Services

In our gospel this morning, John 2:1-11, Jesus performs his first miracle generating an overabundance of wine at a wedding feast in Cana. The marriage feast is used throughout Scripture as a metaphor for the coming of God’s kingdom as in Isaiah 62:1-5, when God’s people are promised that: “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” The metaphor of marriage goes deeper than the joy of celebration, it is a relationship built on a promise, a promise of unending commitment. Our faith in this promise is often shaken, by events in own lives and in the world around us. In Isaiah, the people are feeling forsaken, abandoned, in Cana, there is the threat of scarcity. Isaiah’s promise and Christ’s miracle and the words of this morning’s Psalm, 36:5-10, remind us that God’s promise is never broken. But more than this, call us to remember the purpose of God’s promise: that we are blessed that we may be a source of blessing to all peoples. There are times in all of our lives when we run dry, when our resources are depleted like the empty wine jars. When we rely on our resources they will always run out. The world will never be fair enough, just enough, compassionate enough. We will never be generous enough, kind enough, good enough. We do not have to be. The faithful relationship God offers us also offers us a relationship with one another. When we lack, others around us will always have enough to share, when others are in need, we will be able to provide. We are blessed to be a blessing.

Today, as we celebrate the baptism of Christ, we renew our own baptismal vows. Water has great symbolic significance: in scripture it is both threatening and life-giving; a source of chaos and of renewal. For John, Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22, water is a sign of cleansing and restoration but for Isaiah, 43:1-7, water is dangerous, capable of overwhelming and destroying. When Jesus comes to John for baptism, John is reticent, Christ has no need of cleansing. But it is not Jesus who is being cleansed, it is the water itself. Just as the spirit of God moved over the waters of creation bring forth life, so Jesus consecrates the waters of the world to bring about a new creation. The epiphany season recognises that God makes Godself present in the ordinary, everyday stuff of life: flesh and blood, bread, wine, water these are the things God acts in and through to bring new life to God’s people. When we are baptised, the voice of God heard by Jesus at his baptism, speaks for us also: we are beloved, we are, in Isaiah’s words: formed, created, made, redeemed, precious, honoured, loved. We are reminded that we are called by name to join in God’s work as we too become the vehicles for God to renew the world around us.

Today we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, the wise men from the East travelling far from home to find the Christ child.  Our readings are full of wonder: the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh brought by the wise men in Matthew 2:1-12, echo the prophesy in Isaiah, 60:1-9, that the nations will be drawn to God’s light bringing with them, gold, frankincense, camels and rams.  For Isaiah these gifts are for the rebuilding of the city of Zion, God’s home on earth.  But in Matthew the gifts are offered to a child, a child soon to be made homeless by Herod’s genocide, a child who will grow up with no place to lay his head.  Both readings are resonant with the idea of home: Isaiah foresees the children returning home from far away; the wise men need to find another way home.   God’s home is no longer a fixed place but travels alongside those who flee injustice, those who are desperate to find a home.   We discover that, wherever we come from, our true home is to be found in travelling with God and that, finding ourselves at home in God, we are at home everywhere.  

This morning, we fast-forward from the manger to Luke 2:41-52 where we find 12-year-old Jesus backchatting his mother after getting left behind at the temple.  Mary asks: “Why have you treated us like this? your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety”.  In contrast Hannah, in 1 Samuel 2:18-26, is content to leave Samuel in the temple and make a gift of her child to the Lord.

These mothers symbolise for us those who give birth to the future.  When we participate in God’s creative work in the world we often struggle to relinquish control of what we have laboured to bring into being.  Yet our task is to work towards a future which is not just for us and for our families but for God and God’s people.

Christmas day asks us to say yes to the call to bring something new to birth.  Today we are asked to discern when to hold tight and when to let go and let God.

When Christ comes, Isaiah 9:2-7 tell us: misery will end, the people will be freed, enemies will be vanquished.  Yet, 2,000+ years on, there are an awful lot of people still struggling, still living in darkness. 

Isaiah imagined that the Christ would be a ruler who would wield authority and the gospel, Luke 2:1-14, begins with those in authority: the emperor, the governor, the powerful but then presents us with their opposite: a tiny town in a regional backwater, a struggling family, a bunch of labouring shepherds and a vulnerable newborn.  Luke seems to be implying that these people, not those in authority, are the ones whom God will use to change the world.  This insignificant child’s birth signals how this might happen: around him a new community is created by bringing together those whose lives would usually keep them apart.  Here, the divine stands in solidarity with the all too human, a bunch of the local, uneducated poor are joined by a group of wise, wealthy foreigners.  Here is a radical new way of being in the world; a way in which no one group is privileged over another; a way that reveals what unites us and not what divides us. 

This gathering begins with one person, Mary, and slowly spreads bringing in Joseph, animals, strangers, foreigners and, as Jesus grows, will go on to bring the marginalised and the sick together with Roman officials and religious leaders.  For us, who know a lot about a world divided, it offers the hope that there is something stronger that unites us if only we would take the same risk that God took, that Mary took, that Christ took, the risk of embracing, learning from and being transformed by others.