Do Whatever He Tells You - July 29, 2010

Good Thursday morning! Wow, I opened the windows about 0300 and simply let all the humidity into the house. Not what I was hoping would happen! The cat is doing his 'mighty king of the hills' pose, but I don't think anyone other than me is paying attention. Of course it would be more impressive if he did it outside in the world, but maybe just a small one-room kingdom is enough for the cat. We always seem to want it all: rich men strive to gain more wealth; powerful women struggle to gain more power; and all of us have felt the tug of material luxuries. I see that a teddy bear collector has admitted to a huge fraud, something on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars; obviously collecting teddy bears is dangerous - you could end up in jail.

This morning we continue with the wedding in Cana. Jesus has just told his mother that the lack of wine was not his problem and that his time had not yet come. Like most mothers when a son gives them a little back talk, Mary paid close attention to what he said.

But his mother told the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." (John 2:5)

We could go on about how Mary didn't listen very well, but is that the answer? What I see in this is an abiding faith in her son, Jesus. Mary had an advantage at that time; she knew her virgin-born son was someone special. Even as Jesus said that this was not his problem, Mary believed that he would do something to fix it and even had the servants stand by to take action at his word. Jesus had not indicated whether he would do anything to solve this dilemma or not, but Mary still believed in him. We have that same situation before us.

We don't know that Jesus will do something to fix a problem we have, but in faith we bring it to him. Mary brought the problem to Jesus and he said that it wasn't yet his time. We have a bit of a cliffhanger for today. Will Jesus embarrass his mother? Will he simply tell the servants that this is not his problem leaving them confused by Mary's command? Most of us already know this story from years of reading God's word, but we do have an interesting moment here that we often miss by reading the entire story of the wedding in Cana quickly. At that moment, some number of servants would have been standing there waiting for Jesus to do something. At Mary's command to "do whatever he tells you" they now had faith in Jesus too. Perhaps they expected Jesus to produce a purse full of money and send them to buy wine somewhere (the town wine merchant would have been at the wedding) or to send them running to a distant village to buy whatever wine they could. Many thoughts would have bounced around in their minds while waiting for Jesus to give his word. I can imagine Jesus standing there smiling at how his mother had appeared to not listen to his protests at all. Jesus could not deny that he was the Messiah, and Mary seemed to know that he was going to do something about this worldly problem.

Tomorrow, will Jesus take up this problem and find a solution? We'll just have to keep reading.

Have a wonderful day in Christ!

Bucky