Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

Do you remember your first steps or your first word? Which did you say first, “Mumma” or “Dada.” You probably can’t remember. Your parents might remember. You might remember a younger brother or sister walking for the first time or the first words that they said. You might remember the first steps of your children, but not your own. Some of you are still young enough that some of your first things are still ahead of you and you might yet remember your first time scoring a goal, or your first leading role in a play, your first time driving a car or your first date. I suppose we all have first things ahead of us. What will you do for the first time today? Will it be memorable?

 

The Bible doesn’t tell us about Jesus’ first steps or the first word He spoke. The Gospel according to St. Luke mentions a few times when Jesus’ mother, Mary, “treasured up” things about His childhood in her heart (Luke 2:19, 51). They were not things about when Jesus first ate solid food or when He first rolled over onto His tummy. They were things that revealed what the angel Gabriel had told her privately about the baby she would bear.

 

They were epiphanies, manifesting that Jesus is truly the Son of God. One of them was when the wise men came and bowed down to Him, giving Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. Another was when He was twelve years old and had remained behind in Jerusalem, talking theology and amazing the teachers in the temple with His understanding and answers. But He had other firsts yet to come.

 

We are glad that Mary treasured up these things in her heart so that the report of them could come down to us. They are the things that reveal that Jesus Christ is God. The wondrous things that God did to save His people as recorded in the Old Testament continue in the life of Christ as recorded in the New Testament. As we sang in today’s Psalm, “He has caused His wondrous works to be remembered” (Psalm 111:4).

 

The season of Epiphany is when the Christian Church takes time to hear of these wondrous works that Jesus did which reveal His identity and His work as the Saviour of the world. We have already heard this Epiphany season that at His Baptism “the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:16-17).

 

Today we hear another of the traditional Gospel readings for Epiphany and we are told that it was a first for Jesus. It is “the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory. And His disciples believed in Him” (John 2:11). Jesus changing water into wine may not seem to be the most important miracle that He ever did. If you ask the blind whose sight He restored, they would probably say that their healings were much more important.

 

But there has to be a first and your first steps were maybe not as important as the steps you did or will take walking down the aisle at your wedding or as a parent holding the hands of your children when they begin to walk, but there has to be a first. “This, the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory. And His disciples believed in Him.” The importance of this first sign is that by it Jesus’ disciples believed in Him. It was a sign that revealed to them who Jesus is and what He was going to do for His people.

 

“Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them” (Ps 111:2). If you don’t study the things that Jesus did, then the miracle at the wedding is a mere feat of amazement, a grand party trick that makes the guests and the occasion more full of joy. But if you know that the prophets said that the promised Messiah would bring prosperity so that “the mountains shall drip sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it” (Amos 9:13), then this miracle of providing abundant wine to flow is a first sign that this Jesus is the promised Saviour, and the God who has provided for His people throughout history.

 

This sign, not done in the capital city of Jerusalem but in the north country, and not at the marriage of a celebrity couple but for an unnamed party, points most clearly to the One who works the miracle. It is not really about how grand the occasion or how deserving the recipients. It is a work done by a God who has grace and mercy for people like you and me. It shows the God who chooses to bestow His riches without any motive of receiving anything in return from us.

 

The circumstances were such that it really shouldn’t prove anything at all. Later, Jesus’ brothers would tell Him that if He wants to prove something He should go to Jerusalem during a festival and do His signs there (John 7:3). And yet, by being so inauspicious He reveals all the more about Himself. “Full of splendor and majesty is His work, and His righteousness endures forever... the LORD is gracious and merciful” (Ps 111:3-4). In addition to showing His splendor and majesty in grace and mercy at this wedding, we also see the divine character in Jesus that He mercifully provides for His people.

 

In the psalm we confessed with the Old Testament people of God that “He provides food for those who fear Him” (Ps 111:5). It was no small crisis in terms of the size of the event, the personal cost to the reputation of the hosts that they had run out of wine. It would not reflect well on them and what they thought of the happy couple and the invited guests. It would have brought the celebrations to a quick and sober end. Not that everyone has to get drunk at a wedding reception, but marriage is a gift of God that He wants to be celebrated and enjoyed by everyone. Everyone should have enough to be happy and carefree without losing their senses.

