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The basis for today’s sermon is the gospel reading from John chapter 2, where it is written, “11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.””
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Lord Jesus turns water into wine, rescuing the wedding reception and so also the dignity of the bride and groom in the small town of Cana. It was a pure extra, a cup-runneth-over sort of miracle, He didn’t have to do this in order to die on the cross and rise again to forgive our sins and by His atoning blood reconcile us to the Father. And yet this is the first, the chief, the start of His miracles. St. John writes and calls it a ‘sign.’ A sign of what? What does this miracle show us?
The sign shows Jesus’ power, of course, in that He was capable of turning water to wine with just a word. In that, we can see a token of His authority over creation. He created the world in six real days. At His command, the very stuff of nature obeys Him still. By Him all things were made, and He continues to uphold the universe by His Word of power. This is Good and True enough.
What’s Beautiful about this though, is how the miracle signifies the overflowing mercy and love of God for His fallen creation. It has to do with joy. It is significant that the miracle was done at a wedding feast. They were celebrating the gift of marriage, of family, and all the good that goes with it. They were even drinking wine. I probably don’t have to tell you this, but… when used rightly, these things of the created order are a great joy.
And yet in our sin-broken world’s tendency towards immoderation, we are all too capable of abusing the good gifts God gives. Jesus rescues a wedding party, and it seems a scandalous thing: we often find in these an occasion to sin. We poor miserable sinners have a tendency to indulge desires in sinful ways. People eat so much it is unhealthy. We can drink until we are sick. How much pain has been caused by the misuse or abuse of things like wine or feasting far too plentifully, or even worse, the self-serving tendency to treat people – even the people in our own family – only as accords our own gratification? To consider all people who have been hurt, all the people and families that have been broken by human sin, we ought to repent of ever thinking that the Modern world could improve on God’s good order for relationships. God created these gifts and gave them to us, we would be best served to listen to His wisdom for how our lives and homes are best ordered. [οικονομια].1
So it is that where unbelievers might take this as an excuse for even more indulgence, we Christians have a right and holy fear of misusing God’s gifts. We know what we’re capable of. So it shows us something that Jesus rescues this newlywed couple from disaster. Heaven is a feast, not a funeral. The kingdom of God has the quality of joy. Jesus came to suffer and die on the cross, to pay for all our sins, to remit all our guilt. His suffering and blood atonement was not the end goal, but rather the justification for your life. The end goal is the high feast of heaven, where the people of God rejoice to live before Him in holy and happy joy. Your sins, however great the immoderation and however hard the hangover, they are forgiven. Jesus has paid it all. He is renewing you, and He will raise you who believe and are baptized to the blessed life eternal. The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. There, after God has perfectly raised and renewed you who believe, there will be no sorrow in the feast. In heaven, we will be perfectly sanctified, our desires and willpower in perfect harmony with God’s will. God is no [Bacchus, a] party animal, but neither should we think that it will be boring in the resurrection, beholding the glory of God in the high feast of heaven.
“11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.”” Until that day, dear Christians, hold fast to the hope of everlasting life, and order yourselves together according to the Lord’s wise commands. Moderate yourselves, as is befitting a person made in the image of God and redeemed by His own blood. “33 … let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”” Do not look to worldly gratification as if that were the end of our sorrows or the source of our joy, but rather look to the superabundant mercy of God, who restores us, His fallen creation. Here and now we need the means of grace, for God to purify us, to cleanse us of our iniquity. The Holy Supper here in time is a foretaste of that blessed feast to come. In this holy feast He forgives your trespasses. In this communion He has something to do with you, He invites you to His own holy supper. In the harmonious confession of faith at this altar, He unites us to Himself, and so also the promised great high feast to come. Just as repentant sorrow is the fitting response to our sin, and reverence is fitting for the One Who is truly present among us in His Body and Blood, so also joy and thanksgiving are fitting responses for the gifts He gives. God grant you holy joy and steadfast faith, for your sins are forgiven. In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

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1[So, we who are born from above… we don’t want to abuse God’s gifts. We know that we are sinners and that we need help. So we might find an unfortunate suspicion appearing occasionally in history, that the only way to approach wine or feasting or family is through complete abstinence. A few crazy monks would get so annoyed in their struggle against sin that they’d say: “Desires are the cause of so much suffering.” This is the root of the tradition where monks would try to become holy by cutting themselves off from anything they desired. As if it were the wine that were evil, rather than their abuse of it. They would abandon their families and refuse to care for them. They would fast beyond the point of bodily training, fast to try to free themselves from any worldly concerns. I am impressed by the self-discipline it takes to fast that much, but the application was foolish, and ultimately ineffective (see: AC XXIII for a historic example). In the days of the Lutheran reformation, one important reform was that monks and clergy were allowed to marry. I’m very thankful for this. This is a case where we need [the third function of] the Law. Jesus shows us that weddings, marriage, are good. Family is good. Wine is good. It is only our sin that has made these things perilous. Heaven is not a funeral, but a feast.]

