Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

When Israel returned from the exile in Babylon to Judea and Jerusalem in the year 537 B.C.E., rebuilding the nation proved to be very difficult, more difficult then imagined. Hopelessness and despair settled in the community of the returning, and they felt as our reading this morning suggests, forsaken and desolate, just as the place and the land they found themselves in were forsaken and desolate.

They had come back home holding on to the “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people”, hoping in the same God who had once led their ancestors into freedom through the perils of the Red Sea and the desert.

Now they were there, finding out how the high expectations of a glorious return translated into reality. There were not enough means even to rebuild the most necessary things, no temple, no protective city wall, and worst of all, the leadership was a disaster. Their condemnation by the prophet could not be harsher: “Israel’s sentinels are blind, they are all without knowledge; they are silent dogs that cannot bark; dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. The dogs have mighty appetite; they never have enough. The shepherds also have no understanding; they have all turned to their own way, to their own gain, one and all. ‘Come’, they say, ‘let us get wine; let us fill ourselves with strong drink. And tomorrow will be like today, great beyond measure.’” (Isaiah 56:10-12) Instead of glory, however, limitations rule the day.

When we open our papers in the morning, the world doesn’t seem to have changed much. Communities are struggling to rebuild after wars or in the middle of epidemic. People are disillusioned by economic difficulties, waiting for signs of hope. All the while individuals and families are going about their daily business: raising children, providing food, battling illnesses, meeting their deaths, celebrating the joys, mourning the losses.

When Paul writes to the church in Corinth in the year 53 C.E., a church to which he feels deeply committed and relates to like a father to his own child, he writes to a community that is bitterly divided, fractious, boasting of their various gifts, condescending, inconsiderate and thoughtless. And although they may say the right things, like that shortest of all creeds that says it all, “Jesus is Lord”, - they are not aware that as a whole and as individuals they are not representing Jesus’ lordship or the glory of God but only reflecting their own limitations.

When Jesus comes to the wedding in Cana he enters a situation that has the potential of imploding and turning into great social embarrassment for the bridegroom - through the limited amount of wine. Let’s forget about our limitations for once, which day would be better suited for that than a wedding day! Let there be wine, for there are things that money can buy! Jesus saves the bridegroom, his reputation, his honor, and his credit. We are relieved for the bridegroom, and we love the story for that, we love Jesus for that. How would we wish our own social settings and embarrassments would sometimes be saved like that.

But John in his typical manner lets us know that the change from water to wine, the sheer limitless increase of wine is not all. It is actually not even the true miracle of this story, dear congregation.

The story of the wedding at Cana is a symbol of faith, an icon of faith.
This story says, Jesus is on the scene now. This is his first sign according to John. Jesus has left the manger, its protectiveness and the passive role of the baby. Now he is on the scene. And indeed, Jesus is Lord. He reveals his glory. “You have saved the best for now!”, is how the miracle is defined in the story. “You have saved the best for now!” and revealed your glory, - that is the miracle.

Tomorrow will not be like today. With this Lord on the scene, among us, “the best is yet to come; the future is better than the past; the best days are ahead of us.” Jesus is not limiting his glory only to the wedding feast. It infuses our lives, our social settings and the church in all times and all places. The joy we are experiencing in the presence of this Lord is without limits, it is the original experience of intoxicating joy without the headache and the compromising side effects.

In the presence of this Lord our perception of time has shifted. We are not any longer determined exclusively by our past, by our historic limitations. Through the irresistible joy in the presence of Jesus who is Lord, we are granted a view of our lives from that time when the best is saved for now and is yet to come.

Jesus revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him. And John believed in him. John made the story of the wedding at Cana part of his representation of the Eucharist in his Gospel. In the multilayered meaning that the Eucharist has acquired in the Christian tradition, John contributes with the wedding at Cana the pure joy in the glory and presence of Jesus who is Lord, for the best is saved for now and is yet to come.

Paul also believed in this Lord Jesus. His image of Christ and the realization of his glory in the world is strikingly bold. The church, he says, is the body of Christ. Here is where Jesus is on the scene. That is his message to those troublesome Corinthians. Note, he does not say, you better yourself first and then you may be become the body of Christ. No the church in Corinth represents Christ and Christ’s glory. And by pointing out the many various gifts they have, Paul helps to discern a more wholesome communal life, valuing the distinctiveness of each Corinthian, yet affirming a unity in diversity which is true of Christ’s glory shining in this world.

The prophet Isaiah also believed in the glory of God which God continued to reveal to Israel often when it is seemed the least likely.

Gifted with the gift of remembering and hope, Isaiah was hopeful against all odds. Believing also that God has saved the best for now, he sees the leaders as sentinels on the walls of Jerusalem, watching all day and all night, never silent, constantly crying to God reminding him, giving him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem.

Remembering the wedding feast at Cana, and Christ’s glorious manifestation among us and in his Church, we are invited to join the sentinels and the prophet Isaiah, and constantly remind God of his glory and presence, not to forsake us, not our wedding feasts, not our tables, our homes, the bedsides of the ill and dying, not our worship services and Eucharists, because we believe the best is yet to come.

“You shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

You shall no more be called Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”

Amen.