Tuesday 19 January 2010

2nd Sunday after Epiphany 17 Jan 2010 Sermon

2nd Sunday after Epiphany. 17.1.10 Water, Wine and Blood.

We have just celebrated Our Lord’s coming into the world at Christmas, and then His being revealed to the world at Epiphany.

Now through today’s Gospel we have moved to His adult life and His first public miracle.

He changes water into wine symbolizing that when the divine enters the human it acts to improve things.

He takes what is there and makes it better. He could make water into wine and He could multiply bread many times over but He did not come just to satisfy our appetite for food and drink.

He came to turn us from water to wine, we could say; to take our frail human nature and turn us into something better; to make us partakers of His divine nature. Especially to make us into images of Himself, able to love as He loved, to give of ourselves as He gave of Himself.

His coming into the world had to be a good thing; could not fail to improve the situation, but a lot of things would have to happen before the full effect of His coming would be felt.

The wedding feast of Cana is a turning point. The power for good which Our Lord has brought is starting to be exercised and will spread to the ends of the earth. So the mood is festive.

But its spread will not be easy, and not without much sacrifice on His part and the part of His followers.

His goodness would be rejected by many. It is hard to believe than anyone would want to reject healing and salvation but they did.

The main objection to what He brought was the fact that it would require a change of way of life.

If He only healed the sick and handed out free food and drink there would be no objection. But when He asks us to be humble, to love our neighbour and forgive our enemy, and keep the commandments, then we are inclined to resist.

The devil hates all that kind of thing and incites rebellion to it in the human heart, and he has a lot of success. It was not difficult for Satan to stir up hatred to Our Lord, and ever since to His followers, and this is what makes our life difficult.

However, God is able to bring good even out of evil and in this case also. The more Our Lord was rejected the more scope it gave Him to love in return. It gave Him a chance to work another and greater miracle. This time it was not water-into-wine but wine-into-blood.

He gave His own blood to drink to all who would believe in Him and would seek to share His life.

And this we have been doing ever since. This is the drink we have. It is better than wine insofar as the good it does us.

Wine is nice but it is just a drink; it does not change us into different people. The blood of Christ does change us; does enable us to become like Christ. It turns us into people who can lay down our lives for others.

We are challenged to accept this strong drink ; to let ourselves be transformed. Can you drink the cup which I must drink? We can, with His help.

When we drink His blood in Holy Communion we are expressing two different moods. On one hand we are festive, like at a banquet, receiving with the joy of thanksgiving for the great gift of Himself. On the other hand we are sombre, bracing ourselves for inevitable suffering, gathering strength from Him to suffer in His name.

May He sustain us all till we can enjoy the heavenly banquet without end.

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