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Sermon: A Sermon for Epiphany

 
Preacher:
Chris Hollingshurst
Date:
Sunday 19th January 2025
Venue:
Guildford Cathedral
Service:
Cathedral Eucharist

Do you ever take notice of the Collect – the given Prayer for the Day? This week’s is a prayer that I love saying, because it sums up so much of what the Church holds to be true:

Almighty God,

in Christ you make all things new:

transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,

and in the renewal of our lives

make known your heavenly glory;

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

‘In Christ you make all things new….’.

In Christ – the incarnate, crucified, risen, ascended and glorified Lord - God makes all things new.  

God makes all things new in Christ the Incarnate One…   Out of Divine Love, God, in the person of Jesus takes on our flesh and lives our life that we might share with Jesus in the life of God.

God makes all things new in Christ the Crucified One…         Out of Divine Love, God, in the person of Jesus endures the worst of human attitudes and behaviour, until, being treated as a criminal, life is beaten, nailed and left to hang out of Jesus.

God makes all things new in Christ the Risen One…   Out of Divine Love, God, through raising the person of Jesus, reveals the resurrection which we are given for this life and in the next.

God makes all things new in Christ the Ascended and Gloried One… Out of Divine Love, as God welcomes the risen Jesus back to Heaven, the Church is given additional fresh understanding of the glory of God.

In Christ, God makes all things new.

Now if this sounds rather abstract, possibly a tad too neat for January when the world seems to be crazier by the month, today’s gospel illustrates these great theological truths in the everyday, untidily human, and very ordinary setting of a wedding in a poor village. 

It’s the story of a small celebration with which, almost certainly, Jesus has at least a community, if not family, connection.

It’s one of the most famous Bible stories, describing a miracle that some have struggled to understand - perhaps because nobody was healed, nobody was brought back from the edges of society and restored to the mainstream, and nobody was raised from the dead.

Yet it’s also one of the most famous Bible stories, having been referred to at most Christian wedding services for hundreds of years.

As the comedian Milton Jones says: ‘Of course, Jesus was a guest at a wedding in Cana. Although the number of times this is mentioned at weddings, he might be regretting it now….’ 😊

Famously the wine runs out – actually a disaster for the host. Famously Jesus’ mother asks him to do something about it – perhaps because it may have been the arrival of Jesus and his entourage of disciples which increased the demands upon the catering. 

Famously Jesus wants to stay in the background – he isn’t quite ready to embark on his ministry.  Famously he either sees that to spare community embarrassment he needs to do this, or he just decides to keep his mother happy – and water is changed into an abundance of superior wine, with a ridiculous quantity left over.

Famously, in Christ – here, in the actual bodily presence of Jesus – human inadequacy is transformed by divine action. Famously, he most unpromising of situations is not just repaired but renewed and restored to overflowing.

Famously, we catch a glimpse of the abundant generosity of God in Christ, offering fullness of life not just a theological concept but as a reality on the ground in small communities everywhere.

It is stating the obvious, but transformation requires there to be something to be transformed – so how does that happen?

Like the Corinthian Church we may be aware that we have been given gifts for use to the glory of God. Fair enough! Then let’s use them – so long as we recognise that it is the Giver rather than the gifts that makes the greatest difference.

However, there is something safe about that, isn’t there? About optimistically putting our best foot forward and using our gifts – the wine we have already been given? But what about those more watery part of our lives, and those parts of the Church and of the World, that leave us feeling rather less hopeful?

For if God is figuratively wanting to turn water into wine – if God is seeking, in the words of the Collect, to ‘transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of God’s grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known God’s heavenly glory’ - then all this goes a lot deeper. 

I wonder, can we offer to God in prayer and in practice those parts of our lives, and those parts of the Church and of the World, where the wine appears to have run out; where what was once joyful is now joyless?

How hard is it to admit to God, to others and ourselves, to emptiness and failure, to sadness and disillusionment, to pain and anger, to a lack of confidence and of faith - yes, to ‘the poverty of our nature’?

Hard though it may be, it’s at that point that the transformation begins. It’s at that point that lives are turned around, communities of faith are rebuilt, international relations begin to improve – and the effects of transformation begin to be seen.

What, I wonder, does God in Christ – the incarnate, crucified, risen, ascended and glorified Lord – want to make new in us?  

We pray:

Almighty God,

in Christ you make all things new:

transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,

and in the renewal of our lives

make known your heavenly glory;

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

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