​Matt 3:15a ... Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.””
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Father in His merciful wisdom sent His Son Jesus Christ to us, for us men and for our salvation. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. By His birth on Christmas morning, it was revealed that the Son of God had united Himself to our humble human flesh – He had taken into Himself our own human nature, every bit of it except for our sinful quality. Throughout this season of Epiphany, Jesus demonstrates the implications of His incarnation by His teaching and miracles and life and work. For example, when the gentile wise men from the east visit, it’s a glimmer that God’s plan of redemption is offered to all nations. By uniting Himself with the human nature, and not one particular race, Jesus’ death and resurrection is sufficient to redeem the sins of all humanity. God does not reduce us to our race or country of origin, but rather loves us individually, having joined Himself to our common humanity.
So also then at the Baptism of Jesus, we see our Lord uniting Himself to you in another, further way. He did not need to be baptized for His own forgiveness, but rather went through with it for your sake, for your forgiveness. He was baptized so that we could be baptized. The Holy One put Himself into this promised washing, that we might be renewed in His holy humanity. He put His righteousness into the baptism, so that we who are baptized receive it therein.
Water, by itself, is plain water and no baptism. But with God’s Word of promise attached to it, plain water becomes for us the holy baptism, life-giving water, rich in grace. A washing of new birth in the Holy Spirit. Ordinarily, water is simple and effective: it is nourishment for the thirsty body, it can cleanse us of dirt, it can water the earth and cause it to bring forth and sprout. We can’t have life without water. Yet God perfects water in this – He joins His Word to it. When used for Holy Baptism, God uses this water to connect us to Christ Jesus. It connects us to His atoning death on the cross, it connects us to His glorious resurrection from the dead. It communicates His righteousness to us. It confers adoption to us as God’s children, heirs of heaven’s kingdom, inheritors of paradise. Eternal life comes through this Word and Water.
Where our sin and subsequent exile from Eden separated us from God, by Jesus’ incarnation and baptism, He is restoring us to union, communion, with the Holy Trinity. Ephesians 2[:12-13] reminds us to remember that once we were: “12b separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” What restores us from our alienation? Christ Jesus. How? Through His promises, as we heard today the promise of Holy Baptism that sticks with us. Again it is written in Hebrews 4[:16] “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
So think about this: the Lord Jesus who unites Himself to our frail human nature, is still united to it. Jesus is, right now in heaven, both God and man at the same time still. Through holy baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection, there can be human beings like us in the presence of God the Father almighty. So also, God the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to renew and sanctify you who are human, who believe and are baptized. Baptism is not a one time event, but rather the beginning of a life-long restoration of our humanity.
Jesus took on a human nature to restore our human nature. When we sin, or when we are broken and grieved by the sins of others, this makes us poor and miserable. Sinners captivated by their sin are enslaved, being reduced to some part or portion of their animal nature. It often feels like we’re not very good at being human. But Jesus is here to restore us to our humanity, into the pure human nature that we were created and intended to live in. By this new birth from above in Holy Baptism, He is restoring you to the full and free humanity. His perfect humanity, bestowed upon you. Because He was baptized “to fulfill all righteousness,” His righteousness is now bestowed, declared, imputed, and being renewed in you. So raise up your heads, you who are poor and miserable, look to Him, you who are sinful, for your sins are forgiven. The Son of God and Son of Man has forgiven your sins, and is restoring you even today. When the accusations of the Law or temptation’ dire hour strikes, remember Who God is making you to be, Whose family He adopts you into. God the Father is well-pleased with Christ Jesus His Son, and since you who believe and are baptized are united to Him, on His account, our Father in heaven is likewise well pleased with you. In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas… A Merry Christmas indeed. But in what way was it merry? The events leading up to the birth of our Lord are in many ways a tale of misery and frustration. What mother wants to travel across the country in the last weeks before giving birth? It’s not as though Mary or Joseph had much of a choice: at the whim of tyrants from thousands of miles away, the gears of faceless bureaucracies were set in motion so that like it or not, the time was neigh to register and pay the taxes. So Joseph goes. However the hallmark movies may feature the romantic return to the hometown, Joseph’s hometown relatives couldn’t even find a proper room for him and his pregnant wife stay. She has to give birth in the stables. Shortly afterwards strangers who smell like livestock barge in, raving about angels and gloria in excelsis.
