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SERMONS

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 14, 2007

By The Alston Johnson

“Miracles are not contrary to nature - they are only contrary to what we know about nature.” - St. Augustine.

The miracles of Jesus invite us to look at the world through the eyes of faith; which is perhaps precisely why miracles do exist. It is a faith that given what we know of nature, through scientific study, that we still have reason to believe that there is more than emptiness resting between all of the sub-atomic particles of the universe - there is someone living there. And for a time that someone lived among us as a miracle worker.

One of the Gospel of John’s signatures is showing us Jesus’ transformative powers in the midst of traditional Jewish feasts - it is in the midst of the religious feasts and ceremonies at the Temple that Jesus unveils his person and his purpose; that he is ultimately their fulfillment.

His friends and followers, and perhaps even his enemies, begin to see that, in fact, Jesus is the true Temple of God’s presence. His own flesh and blood will give life in a way that the manna of the Exodus from Egypt, commemorated at Passover, cannot give. During the feast of Tabernacles, it is not the rain making ceremony, but Jesus himself, who provides the living water. It is not the illumination ceremony held in the Temple courtyard, but Jesus himself, that is the real light of the world. During the feast of the dedication of the Temple altar, it is not simply the altar of stone that is commemorated, in John’s Gospel it is Jesus whois consecrated by God.

Throughout John’s Gospel there is a trajectory of illustration revealing how Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, rests at the heart of traditional Jewish Feasts; that he himself is the Temple.

In the teachings of the ancient Rabbis, there is a saying, “Where there is no wine, there is no joy.” And so Mary comes during the wedding feast, “There is no wine . . . there is something lacking here.” There is something to celebrate, but something has run out. In the midst of this happiest of occasions, something is missing, something is being lost.

Notice the symbolism - out of the water jars intended for the religious rites of purification, out of the vessels of religious piety, Jesus draws out what is needed by those who are celebrating a new life. Jesus draws out exactly what is lacking . . . and it is not more water for religious ceremonies of washing hands and feet; it is wine, wine for the feast, in fact, enough wine for many, many feasts.

John is showing us: a transformation is in the midst. Where some would dip to satisfy religious expectation, Jesus is inviting them to dip to find the source of joy, and the continuation of the feast. This miracle is pointing to another wedding where God joins himself to a faithful people in this world.

Jesus is the place where the form of religion and its content become one.

It has been God’s desire from the beginning. Isaiah tells us of this desire, “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.”

Jesus comes into this world of ours to become that dawning, that torch; showing us how to find the source of God’s love for his children, and it is something that begins and ends in transformation, death and resurrection.

There is a story, some of you may have heard it, about when a man named Lewis Lawes became the warden at Sing Sing Prison in up the Hudson from New York City. In 1921, there was no prison tougher than Sing Sing. But when Warden Lawes retired over twenty years later, that prison had become a humanitarian institution and a model for other prisons. Those who studied the prison gave him credit for the change. But when he was asked about the transformation, this is what he said: "I owe it all to my wonderful wife, Catherine, who is buried outside the prison walls."

Catherine Lawes was a young mother with three small children when her husband became the warden at Sing Sing. From the beginning, others said that she should never step foot inside the prison walls or in any other facility that the prisoners would be using. But that didn't stop her! When the first prison basketball game was held, she insisted on going. She walked into the auditorium with her three beautiful children and sat in the stands with the hard-core criminals. Other guests came up to her afterwards and asked, "How do you dare sit with these men? Why do you take your little children in there?" And she replied, "My husband and I are going to take care of these men, and I believe they will take care of me! I don't have to worry!"

She even insisted on getting acquainted with the records of the men. She discovered that one of the men convicted of murder was blind, so she paid him a visit. She stepped into the cold cell and sat down next to this man. Holding his hand in hers she warmly asked, "Do you read Braille?"

"What's Braille?" he asked. "Don't you know? It is a way that you can read with your fingers," she explained. "Well, I've never heard of it," he replied.

"I'll teach you then!" she said. And she taught that blind killer how to read Braille. Years later he would weep out of love for her.

Later Catherine found that there was a deaf-mute in the prison, so she went to school to learn sign language. Soon she was communicating with him through the use of her hands. Many said that Catherine Lawes was the body of Jesus Christ that came alive again at Sing Sing prison from 1921 to 1937.

Then one evening the car in which she was riding went out of control, and she was killed. The next morning her husband didn't come to work, so the acting warden came in his place. In an instant, the whole prison knew something was wrong. When they heard the news that their beloved lady had died, everyone them wept.

The following day her body was resting in a casket in her home, three-quarters of a mile from the prison. As the acting warden took his early-morning walk, he was shocked to see a large crowd of the toughest, hardest-looking criminals, gathering like a herd of animals at the main gate. It looked as if they were ready to launch a riot.

He walked over to the group and, instead of seeing hostility in their eyes, he saw tears of grief and sadness. He knew how much they loved and admired Catherine. He turned and faced the men. "All right, men, you can go. Just be sure and check in tonight!" Then he opened the gate without another word and more than one hundred criminals walked, without a guard, three-quarters of a mile, to stand in line to pay their respects to Catherine Lawes. And every one of them checked in that night. Every one!

Transformation. Death, Resurrection.

Water into Wine. There other stories of miraculous transformation: perhaps in our lives, certainly in the life of the man we celebrate tomorrow, Martin Luther King Jr., and most certainly in a football game that was played last night in New Orleans, at another gathering of God’s saints. These are places where we see water turned to wine in the lives we lead; perhaps these too are the trajectory of a miracle.

It is often said that life is what we make it; but in light of the Gospels, in light of this wedding in a little village called Cana, in light of the life of Martin Luther King, in the living of our own dreams, that is only a half truth. Life is not so much what we make, but rather what we allow Christ to make it. Or as St. Augustine once said,

“I never have any difficulty believing in miracles, since I experienced the miracle of a change in my own heart . . . a change in my own heart.”

This is also how water is changed into wine.