So, if the reading that has a wedding in it isn't just for weddings, what does the first of the miracles that Jesus performs, the first of his miracles in which people believe in him say to and about us today? Well, let's say for the sake of argument that today isn't your wedding day. I know, it might be, you may very well be checking my blog right before you get married, but let's say that it isn't your wedding day. Let's say that you aren't someone who, today, is too terribly interested in making sure that there is enough wine available at a particular feast. You're more concerned with your day-to-day. And what is your day-to-day like? If you're like the rest of us, it probably involves a bit of the old 'going through the motions.' It probably involves a bit of the running your engine in idle, of getting stuck in particular ruts. And that doesn't just apply to driving in the winter in Saskatchewan, you know. That applies to how you live your life. For your habits become your destiny. It's a tired old saying by now, but you have to understand that your habits are formed and forged a day at a time, and people like you and I, we tend to get stuck in a certain way of thinking, living, and behaving. And the thing about getting stuck in ways of living is that we experience diminishing returns, and we also think about things in terms of sunk costs. That is, things are at their best when they get going, but because we've been doing things for quite a while now, we don't feel as though it would even be possible to stop, or to change.
But that's where the reading about Cana becomes more important than you'd expect. That is, at the wedding of Cana, in Galilee, they run out of wine. And when Jesus is approached by his mother, she does what you would expect. She looks at him and say 'they have no more wine.' Simple, direct, and too the point. And this is where the diminishing returns kick in, you know. You should know that according to the Holy Bible, 'wine gladdens the heart,' making it not essential for a wedding reception, but a darn fine idea, and a wonderful way to have a party, a gathering, that people want to attend. The idea is to have a warm, happy gathering in which people are having a good time, and enjoying one another's company. They'd all had a bit of wine already, their hearts were already glad, and nobody wanted this to stop. And when things are going well, you don't want them to stop. When your heart is glad, when there is promise, when things are going well, you don't want anything to change. But things do change. You get stuck in patterns. Things get old, they wear out, and all of a sudden, the charmed life that you were living in has become a cage and a prison, hemming you in on every side. That's shockingly bad news, and it happens to all of us. We are all victims and prisoners of what should be a fairly easy problem - that if something is going wrong, we should change and alter it.
Well, the despair that seeps in to the average life is one in which the devil himself is happy to rejoice. He wants you to give up and surrender. He wants you to quit. He wants you to pack it in, and be content with your life the way it is right now. He wants you to look at your sinfulness and shrug, and say 'well, this is who I am. This is what I'm all about. I thought that wasn't going to be the case, but I guess it is.' More than anything else, he wants you to surrender and give in to the way things are. They'll never change, they will never be any different, things wear out and break down, relationships disintegrate, people drift apart, it's all so inevitable. We have the good wine at the beginning, it gladdens our hearts and makes us happy, we are in bliss and joy, but then the good wine runs out, and the drudgery begins.
Well, welcome to the world we live in. And welcome to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Welcome to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that is all about renewal, and rejuvenation. It's about the ability to start again no matter how deep into the game you are. It's all about how your past does not have to define your present, nor your future. You don't have to settle for the law of diminishing returns for a lifetime. Rather, the best wine can be served at any time. Your open-mouthed shrugging at the issues at hand where you look at the situations you find yourself in, and say 'well, I guess I'm in this situation for good now.' No you're not. The diminishing returns that you are so sure of, the state and situation that you find yourself in, those things aren't permanent, you know. They're not forever. The devil wants to dishearten you, wants you to think about these things as being in your past, and that you can't get a hold of them ever again, that there is a green umbrella you can never get back, but that's not true, you know. As Christian people, you need to know that there is no such thing as too late. There is no such thing as over, and no such thing as done. All those verses that are so popular, verses about being restored and not growing faint, about strength being renewed like that of eagles, all of that has to do with this, and with the reality of drinking the wine that Christ brings, which is the best wine.
How to get this wine? I'm supremely glad you asked. I'm glad you asked, because this is the real ticket about how the Christian faith really works. Right before Jesus turns water into wine, Mary talks to the servants and to the steward of the feast, and says to them 'do whatever he tells you.' There, it's that simple. The way that the spiritual wine Christ brings is accessed is through that same simple advice. Do whatever he tells you. That's the prescription to your woes. Now, before you accuse me of works righteousness, of being a pietist, I want to remind you that I'm a Lutheran Christian. And as a Lutheran Christian, I'm all in on the virtues of 'sola scriptura.' Scripture alone. Only Scripture is the source and norm for ethics, for faith, and for our religious and secular lives. And with this being the case, if the advice that Mary gives is to do whatever Jesus tells us to do, what would that look like?
Well, here's the breakdown, according to the red letters of the Bible, the actual words of Jesus Christ:
1 - Believe in him whom he has sent (John 6:29)
2 - Repent and believe the Gospel (Mark 1:15)
Yes, there are a lot of other things, to be sure, but here's the core of the situation. The core of the situation is to repent of what has happened, and to be forgiven. You also have to believe that Christ can do what he promises to do. With all of this, if you can do it, then the magic of the Gospel of Jesus coalesces into form. Repentance is a wonderful gift, because it lets you look at your life accurately, without lying or deception, and to say ' you know, things aren't exactly where I want them to be. I think I'd like them to be different.' That's a simple sentence, to be sure, but to do that requires an almost superhuman effort to look at things with any kind of honesty. We all want to be right, obviously. We all want to be good ,and we want to be correct. We want to be righteous and holy, that desire is planted within us, but how do we get there? How do we get the good wine of holiness? The usual approach is to say that the good wine isn't worth having. so we're perfectly happy to drink the bad wine, the cheap wine, or no wine at all. We all want to have good wine, but we have figured out that the fastest way to get to it is to pretend that the wine we are drinking right now is the best wine of all. And it isn't. You have to admit that the wine you're drinking isn't the wine you want. The wine you have and the wine you want are different things. And so what you're looking at is Christ, obviously, the one that allows you to change what you are doing, and to leave behind what you have done. Everything else will lash you to the bad wine, you know, will force you into thinking that the bad wine that you're drinking is the wine you always wanted. You will be bound to your mistakes and errors forever, and continue swilling the plonk from now until the day you die.
But Christ bids you to repent. To repent and to believe. To put the past behind you and bury you. To marry your repentance with the promise of a new tomorrow, of the idea and the knowledge that there is no such thing as too late, and no such thing as over. This is the great gift of the faith: that those of us who are bound and broken by the weight of our bad decisions that we have never been able to admit were bad, can instead rise up and say with confidence that these are things we wish to leave behind us. We thought we had the good wine before, but the good wine can always be served now.
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