FILL THE WATERPOTS WITH WATER

 A SERMON FOR THE 2ND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

We know the story.  Our blessed Lord has been invited, along with his Mother, to a wedding.  They’re at the reception and everyone is having a good time, when suddenly our blessed Lady notices that something very embarrassing has happened.  It was unthinkable that the bride and groom would not have provided enough wine to last everyone till the end of the feast, and yet, here we are, and she mentions it to her Son Jesus, “They have no wine.”  His response is not encouraging: “It’s none of our business,” he basically tells her.  “It’s not the time yet for me to reveal myself as the Messiah.” Our Lady doesn’t argue with him, she knows him too well for that.  So she orders the servants to just do whatever he tells them.

There then followed the third great Epiphany, or Manifestation, of the Son of God to the world.  And yet there were no great kings coming to present expensive gifts this time, as happened at the First Epiphany.  There were no fanfares, no voice from heaven proclaiming “Behold my Son”, as had happened at Jesus’ Baptism, the Second Epiphany.  For this third Epiphany, our Lord drew absolutely no attention to himself at all as he pronounced these most innocuous of words to the servants: “Fill the waterpots with water.”

He didn’t say, “Watch this folks, I’m going to perform a miracle!”  He didn’t gather the crowds around him to witness a spectacle.  He merely told them to put water into the waterpots.  What could be more insignificant than that?  What else would you put into waterpots other than water?  The servants must have wondered, why is this man telling us the obvious?  It would be as though, when we wake up in the morning, somebody is telling us to breathe, or telling us to drink something when we’re thirsty.  Not necessary, surely.  And yet, he speaks: “Fill the waterpots with water.”

For us who know the story, this doesn’t strike us as anything out of the ordinary.  In fact it doesn’t strike us at all.  After all, with the benefit of hindsight, we know he’s going to change the water into wine, so there’s the reason, obviously, why he’s telling them to prepare plenty of water.  Even for those servants who heard him that day, they were being told, as if they needed telling, that they should pour water into the waterpots.  Shrugging of shoulders, no big deal there!  And yet, without question, they filled the pots up to the brim.  Then, somewhere between that act of filling the pots with water and the moment when they poured some of the contents into the goblet of the wedding coordinator, the great miracle occurred.  Water became wine, and our Lady’s prayer had been answered.  And all were amazed, as Jesus publicly manifested his divine power over nature for the first time.

What happens in life when we are truly in need of something?  Most of the time, we aren’t even conscious of needing these essential things.  We only pray for them when we’re in danger of losing them.  For example, when is the last time you went to bed and prayed that there will be air to breathe when you wake up the next day?  And yet, air there is.  God provides.  We come to assume that our prayer in the Our Father will be granted, and that God will indeed “give us this day our daily bread.” We know it isn’t just about bread, but about all the real necessities of life, including the air we breathe.  And, yes, God does answer these prayers, and even when we don’t pray for them.  Only when we’re having an attack of asthma, or get a piece of food stuck in our throats, do we send up urgent prayers for air.  The truth is we don’t pray enough, and we’re not even grateful to God when he gives us even those very necessary things we haven’t prayed for. 

The same is even more true when we’re dealing with needs that aren’t so basic.  Maybe they’re not even needs, but just wishes, or perhaps something that would prevent us from being embarrassed, as in the Wedding at Cana, or from being inconvenienced, or something that would just make life that little bit better.  We human beings are very needful creatures, always needing something, or at least thinking we do.  Usually, we don’t pray for these little luxuries, and vaguely hope they will just happen.  We might wish for them even.  We think to ourselves, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could win the lottery…?” or “I wish I could afford to pay this bill or for that vacation, or lose weight, or stop smoking, or that the annoying guy at the office would be transferred”—the list is endless.  But often, we don’t actually pray for these things.  Maybe we think it beneath the dignity of God to grant our wishes, or maybe we’re just thinking about ourselves or even the good of our family and those around us, but we’re not thinking about God and how he rules over the laws of nature and is Divine Providence, how he can help us.

At times like this, isn’t it a wonderful thing that we have a Blessed Mother in heaven, who does our praying for us!  After all, it was certainly not our Lord’s decision to help out the embarrassed wedding couple.  Nor was it the wedding coordinator, or even the bride and groom themselves, who came running to Jesus, begging him to help.  They were probably too busy panicking and wondering where they could get some more wine real fast.  None of the above—it was our blessed Lady who saw their humiliation and simply pointed it out to her Son, “They have no wine,” even though he was already divinely aware of the problem. 

Thanks to all those prayers we make to her, all those “Pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death” prayers we make in the Hail Mary, she goes to bat for us even when we don’t bother asking.  She points out to Jesus what we need, and lo and behold, he gives us the graces to make these things happen.  When we can’t pay our bills, she merely tells him, “They have no money,” and somehow, we find a way out of our jam. She is always busy pointing out what she wants us to have.  When we fight and quarrel, she’s there to tell her Son, “They have no patience.” She’s not criticizing us, merely letting her Son know what virtue we need more of.  If only we knew all the ways in which she helps us! “They have no faith, they have no time, they have no more courage, they have no brains!”

And the graces come, and she will let us know somehow that now we need to do whatever God asks of us.  There will always be something, no matter how small, that we need to do for the miracle to happen.  Something small, something obvious perhaps—Fill the waterpots with water, don’t forget to buy a lottery ticket, eat more salad, pray for an increase of such and such a virtue, distract yourself in times of temptation…  Such little things, so obvious, and yet it is in fulfilling these little things that we cooperate with Mary’s prayers in God’s plan to help us.  We can’t win the lottery if we don’t buy a lottery ticket.  So from now on, let’s not just rely on our blessed Mother to take care of our needs.  We have to do our own part to find what we’re looking for.  “Fill the waterpots with water,” do whatever the good Lord asks of us, and we’ll find that in obeying, many astounding miracles will occur in our lives, and God will manifest forth once more his glory, that all may believe in him.