Our Lord's timing is always impeccable. It amazes me, although it shouldn't anymore. Earlier this week, the lead story for the Morris paper said DENCO was closing temporarily and therefore laying off almost all their workers. I heard that Wilkens Industry had also reduced operations and was forced to lay off people.

I was wondering when we were going to start to feel the economic downturn here in this area. Now it's hitting. I'm afraid it may affect other places here as well, leading many people and families to fear for the future. We talked about this at council and I asked what we could as a congregation could do for some of those families. We talked about helping them like with food shelves and other things-and that will probably come-but I had in mind more what kind of hope and comfort do we have to offer these people. The answer to my question came as soon as I looked at the text assigned for today.

In our text, Jesus goes to a wedding and there meets the need of the bridal couple. What can we take from this for ourselves, and for those who are scared? What would the Lord have us hear based on this text? Just this: He honors families and has promised to take care of His own.

Think about what this text means for marriage and family. We know Jesus is God in the flesh. We saw His baptism last week, and we saw all three persons of the Trinity. The Son standing there with the water still beading off the ends of his hair; the voice of the Father, shaking the earth to its foundations with a message that brings comfort to us at all time, but especially in our darkest moments; and the Holy Spirit, as a dove, drifting down, resting on Him, showing that He is truly the anointed One.

Yes, God has finally come to earth. God has taken on flesh. He is walking around now. He wears sandals and robes. He brushes his teeth. He goes to bed and sleeps. He eats and occasionally bread crumbs dribble out of his mouth, especially if He should find something funny. Yes, God has subjected Himself to the same weak and silly things we have to endure. He might even laugh and have goat milk come out of his nose. So, yes, God is in the flesh.

What does He like? What does He approve of? What does He disapprove of? Watch what Jesus does. Whatever He does shows what God approves because Jesus is God. And what's the first thing Jesus does after He has begun His ministry, and everything is being observed? He goes to a wedding.

Does God approve of marriage? Most definitely. He instituted it. And now He attends a wedding. That alone says a lot.

More than simply attending, it's His first public action. And even more than that, it's His first miracle. And that first miracle is to provide for a new couple. At the beginning of this new family, the Lord shows that He not only approves of marriage but that He will provide.

Sometimes it may not seem that way. Sometimes as families, you may be tempted to say, "The Lord has forgotten about us. Times are too difficult. We can't make ends meet." But do they ever not meet, when you look at it closer? Are you ever left without the necessities? You may have to tighten your belt, and not live as you might like, but have you ever been supplied with so little you could not survive? Even during the Great Depression, God's people survived.

You may feel other challenges in your family. They may not be financial, but emotional, relational. The fact that the Lord turned the water into wine supplying for this family, still says He will help you through it. He saw their difficulty, and met their need.

This is far from saying, "He will bless you with untold riches." It's true. Untold riches. The Lord will give you more than you ever desire or deserve or even imagine, but it won't necessarily be in material things as we might wish. Even now, here at worship, you are given forgiveness and the gift of eternal life through Christ, simply because the Lord wants to give it to you. These are gifts better than any of us deserve, but we may not think it has as much value because we can't put it in the bank or get insurance for it.

But we don't need to think this means He won't supply our bodily needs. He honors marriage and family. He has said so. He has also shown it.

Unfortunately, this word of hope doesn't apply to those who set up families counter to His direction. A man and a woman living together, no matter how much they may love each other, can not ever hope to have the blessings of marriage if they are not married. If they have children, but still do not seek the blessings of the Lord as He has promised to give in marriage, then they have no hope to offer their children.

Here is where we see Jesus showing us God's disapproval. When He spoke to a woman who was living with her boyfriend, He made it clear this wasn't acceptable. Jesus also repeated the same things He had said in the Old Testament about divorce, saying they were a result of sin-not that the people couldn't be forgiven-but He hated divorce.

Gay marriages are a special case. He never said a word for or against them, and people who consider it merely an alternate lifestyle will point that out. That's true. He didn't. Homosexuality, however, is not new in the 20th and 21st century. People practiced homosexuality back in the time of the Old Testament. The Lord said he disapproved back then, but people nowadays say, it can't be helped. They are born that way.

If so, if it is the same as hair or eye color or height, it would be tragic to condemn them. But God, the one who had spoken against it in the Old Testament, had come to earth. He had the chance to straighten out the record. If it is simply something people are born with and is as morally neutral as hair color or height, then He could straighten it out. His poor creatures who would be horribly harassed, because of their strange life style would be spared of all the harassment. (Pause) But He didn't. He let people continue to think what He had said in the Old Testament applied to today (Pause), because it does.

But a marriage between a man and a woman, to be entered until one of them dies, to this He gives His approval. And not just His approval, he shows that He will give His blessing.

But perhaps even though He does His first public miracle at a wedding, that doesn't seem to be enough proof that He will take care of you, especially if your family situation doesn't quite match this one.

The panicky bridegroom, who along with his new wife, was the toast of the hour, was not the only bridegroom in attendance that day. Nor was this woman at his side, the only bride in the story.

Jesus, Himself, is a bridegroom. The Lord, throughout the Old Testament, frequently referred to His people as His bride and He as her husband. Now, His first miracle in this flesh He has taken, concerns a bride and bridegroom. Jesus has demonstrated, that He is none other than the one who spoke as a husband in the Old Testament.

The bride isn't just one person. It's a people, God's own people. You are a part of that bride. That bride is the church, not a congregation, but those who have been made believers. They are gathered into congregations where they can hear the Lord speak His Word and distribute His sacraments, but it is much larger than just what you see here.

You were made a part of her when God claimed you for His own. Madison just became a part of God's people herself. And all of us witnessed it. Now, just as you, she will have the confidence of knowing she is loved like a bride because of her baptism.

But simply being the bride doesn't bring the comfort as seeing what the bridegroom has done. He didn't just say He loved her. He doesn't just say He loves us. He makes it possible to love us, but laying down His life. He makes it possible by paying our bride price, which was His suffering and death. It's one thing to hear, "I love you." It's another to actually see it played out.

This is what our Lord has done. This is your proof that He will take care of you. He has laid down His life for you, His bride. Surely He is going to make sure you are given all you need. As further proof that He laid down His life, that His body was broken and His blood spilled for your sake, He offer the same in the wedding feast that takes place here at the chancel.

Perhaps we can't quite call it the wedding feast quite yet. It's a foretaste of the wedding feast that is to come. He comes here. He gives you life through His body and blood, but we are still in time. The wedding feast is a feast that takes place in eternity. He has yet to come and claim His bride, and bring us completely into eternity.

It's just like in the case of this couple, this man asked the woman to marry him. Then he promised he would come back after he had made arrangements for her and then bring her to his home to be his wife. All the friends and family of this couple, were now celebrating that the day had finally come for him to get his bride and make her his wife.

In the same way, Jesus hasn't come back to get us yet, but He has still spoken for us as His bride. To keep us going until He comes to take His home, He gives us this wedding feast foretaste to whet our appetite for the big one that will come when He returns for good.

In the meantime, as we struggle here on earth, we have the confidence of knowing He will take care of us and love us better than any only-human bridegroom loved His bride.

AMEN