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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 and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

 

A reading from Isaiah   (62.1-5)

 

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

    You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

This is the word of the Lord.

    Thanks be to God.

 

Psalm 36.5-10

 

5    Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.

6    Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgements are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O Lord. 

7    How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

8    They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

9    For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

10       O continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your salvation to the upright of heart!

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, and is now, and ever shall be.  Amen

 

A reading from 1 Corinthians  (12.1-11)

 

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Let Jesus be cursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.

    Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

    All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

 

This is the word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

Listen to the Gospel of Christ according to St John   (2.1-11)

    Glory to you, O Lord.

 

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

    When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’

    And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’

    His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’

    Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim.

    He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it.

    When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’

    Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

    Praise to you, O Christ.

 

Reflection - AE

 

January is always a hard month, and somehow for a lot of people these last few weeks have been especially hard.

 

People are still recovering from the floods and gales.  There’s been a lot of personal grief among many families locally, and globally things look precarious and especially worrying.

 

At the same time, though, in Syria at long last there are signs of openness to stability, and hopefully despite things going badly this morning we might see improvement in Gaza

 

Locally, I’ve seen a lot of goodwill and kindness helping people through various difficulties.

 

And at the very least, the snowdrops and hellebores are doing their best to cheer us up.

 

This reading from Isaiah is all about the joy that can emerge after even a long period of pain.

 

There are undoubtedly phrases there that sound odd to us; ‘So shall your builder marry you” conjures a different image in 2025 to the one Isaiah intended - but this is about the Hebrews being brought back to Israel, back into God’s love, from a long exile;  the Creator embracing again his most beloved people;  its about God bringing the abundance of joy that comes out of scarcity, having something wonderful after maybe having nothing at all, the glory and peace that comes after pain and suffering.

 

The lovely, slightly odd story of the wedding at Cana has the same purpose.

 

There is the obvious point that from a scarcity of wine Jesus conjured up an abundance, but there is more to it than that.

 

This was Jesus’s first miracle, right at the beginning of his ministry, and there’s this funny little conversation between him and Mary, significant even if only as one of only a very few times recorded in the bible where Mary spoke.

 

It’s similar to any conversation any slightly bolshy lad, out with his mates, might have with Mum if she suddenly appears and starts being a bit Mumsy.

 

“So what?  Not my problem, and what can I do about it?”

 

I’m quite sure Mary sighed, probably rolled her eyes, and, like Mums the world over, took no notice at all.

 

Clearly she knew something Jesus was not admitting to, and we have nothing in any of the gospels to suggest he had already shown signs of any special power, but there are other writings, not in the bible, that justify Mary’s confidence.

 

There’s a lovely, unverified story of Jesus as a child, whittling a stick into the shape of a bird, then bringing it to life to fly away.

 

So, probably with more eye-rolling, Jesus got up, super cool, probably said, “Oh alright then,” and went off to sort the problem out.

 

And he sorted it out with such exuberance, confidence, generosity, brio, call it what you will, that if that wasn’t God we were talking about it you could be tempted to call it showing off.

 

Not just a few bottles of wine to see everyone through, but something like 150 gallons.

 

Of wine that was fabulous.

 

Abundance out of scarcity on a scale that his mates probably laughed out loud at, and we still can’t help smiling two thousand years later.

 

And also, right from the beginning of his ministry, showing his intention to bring abundance and joy out of grief for all of us.

 

He later said, “I am come, that you may have life in all its fullness.”

 

Fullness, richness, all its glorious, multicolour variety.

 

Sadly, while we are here on earth, that fullness will include January, and also February, and war and famine, and personally it will include grief.

 

But God really wants us to feel joy too.

 

Life as Jesus describes it means much more than our lives here on earth.

 

There will be joy here, alongside the grief, even if at the darkest times that seems impossibly hard to imagine.

 

And in the life Jesus speaks of, the eternal, made possible for us by his own, human, grief, death and divine resurrection, there will be glory, peace and unending joy.

 

I know that when we are in the middle of grief that is almost impossible to see.

 

But maybe that is the purpose of snowdrops.

 

Amen

 

God of glory, you nourish us with your Word who is the bread of life:  fill us with your Holy Spirit that through us the light of your glory may shine in all the world.  We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.