What hath God wrought?

We’re into Epiphany, the season of signs that God is not only in charge, but especially that Jesus is Lord.  Epiphany is like a light-bulb in a drawing, when the searching individual suddenly gets it.   We began with the WiseMen story, when the seekers from the Ends of the Earth got it.   Last week we dealt with Jesus’ Baptism, when a few of the onlookers got it.  Right through Transfiguration, the Ultimate getting-it, we’ll hear stories about how the Holy breaks in so that we ALL may get it.

The Old Testament for this week is from Isaiah’s oracles (62:1-5).   Here the perceived rejection of Israel has become vindicated, “shining like the dawn”, and salvation becomes “like a burning torch”.   God’s Creative purposes are once again to be seen, for God’s People have become  “a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord”.   Whoever reads this passage aloud needs to express the imagery with rolling r’s and flashing eyes!

St. Paul addresses us about spiritual gifts, and he names a few: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, ecstatic speech and other miraculous signs of Grace. (I Corinthians 12:1-11)  These are f’r- instances, not meant to be The List of Who’s OK (and Who’s not…)!  The verses that jump out at me are nos.4 & 5, about the many varieties of gifts, services and activities –and all instigated by the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God….”all of them, in everyone” !!  Great Calvin’s Ghost!   

The Gospel is John’s familiar story about Jesus and his friends at a wedding (2:1-11).  But this isn’t a story about a wedding as much as it is a story about wine!  (I know:  Heaven & Earth, holiness & secularity, salvation & sin all in Holy Wedlock.  And that’s not a bad sermon.)  Yet it seems to me that this “first miracle” is the change that Jesus brings:  what was Just Water has become the Finest Wine!   What does this imply for my washed-out life, for your routine busy-ness?

This is also the weekend that we remember Martin Luther King, Jr., and others who have stood boldly for social justice.  Somewhere in our preaching we need to recognize the diversity all around us — gender understandings, language, names & cultures, regional imprintings  — and also that we’re all driven by the same Creator-Redeemer-Sustainer who is the Author of all!

God Bless Us Every One!         H   B    King