Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany
“Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it”
It is a most wonderful and yet a very challenging gospel scene. Mary, the Blessed Mother of God, says two things. “They have no wine” and “whatsoever he saith unto you, do it”. Both statements are an epiphany – the making known of the barren, empty reality of the human situation, on the one hand, and the revelation of the conditions for the divine perfection of our humanity, on the other hand. “This beginning of signs” manifests God’s purpose for our humanity, a purpose which ultimately has to do with our being with the one who has come to be with us.
In between Mary’s two statements stands the profound yet disturbing response of Jesus to her first remark. “They have no wine”, she says. “O woman, what is that to thee and to me? Mine hour has not yet come”, Jesus says. What does he mean?
We hear this gospel story in the Epiphany season, a season which is variable in length according to the date of Easter, whether early or late. This is the last Sunday in the Epiphany season this year which is as short as it can be. Yet this story is always read regardless of the length of the Epiphany season. Why? Because it captures something of the fundamental meaning of the Epiphany. “This beginning of signs” contains the meaning and significance of all the signs and wonders and all the words and deeds of Jesus in the gospels.
It seems that “this beginning of signs” extends beyond a simple country event to touch upon the larger meaning of our lives together in the body of Christ. “This beginning of signs” includes all the signs, and indeed, most especially, those signs which are what they signify, the signs which we call the sacraments, “the outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace”.