 

Jesus was the rescuer for the hosts. He was the Saviour of the day, and in such a way that people recalled God’s miraculous provision for His people, bringing water from a rock in the wilderness and turning toxic waters sweet to the joy and survival of hundreds of thousands who were making their way from slavery in Egypt through the desert to a land promising an abundance of milk and honey.

 

The abundance of wine at the wedding had its pairing when Jesus fed thousands with a boy’s lunch of just five loaves of bread and two fish. There was a reason there were so many people there that day. “A large crowd was following Him, because they saw the signs that He was doing on the sick” (John 6:2). The water into wine was just the first of many signs revealing who Jesus was and what He came to do. He was just as abundant with healing the sick and with multiplying the loaves of bread. “When the people saw the sign that He had done, they said, ‘This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!’” (John 6:14).

 

Providing bread and wine to supply the needs of His people are signs of who Jesus is and what He came to do. Today’s psalm which reminds us to praise the LORD in the congregation (v. 1) and to study His works (v. 2), which He has caused to be remembered (v. 3), points us specifically to the signs that show “He provides food for those who fear Him; He remembers His covenant forever” (Ps 111:5).

 

It is so that we will not miss the fact that Jesus Christ continues to provide for us bread and wine wherein His covenant promise is given to us over and over and over again. He remembers it and He calls upon us to remember it.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed took break, and when He had given thanks He broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, ‘Take; eat. This is My body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same way also He took the cup and when He had given thanks He gave it to them saying, ‘Drink of it all of you. This cup is the New Testament in My blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of Me.’” (Lutheran Service Book, Words of Institution).

“He has caused His wondrous works to be remembered” (Psalm 111:4).

 

His previous signs pointed to this sign—the wedding and the healings and the feeding all point to the salvation He gives to us in the Holy Supper. If you follow the signs, you know that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, and through bread and wine He gives His own body and blood to you for the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation from death and hell.

 

This is the LORD who brought His people out of slavery in Egypt and brought them through the wilderness to their promised land. He delivers you from slavery to sin and brings you through the wilderness of this life to the land of paradise that He has promised for your eternal life. “He provides food for those who fear Him; He remembers His covenant forever.”

 

The Lord’s Supper is a sign given to His people, a sign of who He is and what He does for you. But it is important to realize that this is a sign just as at the wedding in Cana and the feeding of the 5000 and the healing of the sick and blind and lame. It doesn’t just remind us of the works of the LORD and show us what He can do or might do. That is the way that some Christian denominations look at the Lord’s Supper as a sign. For them it is a remembrance of what the Lord did a long time ago in a land far away. That is what most Protestant Christian denominations believe and why we separate ourselves from them.

 

But most Christians around the world, including those who identify as Lutherans and Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, we believe that the Lord’s Supper is more than a sign in the way that bread reminds us of the body of Christ upon the cross and wine recalls to mind the blood of Christ that poured out from His wounds. In addition to that remembrance, we believe what Jesus actually said and does. These are signs that reveal and manifest Him to be present and at work for us.

 

When Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding, the people received wine from Him, not water that reminded them of wine, but they drank the best wine. So when Jesus gives us the cup that He says is His blood of the new testament, we are not just reminded of Him giving His blood on the cross. Like those who received the sign of wine at the wedding and received wine, we receive the sign of our salvation in the blood of Christ and we drink His blood in the Supper. The sign is the happening of the salvation to be received by His people, not just a reminder or a pointer. When Jesus says “Take, eat. This is My body” He truly is giving His body for us to eat. He manifests Himself to us as One present in the flesh to save us from our sins.

 

We do remember who Jesus is and what He has done for us. He is God in human flesh, the eternal only-begotten Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Throughout His life He did signs and wonders that revealed and manifested to His people that He is the eternal LORD God whose works of salvation for His people are full of splendor and majesty. He is gracious and merciful. He remembers His promises forever.

 

Throughout history, His people have been singing along with you as we did in today’s psalm: “He sent redemption to His people; He has commanded His covenant forever. Holy and awesome is His name” (Ps 111:9). Although this was written and being sung hundreds of years before the Son of God came into the world in flesh and blood, it guides our praises at the celebration of the supper He instituted on the night when He was betrayed.

 

He has given signs to you, chiefly this Holy Supper that He provides for those who are in need of His forgiving grace and mercy, those who need to be saved from their sins and the death and judgment that they deserve. This is a sign that does not just point to something else. It is the sign that points out that Jesus is here to save you today. It is not His first time but that doesn’t make it any less majestic.