You are the Wine/You are the Blood
Pr. David Hewitt - Jan. 16 & 17, 2010

     [First read the sign of water into wine, John 2:1-11]

     The right reverend Phillips Brooks, author of the words of the carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” was a towering figure, literally six and a half feet tall, and figuratively, a giant on the American religious stage. He was famous for his powerful and rapid fire sermons. That “rapid-fire” mannerism may make the following story that much more believable.

     You see it seems that one day a friend of Pastor Brooks called on him and found him impatiently pacing the floor. Concerned, his friend asked him what the trouble was. Dr. Brooks exclaimed, “Trouble? Oh, my good friend, the trouble is that I am in a hurry…and God…is not!”

    That kind of impatience likely was animating the mind of Mother Mary as she looked to her son Jesus for help one day during a wedding in the nearby town of Cana in Galilee. Now you have to understand the background of this incident. It is quite likely that Mary knew the families involved in this wedding quite well, and she would have a definite interest in seeing that their wedding went well. It is also helpful to understand that the wine people drank at that time was vastly more “clean” than the water would be – free of what we later would call “germs,” and yet it was harder to get drunk because the wine was diluted with two or three times the amount of water added to it. Also recall that this was a very “Mediterranean” wedding – a feast like you might see in the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” in which it would be quite a scandal if the wine ran out on it.

     So Mary was anxious; there was a problem, and she knew, more than anyone else in the world, that her son could fix this. It’s hard to say for sure but I think it quite likely that Mary had seen Jesus, in private, do some extraordinary things. And we know, of course, that Mary had been told from even before His birth that Jesus was God’s Son, and what God could do His Son could do. So, impatience perhaps bubbling up within her, Mary turns to Jesus and says, “They have no wine!” (Please, do something about this!)

     Jesus, no doubt thoroughly understanding what His mother was driving at, responded. “Woman” – and by that we should think of Him saying something more dutiful, like “Madam” – “what concern is that to you and to Me? My hour is not yet come.” Now, Jesus is not being disrespectful here; He is not violating one of the Ten Commandments; He is not dishonoring His mother. He is simply pointing out that there’s a bigger picture to keep in mind, and when He says, “My hour is not yet come,” He is pointing TO that bigger picture. You see – and this is hard for us sinners to understand – not only God’s Son during His time on earth, but also God the Father – they both have a timetable. They both know – the Trinity knows – that timing is everything. Someone in Mary’s position might accuse Jesus of being lazy here if He won’t perform the miracle. But the issue isn’t laziness or not – it’s doing things the right way. And we see from all four of the Gospels that Jesus never did a miracle that did not have some deeper meaning attached to it. There was always a deeper purpose.

     That’s why St. John did not prefer to call these happenings miracles. He preferred to call them “signs.” We read at the end of this account that this was “the first of His signs,” signs, John points out, that “reveal His glory” – in other words, reveal the deeper truths about God and Man.

     So what deeper truths are revealed here? Well, there are many. First, Mary is still convinced that her Son will help in some way. How, she did not know – nor, she realized – and this is crucial, she did not need to know, and neither do we, in our lives. We know Jesus will help us. We should not claim that a particular WAY of helping us is the only way. We are not God; Jesus is. We should place our future entirely in His hands. So, her belief in Jesus being very strong, all she did was turn to the servants at the wedding and say to them, “Do whatever He tells you.” In a way, that’s all we should say to one another, “Do whatever Jesus tells you,” because that’s exactly what disciples do.

     Now those servants, bless their hearts, they DID whatever Jesus told them – no matter how stupid it sounded. They filled these six huge jars with water – about 120 to 180 gallons altogether. At Jesus’ command, they took out a sample of this water and somewhere along the way, before it reached the chief steward’s lips, it turned to wine. So here we have a mysterious relationship between water and wine in this story. Remember that, because John, inspired by the Holy Spirit, saw details in this incident that he began to realize had a deeper significance – things that can deepen our faith.

