to serve creation, and to serve each other. God gave them authority, authority to serve, an authority that came from outside of them, an authority that vested them and clothed them. It wasn’t power taken, but it was authority given. They were given authority to serve creation and to serve each other, to love, to care for, and to protect each other. In this way, they were no longer two, but they were one – one flesh, united in servant kingship, united in faith, and united in love. Frank and Pam, that is the sort of union you enter into this day. Each of you will pledge yourself the servant of the other and you will be crowned with the other’s authority to serve them – a servant king and a servant queen, a servant husband and a servant wife, a reflection of our First Parent’s union in Eden and a reflection of God’s Servant Kingship of us all, in whose image we are created.

In his First Epistle to the Corinthians St. Paul wrote, “the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” St. Paul is speaking of the authority each of you today gives to the other – an authority to serve each other, to care for and to love each other in all the ways human beings need to be served, cared for, and loved. St. Paul develops this teaching further in his Epistle to the Ephesians where he describes what this service, care, and love look like in action within marriage: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church, His body, and is Himself its Savior.” “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for Her, the He might sanctify Her, having cleansed Her by the washing of water with the Word…. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.” Sadly, these words are scandalous and offensive to many today, even to those who call themselves Christians. This is because of our sin which has taken authority given and turned it into power taken so that our marriages are wounded and destroyed by selfishness, lust, greed, resentment, and hate. Because of this, let me take a moment to explain St. Paul’s meaning.

Submit – to many women today, and to not a few men, that word is perhaps the most scandalous and offensive in all the Scriptures. However, that is because of ignorance and sin, for the word submit doesn’t mean what people typically think it means. Today, when people hear the word submit they think of domination, tyranny, slavery, and abuse. They conjure up images of Ralph Kramden or Stanley Kawalski, or worse. The Greek word that gets translated as submit, however, implies nothing of the sort. In fact, it is a military word associated with military rank and hierarchy. The word has absolutely nothing to do with equality or inequality – whether one was a legionnaire or a centurion in terms of rank, they were equally men having the same rights. Moreover, the word submit is passive; it literally means “to put oneself under” authority. If a woman is forced, then she cannot submit. A wife is called to submit to her husband, that is, to willingly put herself under his authority, which is further illuminated by the words, “as to the Lord.” How is a wife to put herself under the authority of her husband? The same way she willingly puts herself under the authority of her Lord Jesus Christ. And, why would a wife, or anyone for that matter, willingly put herself under the authority of Jesus? Because Jesus loves you and cares for you and sacrificed everything He had and was and is for you, that’s why. Jesus only ever wants what’s good and best for you. So should a husband love his wife as Christ loves His Bride the Church, and so should a wife willingly submit to her husband as to the Lord.

You see, submission – to willingly place yourself under someone else’s authority – requires trust in that person. But, why should you trust them? Let’s face it, today it’s difficult to trust anyone. You trust someone because they have proven themselves trustworthy; that is to say, you know something about them, they have a track record. They don’t have to be perfect, and God knows they’re not going to be, but they have to mean well towards you, they have to care for you, they love you in a way that very few, if any, others care for and love you. Because of that, you trust them. You trust them because of who they are, what they are, who and what they have demonstrated themselves to be. You trust that they have your back and will catch you when you fall. Again, they’re not going to do this perfectly, and neither are you. The Lord is the only one who is perfect, who will never ever fail you, who can be trusted in with unfailing trust, not because of who you are, but because of who He is. Nevertheless, your husband, O wife, and your wife, O husband, has promised to care for you and to love you, and if you give them authority over you as you promise to this day, then you owe them your trust, your fear (which is reverence), and your love as to the Lord whom they are a reflection of, even if dimmed and obscured by sin. In this way you are imitators of God, sacrificing yourself for the sake of the other, becoming one flesh and a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

