A New Beginning

Life Sunday – 2025                                                                                       LSB #’s 802, 906, 861
Text – John 2:1
 
On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee...
 
A NEW BEGINNING
 
 
A wedding reception celebrates a new beginning.  When Jesus attends the wedding at Cana, He miraculously changes water into wine.  While water is necessary for life, wine is a Biblical symbol of joy.  By this miraculous sign, Jesus reveals that God has come to earth   in order to overcome the sorrow of our failures & our poverty.  Jesus is offering a new beginning.   
The Fall into sin had separated mankind from God.  At Jesus’ conception a marriage occurred between God & His creation.  Human flesh is once again united to the Holy Trinity.   At Christ’s conception, a new beginning was created for the fallen creation of God.  Yahweh has not forsaken His people.  We are not left dead in our trespasses & sins. 
The Heavenly Bridegroom has come, & by the shedding of His holy blood on the cross has made His Bride, the Church, glorious.   Though we now endure tribulation in a fallen world, we have a new beginning in Christ.  You & I have been united to a kingdom that will never end.  Now, each time we’re forgiven of sin is a new beginning.  Each time, we start with a clean slate. 
People suffering from post-abortion syndrome need that clean slate & new beginning.  Tens of millions have been harmed by abortion; not just the babies who lost their lives.   Women, & men also, have been haunted by nightmares, sadness, even depression.   The pro-choice crowd claims that the guilt comes from pro-life people who lay that guilt upon others. 
Certainly that can be true, but it’s also certain that it is not always true.   Think of it this way.  If you break your mother’s favorite dish, you naturally feel guilty, even when no one else is around to impose that guilt upon you.  If you can’t legitimately blame your guilt on someone else, how are you supposed to deal with it?  Many people suppress that guilt, which causes great psychological harm.  Post-abortion syndrome is very sad, & it is very real.  People who suffer from it need to hear that Jesus has washed their sins away.  Forgiveness is the only cure no matter what the sin may be.   All sins separate us from our holy Creator, but Jesus has paid the penalty for all the sins ever committed by all of mankind.   
Jesus died, & rose from the dead, so that you & I could have a new beginning.   Through the waters of Baptism, powered by the almighty Word of God, the Holy Spirit begins a new beginning.   There, God gives you a new identity as He calls you personally by name.   He promises His presence, His help, His mercy, & He makes us heirs of His glory. 
At the baptismal font, the one whose very life is a gift from God now receives the gift of a new beginning by water & the Spirit.  This new life will blossom into a glorious future,  one going beyond the tear-stained days  of this earthly life,  one that will go  far beyond death itself;  one that initiates us into God’s family  as beloved children of the Heavenly Father. 
 Satan tempts us, & our sinful nature tempts us, to place value on human life based upon the circumstances of this life.   However, our value to God the Father goes far beyond anything we accomplish here on earth.  Children of God have infinite value to their Creator because He creates each one of us, in His image, to live into infinity. 
Ending a life prematurely robs this world of the eternal worth & value of that human being.  Ending a life prematurely robs each of us of the eternal worth & value of that human being, even if we never would have met them here.  It’s that kind of truth that causes people, involved in promoting a specific abortion, to suffer from post-abortion syndrome. 
Once we receive the new beginning Jesus offers, the darkness always tries to draw us back into fear & confusion.  Even Christians have abortions because Satan draws them back into darkness through their fears.  They’re led to doubt that our Lord’s forgiveness is able to create the new beginning they’ll need if they give birth to God’s creation.  We should never mistake that phrase – God’s creation.  In spite of what evolutionists claim, no one is able to bring life into this world apart from the power of Yahweh.  Whenever a human life comes into existence, it is always by His will, even when that conception occurs outside marriage. 
With the conception of a child, that child’s new beginning always comes with the offer of a new beginning for the mother & father.  They need only turn back to their Lord & Savior for the strength & the wherewithal to continue on His path of their new beginning.  Ending the life of a child in the womb because it’s inconvenient is to refuse God’s offer. 
Whenever a man or woman feels guilty, because of their role in having a baby’s life ended, the guilt is another offer from God to receive His new beginning.  Our Lord allows guilt into our lives so we realize something is wrong.   If you put your hand into boiling water, the pain you feel is a warning that something is wrong.  Guilt & pain are meant to turn us around. 
Christ knows what it is to carry guilt & pain.  He carried all of our guilt to the cross   & He endured the pain there that was our due.   Whenever anyone turns back to Him, He welcomes them with open arms.  Then Jesus creates for them a new beginning.  That doesn’t mean there are never consequences for our sins, but they cannot harm us eternally. 
