So, when I wrote the sermon on John 2 (Jesus turning water into wine), there was a topic I found fascinating, but didn't have time to get to in the sermon. If reading the exchange in this passage between Jesus and his mother made you go "huh?" you might want to read on...
There’s been a lot of discussion over the years about what
exactly Mary was trying to do by bringing this situation (the wedding hosts running out of wine) to Jesus. I think I grew up kind of assuming she was
trying to get Jesus to use one of his “superpowers” to rescue this family from
embarrassment the way Spider-Man might use his web to nab the bad guy, or
Superman might use his super strength to keep a building from crushing a little
boy.
But I agree with the commentators I’ve read over the last
couple of weeks that say that Mary wasn’t so much demanding a miracle from
Jesus as she was just humbly bringing her concerns to him to see what he would
say or do.
Over the years, she had found Jesus to be the wisest, most
resourceful, most trustworthy person she knew.
She had learned to rely on him, so when a problem came up, it was the
most natural thing in the world for her to ask him about it.
I want to pause for just a minute and ask – is that your
standard practice? When you come upon
situations where you have difficulty or questions, is it your natural response
to go to Jesus? Or is your first
instinct to rely on your own resources?
I know my “default mode” tends to be to rely on my own
resources, forgetting that those very resources came from God in the first
place, and there is infinitely more where that came from! One of the passages that has really meant a
lot to me over the last few years is Jeremiah 17:5-8. I think it speaks powerfully to this issue:
This
is what the Lord says:
“Cursed
is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his
strength
and
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
He
will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity
when
it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in
a salt land where no one lives.
“But
blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence
is
in him. He will be like a tree
planted by the water that sends out
its
roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves
are
always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never
fails
to bear fruit.”
May we be more like Mary – bringing every situation to Jesus
and trusting him to know what is best.
So… when Mary brings her concern to Jesus, he gives this
cryptic reply: he says “Why do you
involve me?” Or literally, “What is this
to you and me? My time has not yet
come.”
This almost sounds cold, or rude. And we want to say, “Jesus, that doesn’t
sound very nice!” But I don’t think Jesus
is being rude or disrespectful. I
believe what Jesus is doing here is making it clear that his agenda won’t be
set by Mary, or by his disciples, but his agenda will be set by God alone.
It reminds me of the story Rich preached on a few weeks
ago. Do you remember? 12 year old Jesus is with his family
celebrating the Passover in Jerusalem, and when they leave to go back home,
Jesus stays at the Temple. His parents
can’t find him for three days and when they finally do, they say “Why have you
done this to us?!?”
And Jesus replies – “didn’t you know I must be in my
Father’s house?” All along, Jesus has been telling his family, his disciples,
and us that his agenda was not driven by man, but by God. May the same be said of us!
John
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