It is the LORD who has brought you together – in His way, and in His time. Do not misunderstand, I do not mean that your “soulmate” was out there, and that you just had to find her or him. No, that is the way the world and the flesh think: It might as well be chance that you found each other. And, if you married before and are widowed or divorced, does that mean you just hadn’t found your soulmate? Devilish nonsense! Your soulmate, if we are to use that language, is the one to whom you make this promise and keep it by the grace of God. It is what you are doing right now that makes you Frank, and you Pam, soulmates. The LORD has indeed brought you together, just as He presented Eve to Adam, but what makes you soulmates is not the bringing or the finding, but it is the vows that you make before the LORD this day and your life together of keeping them and of absolving each other when you fail to keep them. The only way that you can do this is with the help and blessing of the Lord. You have asked the Lord to bless your union, your marriage, and He will bless it, He will bless you, and you will be fruitful and multiply His love. For, it is with His love that you love each other, and it His love that flows through you making you fruitful with His love in service of each other and others to the glory of His Name.

Frank and Pam, as we your friends and family together behold you this day, just moments away from giving yourselves to each other in Holy Marriage, we are blessed to behold in you an image, an icon of our First Parents in the Garden of Eden. We are blessed to behold in you an icon of our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Bride the Church. And we are blessed to behold in you an icon of our Holy Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For, that is what you are becoming, a new image, a new icon of selfless, sacrificial love in the one-flesh union of holy marriage that our Triune God has created and instituted and even now calls you to. God will place crowns upon your heads; they will be crowns of dominion, crowns of love, and crowns of martyrdom, and yet they will not be multiple crowns, for they are all but one crown, the Martyr’s Crown, the crown of Jesus Christ our Servant King, and they will make you to be an icon of God’s holy love in the one-flesh union of Holy Marriage, the sweetest martyrdom.

God is love. And God has revealed His love in creation, in redemption, and in sanctification. And, your Holy Marriage is to be a reflection of His love and a participation in His love in creation, in redemption, and in sanctification. For, Frank, today you will be crowned a king in a new family. You will be a king like your King Jesus, a Servant King, a Martyr King, as you sacrifice yourself for the sake of Pam, your wife, your body, bone of your bones and flesh of your flesh. Your only desire every day of your life will be for her salvation that she may be presented to the Lord just as He has made her to be in His holy, innocent, shed blood, in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. You are to be the steward and husband of her body and soul and you are be her king and pastor and love and serve her as the queen of your kingdom and as the little church that is your home just as Christ loved His Bride the Church and gave Himself up for Her.

And Pam, today you will be crowned a queen in a new family. You will be a queen like unto the Holy Church of which Jesus Christ is the Head. You are to stand by your husband as his helpmate, equal to him in all things, yet you are to willingly submit to him as your head just as the Church submits to Christ Her Head. By submitting to your husband you show him love, honor, and trust as you likewise do to the Lord. And, as Frank will guard and protect the salvation of your body and soul, so do you have stewardship of the salvation of his body and soul.

Frank, Pam, today you will be crowned with the Martyr’s Crown, a crown of servanthood, for today you will die in the sweetest of martyrdoms. Each of you will die to yourself, for the sake of the other, and you two will become one flesh. The words of St. Paul on marital equality are clear: “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” For a husband and a wife belong to each other as martyrs, they belong to God as royalty, and they are called to treat each other accordingly. For, that is what it means to love, to die to yourself. This is why, and this is how, Holy Marriage is an icon of God, because Holy Marriage is an opportunity for you to show selfless, sacrificial, life-bestowing love to one another, and Holy Marriage is an opportunity for you to receive such selfless, sacrificial, life-bestowing love yourself.

Frank, Pam, always remember that your Holy Marriage, instituted and blessed by our Holy Triune God, is an icon of God’s own Divine Family. As you sacrifice yourselves one for the other, two becoming one flesh, remember always the third partner in your marriage – your Lord Jesus Christ. It was God who brought Adam and Eve together because He desired for them to know the love and fulfillment of His own Divine Family. He is the love that binds you and makes you one flesh; and He has promised to be with you always. Call upon Him daily for your needs. Thank Him daily for your blessings. Make Him the Lord of your hearts and of your Holy Marriage – and He will bless you and your Holy Marriage. You will be fruitful. And your one flesh union will be “very good.”

