Epiphany 2 C John 2:1-11

In our gospel story today we hear about Jesus and his mother attending a wedding. a wedding feast really. In Jesus' time wedding feasts lasted for at least seven days. There were seven days of celebration with wine and feasting and most of the wine and food for the feast came from guests, for wedding presents a friend of the groom's family would provide wine for the feast. We don't really know why the wine ran out at this wedding, perhaps more people showed up than they thought would or the guests consumed more than usual. Perhaps the guests didn't give as much as was expected. Whatever happened the wine gave out and this was disgraceful for the father of the groom, for the groom himself, and for the whole family involved in the wedding. And it was worse than just a bad sign for the bride and groom. And in a time when community and connections were what defined a person this lack of wine that was supposed to be provided by friends, in short, made it look like they had no friends, like they were abandoned by their friends.

So, when the wine ran out Jesus' mother begged him to do something. Then she left the scene. She told the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do (in faith that he would do something). And he did, he with seemingly little effort, transformed a great deal of plain water into wine he saved the celebration.

Up to this point in the gospel of John Jesus had not yet performed any miracles, at least none that we know of, no healing, no walking on water, nothing...So why this one? Turning some water into wine for a party seems kind of trivial. Kind of like a small thing for a first miracle, very much a human concern.

Something unique about this miracle, though, is how it is done. Jesus tells the servants to fill up several large clay jars with water. And so the servants went and filled these empty jars with water. Normal everyday water. In the area and time that Jesus lived in most of the water was unfit to drink. So the servants filled up the jars with water that was even unfit to drink.

Now we don't hear anything else about what happened in or with the jars except that suddenly there was wine to serve and it was good wine, great wine, wine fit to be served at the beginning of the celebration when the best wine is brought out. Through the power of the Holy Spirit the plain unfit water was transformed into the most fit wine.

All it took was water and the Holy Spirit.

This sounds familiar to us because we profess the transformative power of baptism, claiming that great things will come simply from water and the Holy Spirit. We faithfully bring infants up here to the font and using water as a sign of God's love wash away the brokenness into which they were born and declare to them a new and transformed life in Christ.

At its core baptism is really an affirmation that through the love of Christ, through his baptism, death on the cross and resurrection we have already been transformed.

When I think about transformation and baptism I think of birth of a baby that happened here, very, very long ago. 150 years ago in fact, long before any of us were here.

I don't know many details, almost zero really, this happened to a family who long since moved on from Castleton but it was in the records, our record books were recently translated and computerized, a mostly straightforward job but in just a few places were little notes , extra information about a birth, baptism, wedding or funeral.

So we know a baby was born here back around 1860. But not just a normal baby, a baby born out of wedlock, a little bit of a scandal in present times but a punishable event 150 years ago when the note is from. At the very least a community could certainly shun a mother and child born under such circumstances. The could be kept out of churches and homes, left out of the community. And at least if you pushed away the family member who brought this shame you could be separated from it a little, keep your good name for the most part.

So the family, specifically the grandparents of the baby, heads of the family has a choice to make. And it had a lot to do with how they were going to handle something at church. Baptism. Baptism for a child in such circumstances wasn't a given. In fact in some churches it still isn't. They could have just stayed away and kept their shame from being very public. And so in the midst of what must have been some pretty intense family drama, as time grew close for the child to be born as they had to start sharing the news with people, as the pastor came to visit about how they would handle the whole thing publicly, Grandma and Grandpa had to do some soul searching while their daughter waited in fear, standing to lose the only family she had and with a very difficult road ahead of her.

Wondering if they would distance themselves from their shame and her? If they would publicly reprimand their own daughter and not claim their grandchild? Wondering if she had locked herself and her new baby son out of their love and God's forever.

It came time for the baby to be baptized.

So there on a delicate old baptism page in our book, written in old german, barely legible is a little group of words after the mother's name and in place of a father's name. It is written in the handwriting of the pastor but the words didn't come from the pastor alone.

It says:

though the child has no father, it is the desire of his grandparents, mother and father to his mother that the record show that he is welcomed into the family and into God's family with love and forgiveness. And his mother is held in that same love.

The family came to the conclusion when it came time to baptize that God's Love wins out over all. But they didn't stop there, they had a note entered, one of a handful over the nearly two century history of this church, pretty rare. And a tiny note but one that, because baptism was an issue, affirms for all the world now and ever, love and forgiveness and we have to assume healing:

The wanted the world to know that despite all the circumstances this child is welcomed with love into our family and the family of God.

This transformational love is the promise of the gospel, the reason for Jesus' acts of power and mercy and it is what we proclaim in each baptism that we perform and in every child of God that we welcome in the name of Christ.

Because of the promise of their own baptisms a community of God was able to welcome a child born in shame and because of the declaration of God's love in his baptism this little child, forgotten by history now, unable to talk, walk or even hold his own head up yet had spread the good news of God's love and forgiveness to his grandmother and grandfather, aunts, uncles, his entire church.

All it took was water and the Holy Spirit.

Turning water into wine seems like a funny miracle to mark the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. No one's life depended on it, no one in the affected family even asked Jesus to be involved. It was a family problem with, hopefully, a family solution. But that is what makes this the perfect first act in Jesus' ministry. The family didn't somehow try to make it worth Jesus' while to provide for them. They didn't have to prove themselves, Jesus saw that they were in crisis, that their relationships were in question and with great mercy he shared God's grace with them.

Jesus' ministry was defined by transforming peoples lives through the gospel, by healing the sick and calling the faithful. This is the continued ministry of the church today, of us here at Trinity and of all children of God. To spread the free gift of transformation in the form of water and the Holy Spirit.

How great it is to know that whatever our concerns, be they great or small, whether they seem trivial or earth shattering we are loved and blessed by the Lord who was concerned with an everyday wedding feast and the birth of a child out of wedlock.

Surely this same Lord is concerned with each of us, with our joy, pain, fear, hopes, gifts and dreams. How great to know that because of this concern we have already been transformed into beautiful, sparkling, worthy children of God who were welcomed at the font and who will be welcomed at the great high feast.

All it took was water and the Holy Spirit

Thanks be to God
Amen