Good Wine for All the Tables!

It’s Winter in New York state, and the dreary days of January creep on through the cold and the snow.  Most of the Christmas trimmings have been put away for another year; the Magi have traveled back home by a different way.  We’ve all–mostly–peered into the Manger, and some have been changed by the view of the ChristChild.  Lessons for the upcoming weekend try to keep the Hope spinning, reminding us that the Light keeps growing.

Isaiah 62:1-5 is a post-Exilic paen shining with good news of an undeserved Grace:  God is delighting in restoring the lost exiles to their place among the nations, who “shall see your vindication”.  Present-day hearers are reminded here that they too have great worth in the eyes of God, that a whole new relationship of intimacy is made public.  Have we expected that God would change things?

There’s great wealth in I Corinthians 12:1-11–every verse yields a treasure of spiritual gifts to ponder as we tackle the Dark Days of January.  One that popped out at me is verse 7, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit [of God] for the common good”.  These gifts of grace are evidently for the Light of the Nations, not just to make us feel good.  In all of our diversity, these gifts of the Spirit each have their source in a single-purposed God as revealed in Jesus Christ.  Given freely and without dependence upon our merit, they aim at uniting the community of faith.

The Gospel lesson is the story of Jesus first public miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11).  It’s most fitting that this display of lavish excess begins the instances where God breaks into business-as-usual.  Why do we read this only in John’s Gospel?  Martin L. Smith comments, “Imagery of excess, of divine surplus and overflow, is essential for the proclamation of God’s reign.”  (SOJOURNERS, Jan.2019:45)  An abundance of good wine has been a prophetic symbol of a restoration of God’s new age (Amos  9:13, Joel 3:18).  This age is again a beacon to the community of faith, as the wine is shared with everyone!

The comforting message for me is that there are graciously given gems which sparkle in God’s Light, especially in these leaden days after Christmas.  January in these parts calls us to hunker down around the hearth and tell again the events of holy-history, especially of how God has broken into our ennui to change things.

God Bless Us, Every One              Horace Brown King

My thoughts about scripture passages assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com