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

The Second Sunday after Epiphany (Epiphany 2)

(Audio)

John 2:1-11; Romans 12:6-16; Exodus 33:12-23

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Our Lord manifests His glory in the humble, ordinary, and mundane things of our humble, ordinary, and mundane lives and world: Water, bread, wine, and preachers; the marriage of a man and a woman and the consequent home and family they share together; the birth of a child and her consequent care and nurture. Truly, those who seek the LORD in power and great glory will not find Him, for He is not there, but the LORD is where He has promised to be, in the things, places, and people He promises to be present in, no matter how humble, ordinary, and mundane they may be.

And so, wise men from the east were led by a star to the Christ child. They found Him, not in the royal city of Jerusalem, or even in David’s city of Bethlehem, but in lowly Nazareth in the humble home of a humble carpenter. He was not a great man of stature, wealth, and power but a lowly helpless infant who needed to be fed and clothed and changed by His humble, ordinary, mother and father.

As a boy, Jesus did what young Hebrew boys do, He attended synagogue and temple with His parents, studied and learned the Word of the LORD, and learned His father’s trade and assisted him. The rabbis in the temple marveled at His wisdom and learning at such a young age, for He was just a humble, ordinary boy from a humble, ordinary village, the son of humble, ordinary parents. Similarly, Jesus was baptized in the same murky waters that hundreds, maybe thousands, of humble, ordinary, men, women, and children – sinners all – were baptized in. They emerged cleansed from their sins, whereas Jesus took their sins upon Himself. John cried out, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” But the crowds only saw Jesus, the carpenter’s son from backwater Nazareth.

Today we hear about Jesus attending a wedding. Think about that for a moment. How many weddings have you attended in your lifetime? No doubt, several. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of couples get married, and, sadly, divorced, every day. Few things could be more common, ordinary, and mundane than a wedding. Nevertheless, the Evangelist thought it important to include this story in his Gospel. It was a humble, ordinary wedding in a humble, ordinary village, Cana in Galilee, not far from Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth and Capernaum, the home base of His Galilean ministry. And, this wedding had an extremely humble, ordinary, and mundane problem – they had run out of wine.

Now, a little cultural background is helpful to understand why this was such a problem. First century Jewish weddings were weeklong affairs to which the whole village was invited in addition to the extensive family members of the bride and the groom. To run out of wine so early in the celebration would be a grave social embarrassment to the young couple and their families, and even the community. In this story about Jesus we see that Jesus cares, we see that God cares, about things as common, ordinary, humble, mundane, and human as weddings and the common, ordinary, humble, mundane human problems we face every day. The crux of this story, however, is not really the social problem or the miracle of turning water into wine, but it is that Jesus manifested His glory and His disciples believed in Him.

Yes, the end result of Jesus’ first recorded sign or miracle is that the twelve disciples believed in Him. Although there were likely hundreds of people present at the wedding, only the twelve, some servants, and His mother Mary knew what had occurred. Indeed, this helps us to understand the strange dialogue between Jesus and His mother when she informed Him that they had run out of wine. Jesus answered her saying that His hour had not yet come. The hour is Jesus’ time and God’s time, and Jesus’ and God’s timeline. Just as the Lord manifests His glory in humble and ordinary ways, so the Lord does so according to His time and timeline. Truly, faith in Jesus, faith in God, is to believe and trust in Him, in His goodness and providence, to act when He knows it to be right, good, and the best time. The faithful wait on the Lord and trust in His Word. Often, we have to wait as the disease worsens, as death approaches, as we wonder how we’re going to be able to pay our bills or when our wayward children might return home or their faith might be rekindled.

And so, Jesus answers His mother’s prayer. Jesus intervenes and helps the desperate situation. But, He does so in a way that draws little attention to Himself, but the attention of a select few. He instructed the servants to fill the six stone jars set aside for purification rites with water to the very brim. Those jars represented the Law of God which exposes man’s sinful uncleanness. The participants in the wedding were all sinners. They had to ceremonially wash themselves before they could participate in the feast. Jesus transformed the purifying waters necessary for the cleansing of sinners into the very best wine of celebration and joy. The servants believed they drew water from the jars, but when the master of the feast tasted it he found it to be the finest of wines. He gave the credit and the glory, not to Jesus, but to the bridegroom, exclaiming, “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!” In His time, and in His way, Jesus manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.

