Did Jesus Have an Eye-rolling Moment?

 2 Epiphany C January 19, 2025
Isaiah 62:1-5 Psalm 36:5-10
1 Cor. 12:1-11 John 2:1-11

Lectionary Link

Do some people get moved to tears while listening to Beethoven's Ninth?  Yes.  Does everyone who listens to Beethoven's Ninth get moved to tears? No.  Should everyone who listens to Beethoven's Ninth be moved to tears?  That is a very aesthetic question and even if from one's own preference one thinks everyone should cry at the performance of Beethoven's Ninth, such preference cannot make it happen or even prove that it happens for the same reason for everyone who is driven to tears.

But it is historically true to say that some people are moved to tears by listening to Beethoven's Ninth.

In a similar way it is historically true to say that many people in the last two millennia have had what they call experiences of the Risen Christ.  One can characterize such experiences as mental illness and provide endless alternate explanations for such experiences, but only by denying what those who have such experiences say themselves about them.

The Gospels are not written "autographs," which is to say we do not have any original copies.  And scholars think that original is misleading in the sense that there was a single inspired Gospel writer who took dictation from beginning to end of each textual production.  What is more likely is that the Gospels represent writing process within various communities at different times, and the process represent re-editing and redactions to fit the many various situations in which the traditions about Jesus of Nazareth were brought to provide community identity.  The earliest copies of some New Testament book date from the late second century and we are uncertain about what specifically happened in the textual process for nearly 150 years, with the fullest early copy of the New Testament that we have did not occur until around 350.

The textual transmission process of the Gospel might be what in legal testimony would be called a series of hearsay.  So and so said that Jesus did and said this to so and so who said that a previous person said that Jesus did and said this, and on and on until various forms of this hearsay comes to text as a technology of memory to preserve it in some final way through the written word.

The writer or writers in the textual tradition of the Gospel of John can be said to be persons who claimed to have experiences of the Risen Christ, or experiences of what they called a new birth, being born of the Spirit.  The writers of the textual tradition of John's Gospel had probably read the other Gospels but decided for the promulgation of the witness of a Christ identity within their community, they used decidedly different presentations.  No parables, but signs and attending long discourses from the mouth of Jesus.  The mystical sub-text of the writers of John's Gospel is this:  The Risen Christ experienced through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a telling Sign of God to you, to us within all of the probable conditions that can come to us.  Life narratives of Jesus are presented as parables explicating the Sign of the presence of the Risen Christ in the array of what might happen to us in life.  And the physical aspects of the story are not literal; they embed the spiritual meaning of Christ in us, the hope of glory.

And where can the signs of Christ be found?  In illness, in being paralyzed and unable to walk, in the sickness of one's child, during the storms of nature, in the death of one's family member, in the hunger of the masses, in blindness, in being thirsty...all of these conditions are portrayed in John's Gospel as human situations which can know the presence of the Risen Christ.  And these are very serious conditions indeed.  But all of life does not consist of serious conditions, most of life consists of the mundane, the quotidian, the ordinary, the drudgery, and lots of small frustrating things, when even the trivial matters seem to conspire against us.  Someone took my parking space and I was late.  My child is heart broken for losing his basketball game.  There was a hundred dollar mistake made on my utility bill....life is made up trivial stuff that is not life threatening, but only irritating in upsetting what we would wish or desire.

So, it is very interesting that John's Gospel begins with the first sign being on the scale of human priority, a very trivial thing.  The wedding party ran out of wine.  Boo hoo, big deal.  It might make one be a little cynical, like we feel when the football players and basketball players thanking Jesus for helping them win the games, the same Jesus who let their opponents lose the game.  If winners need to thank Jesus for success in the trivial then so do the losers, because winning and losing is all the same as to whether the Risen Christ is present.  The cynic might think, well Jesus is taking up all his time tending to lottery winners, bingo winners, game winners, beauty contest winners, and just letting those poor children starve in terrible conditions throughout the world.

One wonders if Jesus is not presented as having an "eye rolling" moment with his mother when she asked him to take care the wine shortage.  "Mom, if they already finished the wine, they are drinking too much and they do not need to drink anymore.  Shouldn't they be cut off?  And when does a rabbi have to supply the liquor?  I guess it has to do with that commandment to honor one's mom and dad?"  I can imagine Jesus changing water to wine in the minds of the drinkers who had drunk too much and who really needed to be hydrated with the best refresher of all, yes, water.

The seeming water of ordinary life needs to accompanied by the inward eternal Word to inform meaning purpose of life and existence.  We don't have to live in the external world bereft of it being vivified by the accompanying imaginations of an Inner Word life which excites, inspires, and imparts the kinds of meaning which make life worth living, words of love, hope, kindness, connection with others and with our best human vocation.

The Sign is knowing the Accompanying Risen Christ as the interior Eternal Word within oneself that can always already give us wonderful attending Meaning to the purpose of our lives, in the small crises of life and in the major crises of our lives.

John's Gospel proclaims that the Risen Christ is the interior Eternal Word of God which is able to come to meaningful expression within all of what might probably happen within our lives.

So, today again we pray, Eternal Word of God, be the great Sign in our lives today as we traverse the trivial and the great and everything in between.  Amen.