Keeping a child instead of ending the pregnancy is certainly filled with consequences.  Too often the church forgets that, & fails to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  God sent His Son to die for our failures as well.  Then, in Christ’s Word, in Holy Baptism, in the body & blood of our Lord given at Communion, there are real answers to real problems. 
The unbelieving world doesn’t see it that way because they have refused the new beginning of the Holy Spirit which would allow them to see.  They see forgiving sin as simply excusing it.   They try to overcome their failures, their sins, guilt & shame through self-help books, by denying that a fetus is human, or shrugging off sin by saying, “It’s okay.”   We live in a turbulent time.  The boundaries between right & wrong, good & evil, are blurred & even erased.  Many who hold positions of power have some responsibility in this, by making & enforcing laws that are entirely opposed to God’s Law & will. 
We ourselves have often turned a blind eye to the evil within us & around us.  We have failed to speak on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves.  Of this, repentance turns us back to our Creator.   A man whose name you will recognize said this:
“Once the Church’s voice is stifled in the public square, the role of culture-makers shifts to the secular realm.  The State will see this need & fill that need itself – in the name of national unity.  In the case of Nazi Germany, it realized that it was now the State’s educational role to create a unifying worldview for the nation…” 
Adolf Hitler spoke those words to a group of Nazi leaders in the year 1933.  If the Church – that is – if we as Christians do not speak,  if we allow our voices to be stifled in the public square – the State will take over (in many ways, has already taken over) the creation & molding of a new  secular society  where those in power tell the people what is good  & what is evil. 
Jesus calls us to be a light in this world of darkness.  He is the True Light, who shines that light into the dark places of the heart.  There is only One whom we follow, one Shepherd whose voice we hear, the One who can save & defend us, & teach us true right from wrong.  
An old Welsh hymn says: “I’d not seek a life that’s easy,   Gold & pearls so little mean;   Rather seek a life that’s joyful,   A heart that’s honest, a heart that’s clean.”   A heart that’s clean.  That’s what Jesus does for us.  He creates in us a clean heart.  He renews us by His Spirit.  Only in Jesus can we continue the battle against the devil. 
Only in Jesus can we fight this good fight for the lives of our babies, our children, the
elderly, the handicapped, the suffering, & those who are dying.  In Jesus, we can proclaim the dignity & value of human life.   In Jesus, the woman who’s been emotionally & physically scarred by abortion can find peace, forgiveness, & rest. 
In Jesus, each of us can know what it means to have God’s approval; to know we are forgiven of our sins, to have the promise & absolute assurance of eternal life in a better world – a world without sin, without abortion, without death – a world that you & I inherit by grace alone, through the holy blood of the Lamb who was slain & then raised from death to a new beginning. 
Our sins have already been punished in Him, on that cross.  Jesus bodily rose from the tomb so that we would know even death itself cannot harm those who belong to Jesus & trust in Him alone – for as He lives, so we live as well. 
Pastors who are afraid to speak of the sin of abortion cannot offer the only true solution – which is the same for all sins: turn back to Jesus & receive your new beginning!   In Christ’s blood, your sins & my sins, like fiery darts, are extinguished & harm us no longer.   The wedding at Cana is much more than the account of Jesus attending a nice country wedding.  
The changing of water into the very best wine is a sign of who He is & what He has come to bring.  It means that God is now with us.  It points to Christ as Messiah, Savior of the world, who alone can erase our sins & make us free to be who we were meant to be.  Jesus Christ alone is the One who can save us from all our fears.  
On this day, when the Church observes the wedding at Cana, we also observe LIFE SUNDAY.  How appropriate!  The LORD of LIFE, who gives to us our very breath, is the Lord who turns water into wine, who fashions a new creation, who draws joy from sadness, who forgives sin & brings us forth as new people in the life-giving spring of our baptismal bath. 
A new beginning!  Water into wine.  Joy at the Wedding Feast to come, when Jesus, the
Bridegroom, welcomes His Bride, the Church, into the halls of victory & triumph.  Then we shall sit at the festive table with the King, who shall fill our cups with the very best wine & say, “Come, …inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  (Matthew 25:34 ESV) 
Yes, our God is the God of Life, & in Christ, each day He offers each of you a new beginning that will never end.  Amen. 
 
 
This day at earth’s creation the light first had its birth; this day for our salvation Christ rose from depths of earth; this day our Lord victorious the Spirit sent from heaven, & thus this day most glorious a threefold light was given. This day, God’s people meeting, His Holy Scripture hear;   His living presence greeting, through bread & wine made near. We journey on, believing, renewed with heavenly might, from grace more grace receiving, on this blest day of light. That light our hope sustaining, we walk the pilgrim way, at length our rest attaining, our endless Sabbath day.  We sing to Thee our praises, O Father, Spirit, Son; the Church her voice upraises to Thee, blest Three in One.  Amen.   LSB 906:2-4.