Sunday 22nd January 2006Epiphany 3

Fr David Cherry

Genesis 14: 17-20; Revelation 19: 6-10; John 2: 1-11

Those last words of the gospel ringing in our ears - let me say them again: “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him”

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

Miracles are signs, signs of a deeper interior reality which is present and being made manifest.  The deeper reality is the glory of Jesus which we are invited to perceive, be drawn towards and so believe in him.

Our worship if full of signs and meanings, all to convey to us the loving kindness of God.

The belief we are invited to is the belief in a Person, a deepening belief as we journey together as a community.   Not some vague rumour of a God out there, or fate; neither a philosophy of self-actualisation or self-awareness– though, please God, believing in Jesus will bring these too.   But that is not the goal.  Neither the ‘Signs and Wonders’ ministries; where the miracle is the bait and the gift rather than the Giver is all important.  

The signs, the miracles, that Jesus ‘wrought’ (as the prayer book says – ‘brought about’) are so that we may see and perceive; and believe IN HIM.

In this first miracle of Jesus we are introduced to the deeper meaning of things and what God is doing in Christ.   He is bringing about a new dispensation, which we call New Testament, New Covenant, a new dispensation which is not of the old order.  The synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke - will talk of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, which some will want to de-gender into the ‘reign’ or ‘realm’ of God. In democratic societies that still leaves a monarchical obstacle.

The new dispensation is about a new culture being inaugurated in our midst and irrupting from within an old culture.  This ‘work’ of Christ is in continuity with the work of Creation.  God in Christ is bringing Creation to its fulfilment, restoring, healing, delivering from fear, including others in – you and me – to share in the delight of the Communion that exists in the life of God – three Persons in unity.  This is the culture of God: Communion, at-one-ness with others and God.  And this comes about in our midst as we are graced to let go of the old culture of vying for power, competing for the upper hand; becoming more and more capable to believe that God is for us and for others.   

And to some extent it is hidden – only the servants see water changing into wine; the rest marvel at its taste.  

How we read signs is important.  There are those who want the wonder and excitement of miracles and will follow and be fleeced by any evangelist.  But Jesus offers them no sign, save the sign of the prophet Jonah, a death and rebirth from the depths.  And there is the Messianic secret in St Mark – after a healing he will say: do not tell anyone.  Understandably he wants to keep them at bay until the greatest sign is revealed: his death and Resurrection.

And there are those who read signs as portents and omens –a product of fate not faith in Jesus.  Roger Crowley writing in his book ‘Constantinople, the Last Siege, 1453’ tells of how the inhabitants of Constantinople and the Turks both read the signs in the heavens.  These meteorological signs though, were caused by a volcanic irruption on the others side of the globe and ash carried on global winds.  There is an indeterminacy about signs.

I heard recently about a ministry to those who are suffering the curse of parental involvement in Free Masonry; a weekend course of deliverance ministry costing £200.   A culture that is self-protectionist and requires a few powerful people to manipulate events in secrecy is surely a culture from which to be delivered; but I, for one, do not believe in the power of a magical curse visited upon one because of a father.  That is the old culture of superstition and fear.

You will remember St Paul writing to the Church at Corinth: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”   (2 Corinthians 5:17)  The manifestation of our Lord among us is to produce in us a faith in him, a faith that has nothing to do with fear of death, curses, fate, or omens.

So Mary comes to Jesus; and some see her giving a prophetic voice to the reality of the old culture of Israel when she comes to Jesus and says:  ‘They have no wine.’ A statement of truth: the old sacred culture has not yielded to us wine that can delight or satisfy.  It is also a prayer, a supplication.  Jesus’ response is stern – the old is coming to an end, but is not yet.  She will then point others to the new culture coming into being through Jesus, who brings glory to the mundane:  “do whatever he tells you.”

For St John this is a small sign, a miracle in inanimate matter prefiguring something yet greater. A greater sign will be the raising of Lazarus; the greatest sign will be his Death and Resurrection.  For St John the ultimate revelation of God’s glory is Jesus crucified.  On the cross the sign is accomplished – at the point of freely giving up any claim to life, a new life is found.  

The Eucharist, mass, our ‘gathering’, is a celebration of our faith in Jesus.  It is the celebration of the new culture of love and peace.  We need to do it, so that it may grow in us.  This exchange of gifts is to draw us into the new culture of God’s life – a life whose foundations are not in fear of death but in Jesus who is Dead and Risen.  We are initiated into this life at Baptism; we continue to be drawn deeper into this life through a sign, a miracle.  What we offer bread and wine becomes the Body and Blood of Christ, conveying to us his divine life to infuse and re-invigorate this life within us.

Signs can be used to keep others out.  Secrets become conspiracies, magic and myths.   There is a thirst for meaning:  Matthew Arnold writes in The Buried Life

But often, in the world’s most crowded street
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A longing to enquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us – to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.

One of my most frustrating things in life has been poor teachers – who, rather than revealing things to me, have left me outside the terms, uninitiated to the beauty of the Christian tradition.  I hope our Lent course will be a way of letting people in to a discussion which we can all own.  Such is God’s culture of grace.

The church is  - or is called to be - a living Sacramental sign; a community of people inhabited by the divine presence; through whom and by whom the presence of Christ is made known to others, for others.  Sacramental signs convey something and remind us of something.  Ours is an open secret, a mystery to be inhabited and explored.  

The giving of the Peace after the prayers - or alternatively later on in the mass after the Our Father, is a sign of recognition of the presence of Christ in each other.  It is a solemn as well as friendly moment.  It is part of the ritual.  We are recognising the ‘glory’ of Jesus in each other:  Glory in Greek is ‘doxa’ meaning ‘weight’, ‘depth of meaning’ behind the sign.  It is solemn not because we need to be funereal, solemn because of the weight of reality – glory in each other:

Christ…. for Christ plays in ten thousand places   … writes Hopkins (As kingfishers catch fire)
Lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Our worship if full of signs and meanings, all to convey to us the loving kindness of God – ritual, gestures, words, said and sung; we hold back from the sacred space, dancing round it, the space where Christ is present to us in these signs, manifesting his glory as did in Cana of Galilee, that we, his disciples may believe on him.