3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
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The question many people seem to ask here is why is Jesus’ first miracle to make wine (and it is wine; it is not grape juice![4]) for people who have already had quite a bit to drink. If they had roadside check stops in those days, I probably wouldn’t recommend that any of them drive home.
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The questions that strike me though are: Why is Jesus’ mother even asking Jesus to do something about the fact that they have run out of wine? Why doesn’t she ask Jesus AND his other brothers who are there? Why just Jesus? Does she expect him to do some kind of a miracle? Has Jesus done something similar at home before? In the context of the Bible here (John 1-2), it has only been in the last few days before this wedding that Jesus has even just acquired his first disciples – he probably doesn’t even have all of the twelve yet; did his mom expect Jesus to send these disciples to do something or did she know already (before he had ever performed any public miracles; this is the first one remember) that he could and that he would perform miracles such as this – making wine at a wedding.[5]
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Another question I have pertains to Jesus’ response to his mother’s inquiry. When asked by his mom to do something, he says: “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come,” To this my dad would respond, if I ever uttered such a phrase, “is that anyway to speak to your mother?” Aren’t we supposed to honour our mothers and fathers? How honouring is this response?
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And another question that I have relates to Mary’s response then to Jesus comments here. Mary asks him to solve the wine problem in whatever way he will solve it. Jesus replies in such as way as one might infer that he is refusing to help his mother: “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.” But this does not faze his mother at all; she seems to ignore his objections all together and says to the servants, “do whatever he tells you”? Why isn’t Mary fazed by Jesus? Why does she seem to completely ignore his response to her as if he is a toddler or a child protesting for the sake of protesting?
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Can you imagine the scene here at the wedding then. The wine has just run out. It is a potentially devastating situation for the bridegroom and his family and Mary and Jesus are having this little discussion as recorded in verses 3-5.
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The questions then arise, of course? What is the author of the Gospel of John leading to in this story? What is the text doing? And more importantly: what is God doing here in the story?
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Read the whole address to the corps on-line here (including some answers to questions): http://www.sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2013/01/john-21-12-and-they-believed-in-him.html
