Today's Gospel

Turn Your Shortage into Abundance

“We've got a shortage up in here." That's gotta be what Mary was thinking. She's at the party, the week-long festival that was common for weddings back then, and Mary discovers they're out of wine. What a disaster for the host. What kind of party is that? That means the party's over. But isn't it interesting that Mary doesn't hesitate? Not for a moment. She goes directly to Jesus and says they have no wine. She has no doubt. She's certain that he will do something. She just knows that Jesus will intervene, and that makes sense, really. I mean, she knows that nothing is impossible with God. That's what the angel Gabriel told her at the Annunciation.

There is no such thing as an unsolvable human problem. Nothing is impossible with God. And she must have known it at the moment of Jesus' birth and in raising him, she knew Jesus, he's not ordinary in any way. So she says to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." She knows. Jesus can do something about this shortage up in here. The gospel doesn't tell us very much about how Jesus did it. It might seem trivial or silly for Jesus to begin to show his power in public in just the second chapter of the Gospel of John by providing 150 gallons of wine. But boom! He simply instructs them to fill the water jars, there's six of them, with water.

150 gallons. We don't know where the water comes from, we don't know how long it takes, but we do know that once it's accomplished, the water has miraculously become wine. Now I've been to a lot of parties and I've been to a lot of weddings and I've seen guests that you can't control. I mean, I was in a fraternity. I saw a streak or two. I've seen people doing odd things at weddings. I've been to a wedding where Father Diego, the dancing priest, stole the show. But Jesus at a wedding takes it all. Jesus does the miraculous. He takes what by all appearances looks like a shortage and he turns it into abundance. In verse 3, no wine. In verse 8, 150 gallons.

He instructs them to draw some out to take it to the master of ceremonies. And the wine steward is astounded and surprised that the groom has decided to serve the best last. Not knowing that the groom had no plans at all. Even more amazing is that the wine Jesus makes is even better than the best. In other words, Jesus not only produces an abundance of wine, he produces the best there is, gallows finest. Jesus with little or nothing to work with can create better than the best we have. But I want you to notice verse 11. He did this the first of his signs.

The first of his signs, it's just dropped in there by John very matter-of-factly as if we knew off the top of our heads that, of course, Jesus did seven signs in the Gospel of John to reveal his glory. But when you look at them from the smallest to the greatest, this water into wine is the smallest of them all. His first sign is the water into wine. There was a shortage of wine. The second one, the desperate royal official's son, is healed because his father asks, "There's a shortage of hope." The third sign, there's a paralytic lying beside the pool at Bethsaida, and he's been trying for 38 years to be healed. There's a shortage of health. Then you have the feeding of 5,000 people, and the disciples wonder where they're going to buy food. And there's only five loaves and two fish from the little boy. There's a shortage of food solved with 12 baskets left over.

Then they're in the boat. The disciples are in the fifth sign. They're fearful. There's a storm. They think they're going to capsize. Jesus comes walking on the water because they have a shortage of faith. The sixth sign, there's a man born blind in John chapter nine, and Jesus heals him. And there's a shortage of sight that becomes a thing of the past. But then in the greatest sign of all that reveals Jesus' glory, the climax, the seventh sign in chapter 11. His good friend Lazarus dies, but that's no shortage to Jesus. Jesus goes to the tomb. Do you get it? There's a shortage of life. And he commands them to roll away the stone. Do you get it? Lazarus' sister, Martha, says, "It's going to smell in there, Jesus. He's been in there for days." And Jesus says, "Prepare to see the glory of God. Lazarus, come out. Unbind him and let him go." No matter the shortage, no matter how great or how small, shortage of food, shortage of faith, shortage of wine, shortage of life, nothing is impossible with God. And Jesus is in the business of converting our shortages into abundances. A few years ago, I went on a mission trip with Life Teen in our parish and some other adult chaperones to Nicaragua, to the mustard seed site, a site where a Catholic ministry that serves children with special needs who are deformed, disabled, abandoned. In the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, these children are poor, vulnerable, and desperate. Years ago, Juan was found on the streets there and no one knows anything about him. No one knows about his parents, his background, he's unable to speak, he's mute. He has a severe, severe Down syndrome. The world sees him and they look at Juan and they see nothing but shortage. He literally has nothing. At the mustard seeds site there, once a week they have mass in the chapel with the kids. The priest comes and after mass, the kids do a Eucharistic procession around the chapel. The priest carries the host and the kids, disabled, deformed, abandoned, desperately poor, sing, shout, and dance behind him. And there in the front of the procession is Juan, Down syndrome, mute, unknown background, ring a bell with a huge smile on his face. As I watched him do that, in that Eucharistic procession, for a moment, I'm not sure where we were. For a moment, I thought we were on the stairway to heaven. Joy, sheer joy. There was not a shortage at all. It's a shortage to the world, but in the kingdom, there is an abundance. So I have a question for you. What's your shortage? What appears hopeless? Maybe it's something small like a habit that's become an addiction. What appears impossible? Something like a fractured relationship? What in your life appears unsolvable? Something missing that no one or nothing could possibly replace. Now, it may seem like a small thing to you and me to bother the Son of God. We're embarrassed to say, "Jesus, we got a little wine problem over here. We got a shortage up in here." But Mary sees a shortage and she doesn't hesitate. She goes directly to Jesus because she knows that Jesus cares about the details of her life. And with Him, nothing is impossible. Here we are where there had been 150 gallons of water, and now there's 150 gallons of beautiful wine. And it tells us why. Jesus does this not to impress people, not to prove anything, but simply to reveal His glory. Where we see hopelessness, Jesus envisions abundance. And when He does, His glory is revealed. So let me ask you, what's your shortage? Abundance, thy name is Jesus.