Epiphany II

 
You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior
to reason, by entering into a state in which the Divine Essence
is communicated unto you."
(Enneads: Plotinus)
         
Illumination and enlightenment are the themes of Epiphanytide. Επιϕανια is the Greek word for Epiphany, and it means manifestation, revelation, showing, or shining forth. For Christians, Epiphany reveals God’s love, wisdom, and power in the life of Jesus Christ – the Divine Life alive in the humanity of Jesus and calling us Home to our Heavenly Father. It is like the sun that enables the eyes to see and to understand. Epiphany’s illumination enables our eyes to move from Christ’s humanity to His Divinity.  This illumination or enlightenment gives us knowledge but then also the desire for its power to repair and redeem us. The vision of God in Jesus Christ has power that rewards our desire with what is superior to reason.

Yet the light through which Christ reveals God’s life to us is not easily apprehended. If it could be, reason would understand it perhaps as swiftly as it assents to the proposition that two plus two makes four. But, as Plotinus reminds us, a faculty greater than reason is needed to apprehend God, discover His presence in Jesus the Man, and embrace His will. That faculty is called faith. Faith alone believes what it cannot prove and does not yet know. Take the example of the first moments of attraction to another. When a man is first drawn to a woman who arrests his attention, he is drawn to her both externally and visibly. He is intrigued with wonder. We might say that he has faith in something mysterious waiting to be discovered and known in his further pursuit of the woman. His faith believes that there is something worth finding out, knowing, and loving. His faith seeks to know and have what is above and beyond his reason.

God works in the same way. He calls us forward to search Him out with faith. Our faith believes there is someone to know and love. What is waiting to be discovered is the mysterious nature of God that is greater than our reason. We can find Him only if our faith believes in and trusts what can reward our curiosity and interest. If all that there is to know about Him were revealed externally, visibly, and instantaneously to the human mind, there would be no place for a faith that follows and a love that grows.   

In Epiphanytide, our faith believes that God is at work in Jesus Christ. We seek to know and love Him. Yet on the first three Sundays in Epiphany, we feel a degree of confusion. In our Epiphany readings, our faith follows but often misses the mark. We have not yet reached understanding. The Wise Men ask Where is He that is born king of the Jews? We have seen His star in the east and have come to worship Him, (St. Matthew 2. 2) They believe that they should find their king clothed in lace, lying on soft pillows, surrounded by gold in a palace at Jerusalem. Their faith must be corrected and adjusted to God’s wisdom if they are to find where He is because of wbo He is.
 Last Sunday we found that Joseph and Mary’s faith had failed also. Their weak and earthly faith believed one thing when they should have known another. And so, they lost their son. They hurried back to Jerusalem because they believed that He was lost, no doubt in some dark alley having been beaten by thugs. They sought Him out with more fear than faith and then were sore amazed with where they found Him and with what He was doing. Their faith was so weak that it took them three days to find Him. When they found Him, their fallen natures did all the talking. Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us, behold thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing. (St. Luke 2. 48) Negligence and incompetence are forever justifying themselves. His answer: Why is it that ye sought Me? Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business? (Ibid, 49) Mary and Joseph understood not the saying which He spake unto them. (Ibid, 50) Mary’s weak and foolish faith was rebuked. In response, She kept all these sayings in her heart. (Ibid, 51). 

Jesus is the Wisdom of God that is not self-evidently known or understood immediately. Jesus is also the Power of God who comes to transform the world. In today’s Gospel, some years later, Mary, having kept Jesus’ sayings in her heart, believes that, finally, she knows Her Son. Today she is with Him at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. The wedding party has run out of wine. She remembers the prophecy of the Angel Gabriel concerning Jesus. She knows and remembers the Divine wisdom in her twelve-year-old son when he rebuked her for her unbelief and ignorance. Now she believes that she knows Him. She will enlist His Divine power to furnish a marriage with added bliss. She tugs at his toga and says, Son, they have no wine. (St. John, ii. 3)She is a good Jewish mother and will not be embarrassed by her Son’s lack of response to an urgent need.  The Mother believes that Her Son can overcome every earthly need. She thinks that He should do so. Surely, He can use His Divine Power to forestall looming embarrassment for the bridegroom, his family, and herself.

But Jesus rebukes Mary. Woman what have I to do with thee, or Woman, what does this have to do with Me and thee? (Ibid, 3) The rebuke is needed because her faith is, as George MacDonald writes, unripe and unfeatured. This faith, working with her ignorance and her fancy, led her to expect the great things of the world from him. (George MacDonald, The Miracles of our Lord.)  Jesus rebuked his mother in the temple and will do likewise here. Mine hour has not yet come. (Ibid, 4) Jesus is calling Mary to consider a faculty far greater than reason. (Idem) He wants her to believe that He has not come into the world to turn water into wine in order to save men from earthly shame. Rather, He will turn water into wine as a sign that He alone can make what is common into something extraordinary and something earthly into something heavenly. He will turn water into wine as He turns sin into righteousness and death into new life. 

Mary believes that Jesus is the Son of the most high God. His rebuke is just and good. She steps back into heavenly formation: Whatsoever He says, do it. (Ibid, 5) Mary must trust in Jesus’ knowledge, initiative, and timing. Jesus commands the wedding staff to fill the waterpots with water. (Ibid, 7) Jesus continues:

Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now. (Ibid, 8-10) 
 
Jesus’ nature and mission must be discovered by men who can taste the difference. God and His Son never enforce virtue. Most men will drink the wine and get more drunk, not knowing what has transpired. The governor of the feast, however, is situated spiritually to sense what has happened. The governor of the feast, responsible as ever for both the encouragement of happiness and its potential spoilation, was in command of his senses. It is for the governor’s benefit that the miracle is performed. The ground of his soul is ripe for conversion.

Of course, today’s miracle is a sign and symbol of what Christ always intends to do with us. If we are in search of miraculous earthly solutions to earthly deficiencies, we are far too drunk on earthly things to see how Christ the Light longs to bring new spiritual wine into our fallen lives in this holy season of Epiphany. Christ Jesus is the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor. i. 24) He comes to put new wine into new bottles. (St. Mark ii. 22) The Blessed Virgin Mary had to learn not to provoke her Son to action until His hour had come. The Governor, too, we will notice, did not send the servants out to purchase more wine. As far as we know, he might have thought that the guests had already had quite enough and needed no more. The Governor’s earthly prudence was ripe for discovering who Jesus was and where He dwelt.

Jesus insists, Mine hour is not yet come. (Ibid) For now, He might provide earthly wine or not. Whatsoever He says, we must do it. We must believe in order to know. His Hour does not yet come until He acts, and we interpret. God in Jesus Christ never neglects our prayers but answers them as He will and when He will. With St. Paul this morning, we must discover that Christ knows the gifts of each man in relation to His mercy. Mary’s gift of discerning His power must be adjusted to His timing. The servants’ gift of serving must offer what they can in human terms –water or nature’s substance. The governor offers the gift of his sobriety. Jesus responds with His intention to perfect them all.

We believe that Jesus saves the best wine until last. Mary, the servants, and the governor will discern the difference. The marriage feast had run out of wine. Have we run out of wine? Have we been depleted of earthly things that can promise no lasting happiness? Until we have, Jesus’ provision of wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee will not point to anything more than earthly mirth. With the governor of the feast, may our minds and senses be ready for the Epiphany season’s revelation of the spiritual conversion that Christ intends to bring about in us.
 
Amen. 
©wjsmartin