Wedding Homily for Dan and Susan

A reading from Jeremiah 29: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.

A reading from John 2: 2:1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.


Dan and Sue,

Jeremiah’s words must have sounded mighty strange to those who first heard them. As everything was crashing down around them, enemies surrounding the city, destruction within and without, everywhere they turned something worse waiting to happen. And yet the prophet comes into that hopeless moment with a word of promise: God’s plans for them included a future, a hope; they would call and He would hear their prayer. Against all that they could see and all that their reason told them they could expect, God plops down a promise pregnant with hope.

And here you are. You’ve both known some rather sad and trying moments. You’ve both no doubt wondered what on earth plans God could have for you. You might have even settled down to the way things were and thought that was how they’d always be. And along comes the Lord with His surprises and here you are together and He reminds you that He always had for you a future and a hope, that He meant you good and not evil all your days.

But even in the good gift of your marriage, the trying moments come along. The wine runs dry. To the couple in today’s reading, that would have been a huge social embarrassment. But there’s more there than that. There come times in every relationship where it seems the wine runs out, the sparkle, the delight is gone. And it’s just plain ordinary water. And you wonder again: “What was God’s promise about a future and a hope? Where’s the joy?”

Follow Mother Mary. She leads you in the right way. She takes the problem to her Son and dumps it in his ear. “You will call upon me and come and pray to Me and I will hear.” “They have no wine,” she says. And when He pulls His “not my hour” business, she gives Him the look that says: “don’t try that on me. I know you, my Son, and I know you care. You are the one who provides Israel with a future and a hope!” And so she tells the servants: “Do whatever He tells you.” Those are the last recorded words of Mary in the New Testament.

What glorious counsel for your marriage! Do whatever He tells you! Trust in His promise for a future and a hope and sit back and watch Him work His stuff. For He does bless those who pray to Him and who wait and watch for Him to provide.

Not just wine. But the good stuff. So much that the steward is amazed that they’ve kept it back until all the guests are too, well, RELAXED, to really enjoy the difference. With the Lord, the gifts keep on giving, and they transform what is ordinary into what is utterly extraordinary. His gifts give you a future and a hope.

That future and hope is not merely for this life. The One who binds you together today in marriage has a bigger future and hope for you than you will have time for in this world. He is the One whose cross and death, whose resurrection and ascension have opened wide to you, his baptized children, a future bright with eternity: a home where you will always be welcome and where the joy of being together will never come to an end.

Having such a future and such a hope before you changes how you live together as man and wife, just as it changed how Israel faced her troubles. You can go forward into the future with the utter joy of knowing what waits you at the end. The One who made the water into wine accompanies you all the way, and at the end is His great Feast, of which you may have a foretaste even now in His Supper.

Living together under His promises, your life will shine in witness to the hope you have in Him, and He will have use of you to lead others into the joy of His future, of His promises. As you turn to Him and learn to bring to Him your every need, He will answer you in ways you’ve not begun to dream. To Him be glory forever with His unoriginate Father and all-holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages! Amen.