The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, All Saints
Trinity Season • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend: and they said unto him, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him’.
In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where, earlier in John’s Gospel, he had made the water wine; where he had exclaimed, “My hour is not yet come;” where he had performed, according to John, the first of his signs.
In today’s reading, Jesus comes to Cana again to perform, as John describes it, the second of his signs.
There are many ways to talk about the structure and themes with the Gospel of John: the seven signs; the three passovers; the way in which the Gospel follows the Jewish festival calendar; the importance of the word “hour” and the word “life” for John; the “I Am” statements; the theme of creation (In the beginning was the Word), and so on. Where to start in a six-minute sermon?!
Well, one thing I’ll say is that I’m glad that the readings were from the Authorised version and that it translates plainly from the Greek that the feaver left the official’s son at the seventh hour, rather than the NRSV in which the fever leaves him at 1 in the afternoon. 1 in the afternoon being 7 hours after the first office of the day at 6 am. So, 1 in the afternoon isn’t untrue but it hides an important word.
It is no coincidence that John specifies that it was the seventh hour. All of the signs in John point to what the death and resurrection of Jesus is acheiving; the beginning of a new creation, a new seven-day creation week, so to speak.
In this section of John, bookmarked by the two scenes at Cana, the first and second sign, the water into wine and the healing of the offical’s son, in this section comes the first passover in John’s Gospel. In John’s reordering of chronological events, Jesus’s cleansing of the temple happens at this first passover where Jesus overturns the tables of the traders in the temple who have made God’s space a place for the strong to profit from the weak.
Just like on the Jewish day of atonement where an unblemished goat was sacrificed to cleanse the Holy of Holies which, throughout the year, had slowly become infected by the stain of sin in the community. Even here, the place reserved for God to come amongst God’s people, was not immune from the affects of sin and had to undergo a baptism of sorts. An unblemished goat was sacrificed, not to bear the people’s sin but to cleanse the temple - the goat which bore the people’s sin was the goat which wasn’t killed but was sent into the wilderness - this unblemished goat had to be free from the stain of sin as its sacrifice and spinkling of life-giving blood somehow made God’s space clean. Just so, Jesus “makes clean” God’s temple, making room for God to dwell there again by overturning the the unjust treatment of the poor. This, of course, points to what Jesus’s work on the Cross is doing for the world. Cleansing the holy places for God to come dwell there again. A baptism through death so to speak.
The opening bookend to this section of John was the first sign at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine, Baptism into Eucharist. At the closing bookend, the second sign at Cana, a boy is given life, and given life at the seventh hour. Baptism turned into Eucharist and a new form of life brought to a child. I’ll leave you to ponder that connection futher.
The way the boy is given life? From a fever leaving him at the seventh hour. Like the cleansing of the Holy of Holies, the death of Jesus cleanses the stain of death from the boy’s body. A stain which has been brought into the world by the corporate sin of humanity.
Like the boy, we look to the redemption of our bodies. A redemption which will require us facing our own “seventh hour.” Allowing the thoughts of our minds, the words of our lips, and the desires of our hearts to be cleansed by the sacrifice of Jesus.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.