     For instance, John remembered that the chief steward had said, upon drinking the wine, to the host, the bridegroom, “Everyone serves the good wine first, then the inferior wine.” Years later, it dawned on John: JESUS was like that! God saved the best for last! You see, for centuries God was with His people but only through the law and prophets; now, much later on, the Father has sent His only Son to be with His people! Jesus Himself often referred to His movement as “the New Wine.” In fact – and I believe it to be true that John not only knew of the other 3 gospels, but assumed that many of his readers had already READ those other gospels – you might find it interesting to hear what Jesus said of “new wine” in Matthew 9(vv.14-17): “And Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they?’” Then Jesus goes on to say that “new wine” should not be “put into old wineskins.” Clearly here, He – Jesus – is the New Wine. Yet Jesus is also the Bridegroom who serves us New Wine that never runs out – 180 gallons full. Those six big old water jars – meant to be used for those Old Testament regulations – now have a new use – a New Testament use. Now the Bible will serve us the absolute best stuff – Love, undiluted, the cup of the New Covenant…The new Spirit over the old Law…the New Wine of Jesus Himself, pure and simple! And that New Wine, in the form of the Blood of Holy Communion, goes inside of us, and transforms us from the old creation of sinfulness to the new creation, the new wine of selfless love for others, and service not to ourselves but to the larger mission of the church; we become transformed into missionaries to all those other people out there who have not tasted the joy of that “new wine,” namely, the promise of abundant life now and eternal life to come!

     And, in order to confirm this important message, John, through his gospel, conveys to us the underlying pattern of the ministry of our Lord Jesus. John remembered that, back in Cana, Jesus had said to His mother: “My hour has not yet come.” Then he also remembered when Jesus finally said to His disciples, “My hour HAS come.” That hour was His crucifixion. That hour was His death. So let’s hear from the end of John’s Gospel, in order to better understand its beginning.

     [We read of Jesus, at His death, giving Mary into John’s safekeeping, John 19:25-35.]

     Now, this is important: John wants you and I to connect these two passages from His gospel – the first sign and the last sign, the sign of the cross. He does this by referring to Mary only as Jesus’ “mother,” never by her name. He does this by having Jesus always refer to her as “Woman.” He does this by only having her appear at the beginning and at the end. And, most of all, He wants us to see the connection by telling us what He saw coming out of Jesus’ side, out of His very heart, when the Roman soldier pierced it with his spear. “At once” he saw “blood and water come out.” Blood and water!

     What does this mean? Many things. It means that, just as at the wedding in Cana, so now in Christ’s dying for our sins, an important transformation takes place. At Cana, water and wine were paired together. Now at Calvary, we see together the water and the blood. Every time we worship we pass by that baptismal font; the water percolates; we remember our beginnings as adopted children of God. There, the Spirit began its work, transforming us into His disciples. The waters of baptism, the waters of perpetual love and forgiveness, come out from the heart of Jesus into our hearts, and, from our hearts, that love and forgiveness can flow into the hearts of others by our very words and deeds…by striving, with God’s help, each and every day, to be the extensions of selfless love, to BE the heart, hands, and voice of God.

     Yes, at Cana the water and wine were paired together. Again, at Calvary, they are paired together again, this time as the water and the blood. But this time, the blood of Holy Communion is presented. “O Lamb of God!” John the Baptist called Jesus, and lamb of God He is. His innocent blood – the blood as of an innocent lamb, able to take on the sin and guilt of those around it – is an innocent blood of a God, and thus able to take on the sins of the whole world! The wine at Cana, whose hour had not yet come, had been transformed into the blood of Calvary, who time HAD come. The wine we bring forward and place on this altar is transformed into the blood of His presence, which we drink into our stomachs, but stays in our hearts.

     You see, just as at communion, when Christ comes to us, He comes to us to stay and build us up, to transform us…to transform us – more quickly if we let Him – into His followers. We begin to deny ourselves, take up our own crosses, bleed for others, and follow Him. And the more we allow ourselves to serve rather than be served, the more we allow Him to transform us. THAT’S the response when cataclysm strikes, whether in Haiti, or America, or in the lives of ourselves and the people around us. We become the blood – the blood of Jesus Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of God, what can be said of Jesus can be said of you and me – figuratively, and, sometimes, even literally – that His “blood was poured out for many, for the forgiveness of their sins.” How can we be poured out for many? How can we be more concerned for others, and less concerned for ourselves? Well, Mary has the answer.

     For, you see, there is one more insight John received from the connection between Cana and Calvary. For when Jesus, from the cross, saw His mother and wanted to care for her, He gave her to John – John, our gospel writer, the disciple…and the future apostle, to take care of her. As a result, she was there in that upper room 50 days later at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit began the Church. She and everything she ever did and said and believed was given to the church when at the cross Jesus gave her to John, including the thing she said to those servants at Cana. It’s something she continues to say to you and me: “Do whatever He tells you.” Just as Mary made her home with John, so let’s let her words make a home in our lives: “Do whatever Jesus tells you.” When Jesus speaks to us through His life, through Scripture, through prayer, through Jesus speaking to our souls, and through the guidance of other Christians, let’s do whatever Jesus tells you and me. Let’s be His blood, coursing through the veins of a world in need.  Amen!