What about everyone else? Well, they enjoyed the wedding feast, and they enjoyed the very good wine, without taking notice of the Lord’s presence and actions. And, we are often no better than them. We only look to the Lord in things that seem impressive to us or in times of desperate need. We often do not think of Him in the common, ordinary, humble, and mundane day to day routines of our lives: Preparing meals, doing household chores, changing diapers, going to work or school, etc. And yet, Jesus is there with you in those common, ordinary, humble, and mundane things just as He was present at that all-too common and ordinary wedding. I encourage you to look for Him in your lives, to invite Him into your day to day common, ordinary, humble, and mundane lives. The common table prayer is just such a prayer: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest.” I know that I have often thought to myself, “Why would Jesus want to be a guest here, at this common, ordinary, humble, and mundane table?” I’ve even thought to myself, “Do I really want Him to be here, as we squabble and fuss with trivial things and even quarrel and bicker at times?” Lord, help us to want Jesus to be with us. Holy Spirit, cause us to believe that He wants to and is with us, just as He has promised. And, help us to be patient and to trust that the Lord will do what He knows best in the time that He knows to be best.

Our Lord Jesus is present with us now, just as He has promised, in the common, ordinary, humble, and mundane people, building, and materials of the Church. We don’t look like much to the world, or even to each other, and yet Jesus is here in His Word proclaimed, in the water of Holy Baptism, in the forgiveness of sins, in the bread and wine of His Supper, and in the hearts, words, and deeds of you His people, His brothers and sisters, His Bride. Truly, this is a foretaste of the wedding feast we will celebrate with Him in heaven forever after. And, the Spirit and the Bride continually pray, “Come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly! Come!”

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany of Our Lord (Epiphany 2)

(Audio)

John 2:1-11; Romans 12:6-16; Exodus 33:12-23

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

And so we are in the midst of the season of Epiphany. Each Sunday’s lessons were selected over a millennium ago by the gathering of the faithful, the Church, because they manifest whom Jesus is and what He has come to do. Therefore, when we consider these Scriptures, we must consider not only how they would have been heard and understood at the time of their telling, but also what meaning was intended from their placement within the Gospel narrative and the Church’s historic lectionary. Thus, the Wedding at Cana tells us, not merely the story of a particular wedding, although it certainly does that, but we must consider also the Evangelist’s placement of this particular story within the Gospel he authored. Indeed, this story appears only in John’s Gospel, and it is followed immediately by Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, which the other Gospels place within the account of Jesus’ passion. What are we to make of John’s inclusion of this wedding, seemingly ignored by the Synoptics? What are we to make of John’s unusual connection of this narrative with the cleansing of the temple? These are but two questions to be considered on this Second Sunday after the Epiphany of our Lord, that Jesus may be made manifest before us as God’s Son and our salvation in human flesh.

Understood as God instituted it, there is something about marriage that is connected with death – the death of the self. For, in marriage, the husband dies to himself and pledges his life to his wife; likewise, the wife dies to herself and pledges her life to her husband. In this selfless and self-sacrificial way, the two become one flesh. They are no longer two, but they are one flesh, even one creature, united by God, which man must not separate. St. John records Jesus’ first miracle having taken place at a wedding and, to be sure, passion imagery abounds: The crisis occurred “on the third day” of a wedding feast. Jesus said that His “hour had not yet come.” In the casting out of the money-changers from the temple, which follows immediately upon the wedding narrative, Jesus makes an explicit reference to His death and resurrection saying “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The temple He was referring to was His body. For, it was through His suffering, death, and resurrection that Jesus perfectly loved His Bride, the Church, giving His life for Her. He loved Her more than He loved Himself. He laid down His life for Her in selfless, sacrificial love that She might live. This is the connection that John, and the Holy Spirit who inspired him to write, mean for you to make.

