Second Sunday after the Epiphany

From the Better Late Than Never Department:

[January 14, 2007]

In John 2:1-11 we are told that Jesus did the first of His signs (what we usually call miracles) at a wedding. His first sign wasn't to heal someone. Or bring a spiritual blessing to someone. It was to make wine.

That the Holy Spirit placed this event in the Holy Scriptures tells us there is something important for us in that action, that sign, of Jesus. And it's not just that wine is good or part of the enjoyment of celebrations like weddings.

In fact, it points us to a spiritual blessing Jesus brings about. It was another celebration at the end of His ministry that He also used wine. This time to bring to us not just the fruit of the vine but His very blood. And in His blood the forgiveness of sins.

The wedding at Cana was a foretaste of the feast to come, namely, His institution of His Holy Supper in which He gives us in bread and wine His body and His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. Just as there was celebration at the wedding in which Jesus accomplished His first sign, there is celebration when we recieve His Holy Supper. It is the feast He gives us for our blessing.

But it's even much more. It is also like the wedding at Cana in that it's also a foretaste of the Feast to come--that Feast of the Lamb in heaven in which we will be in the very presence of Christ face to face. In which we will dine with Him in glory.

Jesus' sign way back at that wedding in Cana points us to the eternal celebration He desires to share with us forever.