Even Jesus Obeyed His Mom!

John 2:1-12

John 2:1–12 NIV

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

A few years ago there was this show that became quite popular called Ted Lasso. It was a fun show, that was mostly positive and uplifting and pretty quirky. The show had tons of great lines about positivity and being a good person. One of my favorite lines from the show is when the main character Ted says “I love meeting other peoples moms…. Its like getting a chance to read the instruction manual”.

I loved that line. I thought it was so true. We can learn a lot about someone just by meeting their mom. Take for example my wife. I love my wife dearly. She is smart driven, and cares deeply about others. She is also obsessed with keeping things organized, having a plan always and needing everything to be written down on lists. Oh and once something is written down on the list, it will bother her, until she can cross the item off the list. Even if the item is really not important, once it gets written on the list, it must be done, or she will feel like she can’t let it go. Anyone relate? I didn’t understand this obsession until I met her mother, my mother-in law and went “OH now I get it!” Her mom is exactly the same way! If you have a big task that needs done, or something that needs organized. These two women can tackle anything. They will have lists upon lists, everything organized with timelines, and materials and they will obsess about the details until every last detail is accounted for. It is impressive, if not slightly scare to watch! I watch the two of them working together and I am like, yup, the apple didn't fall far from that tree!

Other times we meet someone, who is NOTHING like their mother. Instead of becoming exactly like their mother, they become almost the opposite. Their Mom was organized, so they are a free spirit, or my mom was free spirited, so I am super organized. In my case, my mom was a worrier growing up. She is much better about it now, but as a kid, it felt like my mom was always worried about things. So since she was a worrier, I never worried about anything. I figured she was already worried enough for the both of us, so I didn’t need to worry about it. In fact, one of my favorite stories is that I have 2 older sisters, who both learned to drive before me. They refused to drive with my mom, because my mom would do the typical gasp, overreact, watch out thing when you made a mistake or when just driving in general. My sisters didn’t like it, so they learned to drive from my dad. I on the other hand thought it was hilarious. We lived in a cul-de-sac with those rounded curbs you could drive up and over, and I would intentionally drive up the curb at like 5 miles an hour and my mom would scream and yell at me and I would just laugh. I would hit the brakes quick so we would stop short again when we were going just 5 miles an hour so no real danger, but she would again freak out and I would laugh. I tried to get my mom to relax, lighten up and not be so worried, and so today, that still is my personality. When people get really worked up, anxious, or overwhelmed, I want them to breath, relax and know that freaking out doesn’t change anything it just makes it harder to see the solution. Again, if you meet my mom, you get a glimpse as to what shaped me and made me me.

I also think meeting someones mom, humanizes them in a real way. It reminds us, that we are all shaped by our upbringing, we all had some version of a family that influenced us, and we all have had to navigate the joys and the challenges of living with family.

I think that is one of the things I love about our scripture passage this morning. So often we focus on the miracles, and the divine nature of Jesus, that sometimes we forget he was also fully human. He had a mom and a dad and brothers and sisters to relate with and he had to learn to live within his family dynamic. It reminds us of the humanity of Jesus and that he can not only save us, but he can relate to our human experiences as well! I find this story incredibly relatable from a human perspective.

So lets dive in. This story is from very early in Jesus ministry. It is just the second chapter of the book of John and it says that while Jesus has called a few disciples to follow him at this point, he hasn’t really launched his public ministry yet, certainly not any public miracles as this is said to be the first big miracle that Jesus performs.

SO Jesus was at this wedding along with his mom and his brother, so you get the sense that this was perhaps an extended family or friends wedding. Later on, Jesus will attend many meals and gatherings where he is an honored guest, but in this setting he seems to be just one of the crowd, again highlighting that this is really early in his ministry and he is not there because of his status but because he was a part of the community.

Weddings in these days were huge festivities. It was fairly common for wedding celebrations to last a week sometimes even longer. These were big community and family celebrations, where you took a break from the monotony of work, to have fun, celebrate, eat, dance, and yes drink wine. This is supposed to be a big long festive atmosphere, and so you can see the problem when they run out of wine before the festivities are supposed to be over. This would be a huge scandal. This is a small town, you can imagine the whispers and the shame… Did you hear what happened at the Mahlers wedding, they ran out of wine, can you believe it. I always knew that family was cheap, or I always knew they didn’t know how to plan well. These rumblings would have gone on for years, it would have been a big scandal. I am sure you can picture what this might have been like in a small town!

So we get to verse 3 in our story John 2:3 says

John 2:3 NIV

When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

It is worth noting that Jesus, nor his mother are in charge of this wedding. They are merely guests. We don’t know how Mary - Jesus’ mom - found out they were out of wine, but apparently most of the people didn't know this yet, so we aren’t sure why Mary gets involved but she does. Her response is to come to Jesus to help fix the situation.

I love this! How many of us in this room have been in a similar situation. There is a problem, that has NOTHING to do with us, but our moms say, oh My son, or or My daughter can fix this and they tell us to get involved and fix the problem! Our moms come up and are like, or there is this problem, don’t you think you should step in and help!

So Jesus, responds to his mom, just like many of us would respond.

