The Signs of Christ

2 Epiphany C          January 20, 2019

Isaiah 62:1-5         Psalm 36:5-10       
1 Cor. 12:1-11      John 2:1-11 

  Lectionary Link

Believe it or not, priests can be mischievous; can you believe it?  I had a priest friend who was mischievous.  But my friend was special.  He was kind and generous and he loved to entertain.  One night he entertained the clergy and others, and at that time Absolut was the vodka of vodkas.  And he ran out of Absolut.  So he took the bottle into the kitchen and got a funnel and took out a plastic jug of cheaper vodka and filled the Absolut bottle and put it back on the bar.  Just a bit later, the bishop's wife fixed herself a vodka drink.  She sipped it and immediately complimented the host for serving her favorite and best vodka.  And of course my friend had a wonderful twinkle in his eyes and kept it a secret.  She believed and confessed it to be Absolut vodka, even when it wasn't.  The sign on the bottle told her what she was drinking and she was thoroughly convinced even to the point of grateful confession.

At end of our Gospel reading for today, we read, "This was the first of his signs...."  The Gospel of John uses a different word for science defying acts of Jesus; John's Gospel uses the word, "semion" or sign.  Other Gospel writers use the words "dunamis" from which we get the word dynamite signifying the "power" of the deeds of Jesus.  Another word for the fantastic deeds of Jesus is the Greek word, "ergon,"  or works.  We know the English word "ergonomics."  Sign or "semion" fits in with the linguistic basis of John's Gospel.  Semiotics is the study of symbols and symbols are what communicate meanings within language.  Language itself is inseparable from the reality that it stands as a sign for.  Language itself is a metaphor.  Why?  Because we cannot say that we understand anything unless we first admit that we use and know language.  John's Gospel begins, "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God"....and the Word became particular flesh in the life of Jesus.  And this particular Word made flesh, Jesus, performed signs.  Biblical scholars believe that there was another document which they call the "Book of Signs" which has been redacted into the final edition of John's Gospel.

Semion or signs is totally consistent with Word as the foundation of human life as we know it.  A basic message of the Gospel of John is that Jesus is the Sign that God is with us.  The Gospel of John relates a variety of occasions for the signs of the presence of God with us.  The good news of John's Gospel is that no matter what happens to us, no matter what we are experiencing, Christ is with us as the complementing presence of God.  Christ lets us know that we are always, already totally connected with everything else.  And even though we live in the ocean of everything, we still have distinct and particular value to God.

John's Gospel was written very late in comparison to the other writings in the New Testament; some parts of it were redacted 5-6 decades after the early writings of St. Paul.  What we can find in the Gospel of John is a presentation of the spiritual mysticism of Paul in a narrative presentation of the life of Jesus.

In poetic ecstasy, St. Paul wrote, "Christ, is all and in all."  How can this be meaningfully true?  In John's Gospel, Christ is the Word who is God, who creates all and is in all.  If Word is God, then we who use language bear the image of God because we have and use language.  And since we use language we live in a symbolic order.  We give names to things which are not language.  As language users we are sign makers. We make signs which point to the important meanings of our lives.

The Gospel of John preacher believed that Jesus was a "sign maker."  And what does Jesus as the sign maker in the Gospel of John do?  He points to the most important meaning in the early church which was expressed very early by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans: Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The first sign of Jesus in John's Gospel seems rather trivial in scheme of things.  Mary, the mother of Jesus, was involved in helping to cater the wedding of a friend or family member.  And shock of shock, the wedding party ran out of wine.  What an embarrassment.  Mary couldn't say to Jesus,"Go to the 7-11 and get some more wine."  But mothers can be persuasive, even to make the Son of God begin an aspect of his public ministry before he wanted.  And so Jesus did his first sign.  "Jesus, why did you waste a miracle on something so trivial as wine at a wedding?"  Let's compare this sign to the others signs in John's Gospel.  Walking on water in the storm, helping the lame man, healing a blind man, multiplying the loaves and fish to feed thousands, being clairvoyant with the woman at the well, healing the son of a Royal official and raising Lazarus from the dead.  These other "signs" seem far more important than wine at the wedding.  What is the significance of this water to wine sign at the wedding in Cana of Galilee?

When is Christ with us?  In good times and bad times; in crises and in just everyday trivial matters of life, like running out of wine at the wedding.

What shall separate us from the love of God in Christ?  What about being stuck in a traffic jam on Highway 101?  Will that separate me from the love of God in Christ?  What about all of the frustrating inconvenient events that happen many times, each day in our lives.  Christ is with us before, during and after.

St. Paul wrote that nothing can separated us from the love of God in Christ.  And the Gospel of John presented the story in a format to prove this basic meaning of the Gospel.

Today you and I need to deal with the "signs" of Christ in our lives.  The signs of Christ does not mean that we will have science defying miracles happening around all of the time as proof of God's presence in Christ.  No, the signs of Christ involve accepting the fact that Christ is as present to us as us having language, because Christ is the Word of God from the beginning who accompanies us all of the time.  And with language we are sign makers because we speak our joy, our sorrow, our pain, human suffering and much, much more because the Word hidden within us is the very power of God in Christ working to make meaning of everything that happens to us.

I hope you are excited about the Gospel of John as I am.  I hope that you will embrace the fact that Christ as Word is present in you as you are a worded being, makings signs and creating meaning in everything that happens to you.

We as a parish are called to be at the work of making meaningful signs pointing to both the hidden and obvious presence of Christ in our lives now and in our future.  Let us not ask whether we are a successful parish or a failing parish?  Let us ask ourselves if we are accepting the signs of the Risen Christ in our midst, in the trivial event, in the crises and in the events of celebration.  Amen.