On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. I know I often say it about gospel readings, but this story from the Gospel of John truly is one of my favorites. It comes around every three years in the lectionary cycle and I look forward to it each time, even though I suspect that many of you remember at least snippets of what I’ve said about the text in previous sermons. 

One of the things we’ve lost with the switch to the Revised Common Lectionary, is a sense of Epiphany as a season, not just a single Sunday or two, if you include the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, which we observed last Sunday. Traditionally, this gospel story was read every year on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, and indeed in the earliest centuries of Christianity, in addition to drawing on the themes of the Coming of the Magi, and Christ’s baptism, the feast of the Epiphany also included allusions to the Wedding at Cana.

Epiphany as a season, or observance, invites us to explore all of the ways that God reveals God’s glory in the world, and especially in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. What better way to reflect on that glory than by exploring this story, which ends with the gospel writer telling us that “he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.”

Like other stories in the gospel of John, like the gospel as a whole, this story is dense with symbolism and multiple meanings. Take the very first phrase, for example—“On the third day…” What comes to mind for you? I hope that phrase from the Nicene creed we recite each Sunday “On the third day, he rose again from the dead…” 

By the way, this week marks the 1700^th anniversary of the Council of Nicea, where what we now know as the Nicene Creed was originally formulated—it underwent some editing during the course of the century so what we say is not identical to what was issued from the Council. Sorry, that was a free historical tidbit for you to munch on.

By using this phrase, the gospel writer is pointing us ahead to the gospel’s end, to Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. As I’ve said many times before, for John, the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension are all wrapped together in the term “glorification;” so the miracle of turning water into wine is also a symbol of cross and resurrection.

It’s worth pointing out that there’s another connection between the story of the wedding at Cana and the crucifixion. Those two stories are the only times when Jesus’ mother is mentioned in the gospel, never by name. Each time, Jesus addresses her as “Woman”—much scholarly ink has been spilt debating whether this is a derisive or honorable form of address. I have no opinion on the matter, I invite you to draw your own conclusions.

But there’s another deep resonance in that phrase “on the third day.” This verse is the beginning of the second chapter of John. Do you know how John 1 begins? We heard it a couple of weeks ago: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The gospel takes us back to the very beginning, to creation.

If you go a little further in chapter 1, though, you might notice something interesting. Three times, in verses 29, 35, 43, they begin, “the next day…” If you add those three next days with the third day, you get the 7^th day—and remember, on the seventh day, God rested, blest and hallowed the Sabbath, and said it was all very good. There’s a sense in which this wedding banquet is itself the messianic feast, the eternal sabbath, where food is abundant and wine flows freely where joy and happiness abound.

Now to the wine. How much wine was it? 6 jars, 20-30 gallons each. 120-180 gallons total, let’s say roughly 5 bottles of wine in a gallon—that’s 600 to 900 bottles. Yes, that’s a lot of wine, and remember, they had run out. The party had been going on for a long time already, and thanks to Jesus’ miracle, would continue quite some time to come.

The story, the season, may gladden our hearts and lift our spirits, if only for a few minutes, as we divert our attention from the events taking place in our world; the devastating fires in California, the continued rebuilding after hurricanes in the South; the anxieties so many of us have about what the future holds in store.

As I was looking through past sermons on this gospel reading, I came across the one I preached in 2013. Like today, it was the day before the Second Inauguration of President Obama and the day before the observance of MLK Day; that confluence seemed a fitting reminder of where we were as a nation, how far we had come. Now, twelve years later; Inauguration Day and MLK Day once again coincide but the feeling is quite different, isn’t it? The fear and foreboding, the threats to democracy, to religious and cultural pluralism, to diversity, are profound and dangerous. To take joy in a gospel reading seems hollow, a denial of the stark realities that we face as a nation and as Christians.

 It may be that another minor detail in this story helps us to make sense of it and ourselves in our current context. For all the extravagance of the superfluity of wine, the miracle itself is understated and downplayed. Jesus does nothing demonstrative to change the water into wine; the only ones who notice it are the servants who obey his instructions. There’s a quiet grace here in the midst of the superabundance.

And that makes sense. We may not be wondering whether we have the resources to keep the party going; our concerns may be much more mundane, more urgent. We may be wondering whether we have the energy to keep going; whether we have the stamina for the struggle ahead. We may wonder whether the effects of climate change that have shown themselves so dramatically and tragically in these last six months will affect us as well as so many other millions in the US and across the world. We may be worrying about the threats to our undocumented neighbors, or to transpeople, or the bizarre sabre rattling around Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal. We may be hoping for a miracle—hoping that God will intervene to make things right.

But while we wonder, and worry, and wait, Jesus may be spreading his grace in small, undetectable ways, in our lives, among our community, our friends and family, our world. Just as very ordinary grapes are transformed by the skill of winemakers into majestic wines; just as water was transformed into wine, so too can ordinary things, ordinary people, ordinary moments, be changed into moments of grace, bringing hope to the hopeless, healing to those who are hurting, love to the unloved.

We don’t know what the future holds in store. We don’t know how we, our fellow Americans, the world, will weather the coming storms. But we can be sure that Christ is walking into the future with us; that there will be moments of quiet and unexpected grace, and that with his help, we may be the ones who create those moments of grace for others.