Christ the King-Epiphany, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

January 19, 2025 / Epiphany 2C

John 2:1-11

Tricia and I are not big wine drinkers, meaning first, we don’t drink wine very often, and second, we don’t know much about it – both facts which I am about to illustrate.  When we were ordained in August of 1998, friends gave us a bottle of champagne to celebrate.  We set the bottle aside for a special occasion.  And then, honestly, we kind of forgot about it because, like I said, we don’t drink that much wine.  Five years later, when we moved from the parsonage in Easton to our own house in Bethlehem in 2003, we moved the bottle with us, figuring it was only improving as it aged.  As I recall, the champagne lived in the refrigerator for a while, but it really took up a lot of room, so we took it out and moved it to the basement.  And there it lived for 18 years, until it was time to move to Springfield.  We dusted the bottle off – it had really become quite dusty in the basement – carefully packed it up, and brought it to New England, where it again took up residence in our basement.  Finally, this Christmas, 26 years after receiving it, we thought, “Gee, maybe we should actually drink that bottle of champagne.”  So we put it into the refrigerator, again, to chill.  But a few days before Christmas, I began to have some qualms about drinking this champagne, so I started doing some internet research.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that unopened champagne, if stored properly (Hmm, I wondered, is being in and out of the refrigerator proper storage?) – can be kept for 3-4 years, or if it’s the really good stuff, 5-10 years.  So holding out hope, I tried to find out if we had the really good stuff.  Imagine my further surprise when I found out that the fancy, heavy, black bottle that we had carefully moved across 5 states wasn’t even really champagne.  It had probably been pretty good, you know, until around the millennium . . ..  What a waste of a perfectly good bottle of bubbly.  We should have enjoyed the wine when it was given to us.

Speaking of wine . . . I think about Jesus’ first sign in the Gospel of John.  It’s important that we call it a sign and not a miracle.  It is a miracle, of course, in that none of us is turning water into wine.  But in the Gospel of John, Jesus’ miracles are called signs because they’re meant to point us to a deeper meaning.  In the other gospels, most of Jesus’ miracles were healings, and they can be interpreted pretty much the way they appeared on the surface:  that God wants healing and health for God’s people.  But if you took Jesus’ actions at the wedding in Cana at face value, it would mean what?  That Jesus wanted to save the hosts from the social faux pas of running out of wine?  That he wants to keep the bar open for all weddings?  They hardly seem like reasons to make this the very first sign.  We are led to a deeper meaning.

So let’s think about the wine.  Its appearance was surprising – only the servants knew where it had come from.  It was unexpected – the steward was certainly not expecting the good wine to be served late in the feast.  I mean, why waste the good stuff on guests who were already probably drunk?  Plus the wine was abundant – there was lots of it.  That great quantity of qual-ity wine was surprising.  Unexpected.  And delightful.  Reminds me of grace, which is also sur-prising, unexpected, and delightful.  Perhaps the meaning of this sign is that Jesus brings grace.

And grace is something we oughtn’t to waste.  Unlike wine, I’m not saying that God’s grace, love, and mercy have an expiration date.  They don’t.  They last forever.  But grace is a gift that’s meant to be enjoyed here and now.  It’s not just the gift of heaven – it comes to us fresh every morning.  As we read scripture, we find that God’s grace is always surprising.  Just when we think we’ve got God figured out, we are surprised to find how much more powerful, how much wiser, how much more creative God is.  Grace is surprising.  God’s love is unexpected.  Just when we think we’ve blown it with our poor choices or our selfish actions, we hear, quite un-expectedly, even though we’re reminded every week in worship, that forgiveness really is com-plete and total.  And God’s gifts to us are delightful, bringing us joy in ways both large and small.  All the blessings that we receive from God’s hand, we receive in abundance because they are meant to be shared.  Put another way:  We need to be drinking the wine now.  And sharing it!

For many people, it seems that 2025 has begun with dark fear and foreboding.  With food prices soaring and the threat of even higher prices as promised tariffs take effect; with wildfires consuming southern California and a polar vortex descending upon much of the country; with the safety and security of immigrants and members of the trans community at risk; with the continued threat of violence in war-torn regions; not to mention the everyday illnesses and stresses and changes and anxieties of life – it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of joy in the air.  Many people are struggling.  And worried, if not frightened.  And that’s exactly why we need to drink the wine now – open our eyes and ears and hearts to notice and experience and revel in the grace all around us.  And then open our hearts and hands to share that grace with others to lead them toward hope.  I am not optimistic about the future.  But I am hopeful.  I am filled with hope because I know that God is here, that God is with us, that God wants to give us what we need, that God wants us to share so that others will have what they need, and that God can and will give us joy.  That is grace.

Don’t miss the gifts that are here for us to enjoy and to share.  God wants abundance for God’s people.  God wants good quality stuff for God’s people.  God wants joy for God’s people.  And God wants us to have this grace now.  Not to save it till we really need it.  Not to just keep pushing through, thinking that misery is all we can expect until we reach the gates of heaven.  Not to go through life numbed to God’s blessings.  But to have joy now – and enough to share.  Don’t waste the gift.  The sweet wine of grace is ours for the drinking

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In honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we celebrate tomorrow, I end with his words: 

And now unto Him who is able to keep us from falling.  And now unto Him who is able to lift us from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope. . . . and now unto Him who is able to transform this cosmic energy into constructive force.  Now unto Him who is able to transform this midnight of injustice into a glowing daybreak of freedom and justice.  To Him be power and authority, majesty and dominion, now, henceforth, and forever more.