Epiphany 2 January 19, 2020 The Sunday of Water into Wine
Epiphany 2 / Life Sunday
John 2:1-11 & Ephesians 5:22-33
January 19, 2020
“God and Family”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
As the world gets older, there are many things of the past that become outdated and optional. Something like the landline phone. Many people today easily live without any landline phone in the house. It’s all cell phones. And it works fine. Or what about a phone book?
Having a camera is now optional. You used to always own a camera. Now we’re often perfectly content to use our phone to take every picture. And even a checkbook is now optional. You can easily get by without checks if you want to in today’s world.
But, obviously, some things will never, ever become optional. We will never outgrow them. Things like water, oxygen, light, rest. These things aren’t optional. And the big one we’re talking about today is marriage and family. Our society is getting the idea that we’re outgrowing and moving past marriage and family. People like to call it “traditional” marriage as if it’s some tradition that is now outdated and optional. Many would like to think that we’re progressing to a time when we won’t need these old, outdated categories and institutions of marriage and family. But this simply isn’t true. You can’t outgrow them or move past them. They’re foundational to life. Without marriage and family, we die. Getting rid of them is simply not an option.
If you look at Paul’s argument in Ephesians 5, our Epistle today, he actually argues that marriage and family are who God is Himself. He goes back to Genesis chapter 2 when God made marriage for Adam and Eve and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” And then Paul says that mystery doesn’t first refer to man and woman but to Christ and the Church. In other words, the first and real and foremost marriage isn’t man/woman marriage—but it’s the marriage of God to us.
Now God is Three in One. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—one God. The Holy Trinity. Today we’re going to see another holy trinity—the trinity of marriage, life, and family. These aren’t optional things in this life. They are foundational things. They are who God is. He is the one who marries us, the one who gives us life, and He is our holy, Trinitarian family. God made marriage and family as a picture and reflection of who He Himself is.
Now, of course, what happens when you get a breakdown of marriage and family across the board? Well, for one thing, you see a breakdown in society. Yes, that’s a problem and we see them happening like abortion, rise of suicide, rise of drug problems, rise of mental illness, crises of meaning and identity. These are all happening. But it’s even bigger than that. You get a breakdown of faith. Marriage and family help us to see who God is and honor Him. Without them, we get a very distorted view of God—or no view of Him at all.
So let’s start with marriage. If you see a husband and wife married for 60 years still putting up with each other, taking care of each other, loving each other—you see a picture of God whose steadfast love endures forever. I used to go visit a husband and wife in assisted living and I’d take them the Lord’s Supper every month. They were married many years, had to be at least 60 years or so. And they were always waiting and ready for me in the little library room every time I’d come. Well, she was losing her memory pretty bad. I’d sit down and within a minute she was telling me the same story from her childhood that she had told me 40 times already. About giving a pastor a ride on her horse when she was a kid growing up in the prairie. And I assume her husband had heard this story about a thousand times. Yet never, ever, ever in all my times with them did he ever tell her or ask her to stop telling that story. Never was he embarrassed by her. In fact, he kept listening to her.
Now I’m sure those two had their squabbles. All marriages do. But that’s the point. Husband and wife continue loving each other despite being sinners. They forgive. That is a picture of God’s love for us. It’s steadfast. He puts up with us. He forgives us. He loves us. And in marriage we see who He is.
Now on the flip side, what kind of picture do you get of God from something like couples divorcing without any real good reason whatsoever (no-fault divorce, basically we’re just tired of each other)? You get a God who might get tired of you and leave you. What picture of God do you get from cohabitation? You get a God who says I’ll try you out and see if I like you enough but I don’t want to make any commitments to you that I might break. What picture of God do you get from a redefinition of marriage to include same-sex marriage? You get a God who is in love with Himself and wants to marry Himself.
This is why marriage isn’t optional. It’s foundational to who God is.
And then we have life—the procreation of children. What picture of God do you get when new life, a child, is born to a mother and father and loved by them? You get a picture of God the life-giver. He gives all life and then He is there to love and protect that life. That’s who God is. He gives life and then loves life. It’s a great mystery and yet we all know it’s absolutely true and good. When we see a baby born to a father and mother and loved by them we automatically say, “This is good and Godly.”
Now what picture of God do you get from abortion? You get a God who creates a life and then hates that life and destroys it. What picture of God do you get when you do tests on a baby in the womb and if the baby doesn’t match your preferences and isn’t as healthy as you’d like then you go for abortion? You get a God who only wants the best people in the world and doesn’t want you if you’re a “loser”.
What picture of God do you get when you start experimenting with babies in a lab, trying to make babies from three parents? Creating multiple embryos and freezing them for an undetermined time? You get a God who is just up there playing games with us.
Creating life within marriage isn’t optional. It’s foundational to who God is.
And then the third of the holy trinity—family. Some of you are extremely privileged to have gone to a major family reunion of some sort. Where there have been cousins and 2nd cousins and 3rd cousins and great-aunts and great-uncles and cousins once and twice removed and genealogies and diaries and pictures and laughing and story-telling and love. And what picture of God do you get when you’re surrounded by a massive group of people who all call you family? You see a great and wonderful picture of the family of God, the Holy Trinity, and all the brothers and sisters in Christ who have been redeemed and brought into the holy Church.
Now on the other hand, what picture of God do you get when you’re never really sure who exactly your family is. What happens when your father was a sperm donor and you never know him or any of your paternal family? What happens to your picture of God when you have step-family always moving in and out of the house and you might be family one day and not family the next? What picture of God do you get when you have any family that becomes “not family”?
Family isn’t optional. Actually, the connection of family provide the identity which we need to survive. Otherwise, we die. Family is foundational to who God is.
Now it’s not enough for me to stand here and tell you all the problems. You already know most of these problems. I’m telling you that we Christians have the answer to the problems. There’s never going to be a perfect marriage, perfect life, or perfect family. Because we are sinners. But they are pictures of something that is perfect—God Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So we do all we can to keep marriage, life, and family whole and good. But when they go awry, we call in the Fixer—the one who changes water into wine.
His marriage to us is perfect. He loves His bride the Church and He sanctifies her, makes us holy, through the waters of Holy Baptism. And dresses us up beautifully in His righteousness and feeds us with the feast of the Lord’s Supper. He is our perfect Husband no matter how badly we screw up marriage here below.
And the life He gives to us is perfect. He doesn’t just give life here on earth—He gives eternal life. And we may kill babies in the womb through abortion, but Jesus raises them up to eternal life in heaven.
And His family is perfect. Where human families here on earth fail and break and shatter—His family never fails. The Church of God, this family, brothers and sisters in Christ, will never break or shatter. And we are preparing for the greatest family reunion in heaven that the world has never seen the likes of.
He turns water into wine. He works all things for good. Where we sin against marriage, life, and family—Jesus comes in and makes wine with His love, forgiveness, and life. So Jesus help us to protect and defend marriage, life and family—and Jesus help us to find our true marriage, life, and family in Him even when they fail here on earth. In Jesus’ name. Amen.