A Homily for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany
Jesus manifested forth his glory, and his
disciples believed on him.
—St. John 2:11
During Epiphanytide we celebrate the manifestation of Jesus Christ in the world. Last Sunday, we sang Bishop Wordsworth’s hymn enumerating the instances of Jesus’s manifestation that we recall at the Liturgy during this season.
Next week, we will hear of Jesus “manifest in making whole / palsied limb and fainting soul.” But today, our Gospel tells about Jesus’s manifestation in his first miracle:
And at Cana wedding guest / in [his] godhead
manifest,
Manifested power divine, / changing water into wine.
Saint John tells us when the miracle occurred: two days after the call of Nathanael, and, therefore, the seventh day counting from Jesus’s baptism by John in the River Jordan. He tells us where it occurred: in Cana of Galilee, a village only a very few miles from Nazareth, close enough that it is only just over an hour’s walk. He tells us what was going on: it was a wedding reception. (Not a standing around nibbling dry white cake and sipping bulk champagne kind of wedding reception, but a good, old-fashioned Middle Eastern marriage feast, to which not only the relatives, but everyone in town, was invited and which might have gone on for days.)
He tells us who was there. Already, Jesus had attracted an entourage of disciples, of followers and listeners. Among them, probably, were Andrew and Simon Peter, James, Nathanael, and perhaps John himself, the author of today’s Gospel lesson. And, most especially, Mary was there.
What Jesus did at Cana he did at the intercession of his blessed mother, his compassion was a reflection of her compassion for the newlyweds and their families.
As Saint John tells the story, it seems that Jesus was a bit reluctant to manifest his power at this time and place. He tells his mother, “My hour is not yet come.” But, of course, his hour had come. But his reluctance is understandable. He knew that once he did as his mother asked, there would be no keeping it quiet.
From this moment there was no turning back; after the event in Cana, everything else followed in inevitable sequence: the gathering crowds, the harassment by the scribes and Pharisees, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the betrayal, the trial, the flogging, the bloody walk to Calvary, the agonizing death on the Cross. And the Resurrection on the third day, the ascension into the heavens, and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
To be sure, the arrival of exotic eastern visitors in Bethlehem must have caused some excitement at the time: whether they were kings, or astronomers, or astrologers, or mystics, they were certainly the biggest news in town since David left there to go slay Goliath. But the magi were soon gone, and their visit was overshadowed by Herod’s massacre of the children, not only in Bethlehem but in all the surrounding countryside.
And the baptism in Jordan would have made an impression on whoever was standing about. But over time, the event would probably have blurred in the mind? Was that really the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove that landed on Jesus’s shoulder, or was it just another pigeon. Was that really a voice that they heard, or was it the rumble of distant thunder?
But Cana was different. As Bishop Wordsworth was to write, it was here that Jesus was first “in his godhead manifest”; here that he first “manifested power divine.” And the partygoers tasted the result when they sipped the beverage served out from the stone water-pots. Saint John tells us that at Cana “Jesus manifested forth his glory, and his disciples believed on him.”
By changing water into wine, Jesus demonstrated that he had power over nature itself and over the elements of the natural world. No mere human being had such power. And anyone who did have such power had the power to overturn the world order, and so to be a threat to those in charge. Jesus knew that he had that power; in the desert he had been tested about how he would use that power.
Our English translation calls the event at Cana, “this beginning of miracles.” But in the Greek, the word is not “miracle” but “sign.” All of Jesus’s miracles are signs, but not all signs are miraculous. It is by signs that Jesus is manifest.
Again and again, the signs are given. His teaching was a sign. The Gospels tell us on at least two occasions the people who heard him were astounded because he taught with power and authority, unlike the scribes who were their official teachers. His private conversation was a sign: not long after the incident at Cana, an entire Samaritan community came to believe in him without seeing any miracle, but only from hearing him speak.
Again and again, Jesus manifested forth his glory. On Lake Geneseret he calmed the storm and walked to his disciples across the water. On Mount Tabor, before the final journey to Jerusalem, he was transfigured in the sight of two of his disciples and spoke with Moses and Elijah. Everywhere he went he cured the sick, the lame, and the leprous, and he cast out demons. He who had spurned Satan’s suggestion that he turn stones to bread in the wilderness to assuage his own hunger, twice multiplied loaves of bread so that those who came to hear him did not go away hungry.
Jesus’s greatest manifestation is yet to come, when the Lord returns with power and great glory at the end of the age, when we will rise with him to the life of the world to come. Bishop Wordsworth’s hymn calls this second coming the “Great Epiphany.” But in the meantime, Jesus is manifest in this world in his Church and in the lives of his saints.
In his letter to the Romans, parts of which are read on each of the first five Sundays in Epiphanytide, Saint Paul tells the Romans (and us) what we must do to manifest the love of Christ to this naughty world:
Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be
concerned for what is good and right in the sight of all.
If possible, . . . live at peace with all. Do
not look for revenge . . .
If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him
something to drink . . .
Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.
People in first century Palestine went looking for a sign, and by signs Jesus was manifest to them as Lord and Christ in his teaching and in his miracles, in his resurrection and ascension. People in twenty-first century America go looking for a sign, and how shall Jesus be manifest to them as Lord and Christ?
It is part of our calling, as Christians, to manifest Jesus Christ. At our baptism, we were marked with the sign of the cross, and we wear that sign still. Everyone we encounter in our daily lives sees that sign and sees what manner of folk we are, and so sees whether or not this Jesus has power to transform human beings into the instruments of his peace.
Where there is hatred, do we sow love? Where there is injury, pardon? Where there is despair, hope? Where there is sadness, joy? Do we seek more to be consoled, or to console? To be understood, or to understand? To be loved, or to love? If, in each case, we do the latter, then we are a sign, manifesting Jesus to those around us.
And, of course, Jesus Christ continues to be manifest not only through us, but also to us; and that not least in the Eucharist. Here, this morning, at this altar, he who at Cana caused the water to become wine will cause wine to become his blood, bread his body. Here, this morning, at this altar, he will once again manifest forth his glory, and his disciples will believe on him.
Church
of Saint Mary Magdalene
Orange, California
22 January 2006