The language St. Luke was inspired to use to describe our Lord’s birth is beautiful, but if you think about it, the situation sounds more like a bad dream. Jesus was born into a world full of darkness. The shepherds had to abide in the fields by night because there were wolves nearby, stalking around to devour the helpless sheep. The shepherds were right to be sore afraid of the angels, because angels are holy and powerful, while we are wretched sinners who deserve our misery. Governments like Imperial Rome establish a martial sort of order through the violent power of the sword… the poverty and dangers of one child being born meant nothing to them. Even the hometowns and hearths are not as welcoming as we would hope… sinful people tend to be more interested in their own comforts and pleasures than the objective good of another human life brought into the world. True, Mary and Joseph both seem to love with a real love – not a passing feeling or sentiment, but the dedicated self-giving love that acts sacrificially for the ultimate good of the beloved. Their virtues are a good example for us today. Yet even what they had to give was not enough. Carpenter Joseph went the extra mile for his family, but he couldn’t provide a crib or a bed for this child to lay His head. All Mary had for Jesus was swaddling clothes. But really, how merry could that little family have been?
Into just such a dark world [of failed loves], the Lord Jesus Christ is born. The account of the birth of Christ Jesus is a story of love… but not human love in the way we think at first. St. John writes in the epistle this evening: “9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:9-10) If love were simply about the feeling, or if merriness consisted in having comfort or a reduction in stress, then it would be entirely dependent on our outward circumstances. Neither Mary nor Joseph nor Jesus could possibly have had a merry Christmas, because the world was still dark and bleak. Maybe, amid hectic preparations and the circumstances of our aging bodies, some of us can reluctantly relate.
Yet the Love of God is put forth in Christ Jesus shows a different kind of merriness, a joy and peace that passes earthly understanding. God is love, and in His great mercy He gives of himself for the ultimate good of you, His beloved. It is not because you have everything together or are worthy or lovable on your own or are even adequately prepared. God’s self-giving originates in Him. He saw fit to create the world and all good things in it. Humankind’s sinful rebellion of self-love separated us from God and from one another. If left unchecked our sin would lead the unbeliever to hell. God’s heart is grieved by this (cf. Gen 6:6), yet His self-giving love is undaunted. In love, He sent forth His Son to share in our humanity. Jesus took on a human nature to be the propitiation, the payment for all our sins. The perfectly righteous and holy Son of God did no wrong, yet was crucified in our place in order to bear our sins in His body. The stable would be replaced by a tomb, the swaddling cloths turned into grave cloths. Yet the Lord of life is undaunted by darkness (Jn 1:5), He rises again on the third day for our justification. The self-giving love of God keeps on giving: you who believe and are baptized, you who receive the Word and treasure it in your hearts by repentant faith, you have life undaunted and unending on account of Jesus the Christ.
It’s easy to see why we love the Christmas story so much… in many ways it is our story. Not that it is about us, but rather that we are the ones being rescued. We feel the weight of distant kings and their burocracies. We know there are dangers in the world, and out of love we try to protect and nuture our families as best we can. We know that we are sinful people, and long to be made holy. The story of Christmas is the start of the story of our rescue. It’s worth hearing again, rejoicing in the details, decorating our hearts and homes with it, celebrating the humble humanity that our savior takes on for us and for our salvation.
The merriness of Christmas – it’s joy, peace, and hope – doesn’t have to come from our failures to love one another or recreate the spirit of Christmases past. It doesn’t come from our circumstances. All of that joy is a side effect of believing, receiving, and abiding in the love of God, which is given to us first by God on High. So even if your weekend is shaping up to be one frustration on top of another, take a moment to reflect. The set of experiences we tend to expect from a holiday season sound an awful lot like circumstantial worldly happiness. Even our good and right love for one another isn’t always enough to fix all the problems in life. But Christmas, that is, the celebration of the birth of Christ, … is not about our capabilities or accomplishments, but rather the capable, loving, work of Christ Jesus. Fear not, be merry and rejoice, for Christ Jesus has done it all.
His birth is one step along the way of His salvation for you. It’s not the only step, by the way, [so if you’re only used to being here for only two or three times a year, you’re really missing out.] There is more to the life of Jesus than His birth, a lot of good comes from a living and active connection to the Lord of hope. You ought to come back later to hear more of the story... what He has done and continues to do every week.
The merriness that Christians have at Christmas is not one of our own making, but rather the joy at knowing that Christ has done it all. He shares in our human nature to lift us up from our poor miserable condition. God on High loves us unlovables with a self-giving love, and so there may be peace on earth in Christ alone. Glory be to God on high, and thanksgiving for His love and peace and joy. Merry Christmas to you. In the name of + Jesus. Amen.