Happy Mother's Day

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, [a] 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.”

(Footnote a: The Greek for Woman does not denote any disrespect.)

John 2:1-10 New International Version

It’s Mother’s Day and who would be the number one mother of all time other than Mary. There were so many Bible verses I could have chosen to portray her the best; it was tough to pick just one. Someday I need to write a whole series of blog posts about her.

This passage, however, says so much. For starters, you hopefully noticed the footnote that I included. By calling His mother “woman”, Jesus met no disrespect, as we would take it to mean today. Instead, He probably used the term to mean the complete opposite. And then notice how He does the complete opposite, clearly stating that this is not His problem, yet He takes care of it anyway, by doing exactly as His mother has asked.

The second thing is how much we can relate to the dilemma of running out of alcohol at a wedding. Whether you drink or not, you’ve surely been to a wedding where the beer just kept flowing from the half-barrel. If there hadn’t been a couple more half-barrels waiting to be taped, the entire reception would have been viewed as a disaster.

Same thing would have happened in Bible times. Jesus (and Mary) saved the day for this family.

In thinking about writing this post all week, I’d had these two thoughts in mind. Then late yesterday afternoon, our electricity went out. Not usually a big deal; we lose power for a couple hours a couple times a year.

This time of year, however, we have water running into our basement. (I see that I haven’t written about the huge problem it’s been this year; I’ll have to write about that one day.) The sump pump has been doing its job the last few weeks, so it has been no worry. Without electricity, however, I had to spend two hours last night bailing water.

For some reason, I was reminded of that when I pictured those big water jars, picturing myself filling them. And being reminded that us mothers do what we have to do, not only for our families, but for our houses as well. It’s just what we do.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you hard-working and dedicated moms.   

(Another footnote: our power came back on after two hours and the sump pump kicked right back in. I’m no worse for the wear and should thank my husband and my brother-in-law for dragging those “jars” of water up the basement stairs the whole time.)