Therefore, the crisis was not merely that a wedding banquet had run out of wine, though that would surely have been a social blunder and a great embarrassment for the family, but rather the crisis was that man’s life, joy, and hope for the future had run out because of his sin – the joylessness and hopelessness of death had become his fate. This was the crisis that His faithful mother, who believed in Him, asked Him to resolve. This was the crisis that He did resolve by fulfilling God’s Law for us and by dying in our place, that we might have life and joy and hope once again. Those six stone jars held water used to purify men for participation in the feast. Jesus had those jars filled to the brim so that they were full and complete, and then He did something more: He changed the water into wine, the finest wine imaginable. Where the water only purified for a time, His blood that He shed upon the cross for us purifies forever. Indeed, He gives us His cleansing blood now in the fruit of the vine which we drink in Holy Communion for the forgiveness of our sins, the strengthening of our faith, and eternal life through faith in Him.

John’s Gospel is thought to be constructed around seven signs performed by Jesus, of which the changing of water into wine is the first. Thus, John’s Gospel is more a catechism intended to teach the faithful revealed truths about Jesus than it is a narrative telling the story of His life and works. Each and every account recorded by John was selected and recorded for a specific purpose. Ultimately, that purpose was to demonstrate that, in Jesus, God’s Messianic reign had begun through which Jesus would restore His Father’s kingdom and make all things new. This is precisely how we must understand today’s Gospel: Jesus is revealed as God’s Messiah come to restore His fallen creation by means of His selfless and sacrificial death on the cross. Where man’s sin had introduced suffering and death into the world, robbing us of peace and joy and hope, Jesus came, not merely to reverse the curse, but to fulfill perfectly and completely all that we failed to do and then, even more, to recreate, restore, and renew His Father’s kingdom.

Jesus is the perfect and sinless Bridegroom who selflessly laid down His life in death to redeem His Bride, God’s children, the Church from Her sin and death. His life was Her life. She had forfeited Her own life, not for Her Husband, but to Satan. While God was faithful and selfless, His people played the adulterer, the fornicator, the idolater, and the unfaithful Bride. Because of this, man’s wedding feast had run out of wine, and there was no human way of getting more, of restoring man’s peace, hope, and joy. Mary, the mother of our Lord, has long been a symbol of the entire Church. In this narrative, it is Mary who appeals to Jesus in faith saying, “Do something!” Mary believed that Jesus was able to do something and that He would. His odd sounding protest is actually quite revealing, “My hour has not yet come.” Jesus’ “hour” is the time of His passion, His suffering and death upon the cross. Jesus answered His mother saying, “The time for me to lay down my life in selfless sacrifice and death for the Church has not yet come. Nevertheless, I will give this foretaste and foreshadowing of who I am and what I will do now. I will change the water of purification into the wine of joy as a sign that my dear Bride may trust in me and believe that I will purify Her and restore to her hope for eternal life and joy when I shed my blood for Her upon the cross.”

When the master of the feast tasted the water that had been made to be the finest of wines, he exclaimed, “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.” Indeed, this is how it is with men, but not with God. Whatever you have received from God that you count as good, now, is but a foretaste of the goodness He has laid up for you. This is as true for you today as it was for Adam in the beginning, for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, for David, for the guests at the wedding in Cana, and for the saints at rest with Jesus now. We are all, still, waiting in hopeful and joyful expectation for the feast to come, the Great Marriage Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom that has no end! Yes! That is how the Revelation describes heaven, as a wedding feast where the Bridegroom is Jesus and where you, His Church, are the Bride! It is pictured as Eden, the Garden of Paradise, on steroids – so much greater still than that which we commonly consider perfection and paradise!

This kingdom is yours even now, though you do not see it or experience in its fullness and glory. However, you do see it and experience it through God’s Word and His Blessed Sacraments, particularly and especially in the Supper of the Lamb who has died and is alive again. Here at this banquet table we receive our sustenance and life, our hope and faith is strengthened and renewed, and we are kept and preserved in eternal life through Holy Communion with our living Lord and Husband. Yet, as good and comforting and revitalizing as it is, it is but the dimmest foretaste of that Great Feast to come! It is like manna during our wilderness pilgrimage. It is like the overflowing cup as we walk though the valley of the shadow of death. But, it is enough, it is more than enough for now, for through it, in communion with Christ, we do not walk alone, but He is with us, just as He promised, unto the end of the age.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.