John 2:4 NIV

“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

He says “woman”. Ok, most of us wouldn’t say that to our mom, but Jesus is probably not saying it to his mom the way you and I are thinking, He uses this same word, when he is on the cross and he is giving his mom over to John to be cared for and so it is not demeaning but endearing. Anyways, Jesus says, WHY DO YOU INVOLVE ME? As in, How is this my problem? Anyone relate? Anyone else have a mom just drop a problem on your lap and your response is, why is this my problem, I don’t have anything to do with this! He is essentially saying, leave me out of this! Mom, this isn’t my responsibility, I didn’t make this mess, I didn’t cause the problem, why do I have to get involved in this? Maybe its just me but I can totally relate to Jesus here on a human level. I have had this same conversation with my mom dozens of times! Have you?

Then there is this interesting tag Jesus includes where he says, my hour has not yet come! Here he is highlighting again, that he hasn’t really started his public ministry, he hasn’t gone around performing miracles yet, and he isn’t quite ready to get that ball rolling yet, so he wants to just stay in the background at this wedding and not cause a scene! Jesus tried to make it clear to his mom, that he is not interested, nor prepared to step in and help solve this problem.

And then, I love the response from Mary. Total mom move! She asks Jesus to get involved and fix a problem. Jesus basically says no, Its not my problem, I don’t want to do it. Rather then continue to argue with Jesus, or to plead with hm or guilt trip him or anything else. She pulls this expert mom move on Jesus. She just ignores Jesus as proceeds as if Jesus has already agreed to help. She is like, I am not going to go ten rounds with you about this, you are going to do this, and we both know you are going to do this for me, so lets just jump to the end where you Obey and we will leave it at that. So instead of responding to Jesus or arguing with him, she just bypasses Jesus and turns to the servants who are apparently right there and just gives them instructions as if Jesus already agreed to help

John 2:5 NIV

His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

This cracks me up! Maybe because I have been here with my own mom, but the pivot to the servants and the just total faith that Jesus will Obey her, even if he doesn’t want to, and so she trusts that Jesus will step in, tell the servants what to do and the problem will be solved. This is actually the last we hear from the mom until they leave the wedding. You get the sense, that she just walked off back to the party to keep having fun, knowing Jesus would take care of it from here!

What is remarkable to me, is that Jesus OBEYS! He just told his mom - Not my problem, not my time! And yet, without any further argument, or convincing, or guilt tripping or persuasion, Jesus Obeys his mom, and tells the servants what to do! Jesus honored his mom, and obeyed her! I love this, it reminds us, that Jesus was fully human, and he had a mom that he loved and cared for and obeyed as well! He had a mom, who asked him to do things he didn’t want to do, and he still listened to her and obeyed her. Perhaps Jesus thought about all of the things his mom did for him over the years, or perhaps he didn’t want to disappoint her, or perhaps he knew his mom would be saddened to watch the scandal unfold if they ran out of wine, or perhaps he just knew he needed to Obey his mom, we don’t really know what exactly caused Jesus from going from saying he didn’t want to help, to actually helping, but he does!

So we know the rest of the story, Jesus tells the servants to go fill up stone jars with water from the well. The bible says there were six stone jars each holding 20-30 gallons. And Jesus turns this water into wine, meaning he made 120 to 180 gallons of wine. Thats a lot of wine! So Jesus does obey his mom and saves the day.

I wanted to quickly highlight 2 other interesting things from the rest of this story. The first is a callback to the Christmas story! In the Christmas story, we see that the good news of Jesus birth is first announced to people you wouldn't expect. It wasn’t heralded in the palaces, or among the elite, but the good news was announced to shepherds out in the field working the night shift. These unlikely folks were the first to witness Jesus being born. It wasn’t the elite, but the outsiders who are the first witnesses. and Here too, It is not the elite who first see Jesus perform miracles but the servants. The master of ceremonies, the most important person at the wedding, doesn’t see or know about the miracle, they just see the end results, but it is the servants who are the first to see Jesus perform a miracle. I love this part of the story. The first who get to see Jesus in action are a few of his disciples and these servants. I love the consistency of God continuing to include the outsiders and the people who society might easily overlook as the first people who get to witness his Miracles!

Secondly, I love that even though Jesus initially doesn’t want to get involved. When he does, he gives his absolute best. The wine Jesus made is apparently the Best wine they have had. How easy would it have been for Jesus to just make mediocre wine, or the same wine they were already drinking. He isn’t getting public credit for making this wine, again he does this in the background where only the disciples and the servants see what he is doing. Yet he makes sure the wine is the absolute best. It is a reminder for us, that we too should give our best when we are helping others. Not because we want the credit for giving the best, but because Jesus says that when we give to the least of those, we are really giving to him. When we give to those who can’t pay us back, thats when our generosity is most prevalent. That is when God rewards us, instead of humans rewarding us. I know I am guilty sometimes of doing the bare minimum to help others, but that isn't what we see from Jesus, he provides the best just to bless others.

Jesus takes what would have been a huge scandal for this family, running out of wine early at a wedding, and makes them heroes by providing the best wine this late in the wedding. I think we can learn something from this. I know it is a little bit late in the process to be saying this, but perhaps this mothers day, instead of doing the bare minimum, just enough to “satisfy” our mom, we act more like Jesus and go above and beyond to make them feel special. That last line was for me more than for you, and a reminder to do more to honor and celebrate my wife and my moms, than just the bare minimum, because after-all even Jesus obeyed and honored his Mom, so we should too!

Amen!