Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Jan. 19, 2025 (Epiphany 2C)


Baptême du Christ (The Baptism of Christ, c.1437-1446), fresco by Fra Angelico (c.1395-1455). Museum of San Marco, Florence, Italy. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading: Isaiah 62:1-5

As we go through this liturgical season, we hear a series of “epiphanies” that manifest the divinity of Jesus to the world. Sunday’s Gospel tells of Jesus’s first miracle as told by John: changing water into wine for the wedding celebration at Cana. Sunday’s first reading comes from the final chapters of the Book of Isaiah. The exile is over. The people have returned to Jerusalem, to Mount Zion, where the ruins of the first temple lie in rubble, and a long, hard time of rebuilding lies ahead. “I will not keep silent … I will not rest,” proclaims the prophet. In words that set the scene for the Gospel’s wedding feast, Isaiah imagines Zion and the people as a bride and groom united in joy.

Psalm: Psalm 36:5-10

The passage selected for Sunday’s Psalm starts at verse 5, discreetly passing over several discouraging verses. We avoid hearing the psalmist lament the pain of being surrounded by wicked and deceitful people who fear neither God nor evil. Rather, we enter just as the song turns from sadness to chords of hope. In contrast with human wickedness, we sing, God showers us with amazing grace and abundant love. God’s protection and faithfulness come to us all, in that day and in this day.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

The second readings for the Epiphany season this year treat us to selections from three particularly beautiful chapters from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. This Sunday and next, we’ll hear Paul imagining the people of God as Christ’s body, with each member of the church enjoying certain gifts and being responsible for particular duties, much as each part of one’s physical body has its own function. The Christian community at Corinth, in Greece, probably consisted of fewer than 100 people; but it had plenty of issues with differences of opinion, arguments, and cliques that called for Paul’s pastoral voice in this letter sent to them from far away. It can be helpful to read 1 Corinthians through this lens.

Gospel: John 2:1-11


In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus met John the Baptist, was baptized, and assembled his twelve apostles. Now, in Chapter 2, they go out into the world. Their first stop is at a lively wedding feast, where John paints a picture of a gathering in which the wine flowed so freely that the host’s supplies quickly ran dry. When Jesus’s mother calls on him to save the situation, he complies somewhat grudgingly, turning water into new wine that’s much better than the old. This first of Jesus’s miracles (or “signs” as John calls them to highlight their broader significance) occurs at a social event of feast and fellowship, where this sign, John tells us, “revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”