Do Whatever He Tells You

Today’s Gospel,  John 2: 1-12, features  the wedding feast at Cana. Jesus, his disciples, and Jesus’ mother were guests at this wedding. Mary notices that the bridegroom ran out of wine and brings this to Jesus’ attention. “They have no wine,” Mary says to Jesus.  Jesus’ response seems harsh. He says to her: “Woman, what do you want from me? My hour has not come yet.” Mary then says to the servants: “Do whatever he tells you.”  Jesus says to the servants: “Fill the jars with water.” So they did just that. Jesus then says to them: “Draw some out now and take it to the president of the feast.”  Jesus had turned the water into wine. “The president of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him:  Everyone serves good wine first and the worse wine when the guests are well wined, but you have kept the best wine till now…. This was the first of Jesus’ signs, [through which He] “revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.”

This whole scenario connects with Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection.  At the Last Supper Jesus turns the wine into His blood and says: “Take and drink of this. This is my blood poured out for you.”  On the cross, water and blood gush forth from Jesus’ side when He is pierced with a lance.  And from the cross, Jesus gives Mary to us as our mother, when He says: Woman, behold your son; son, behold your mother.”   Mary is the new Eve, the mother of all humankind, not just Jesus’ mother.

As Mary notices the need for more wine and interceded at Cana, so, too, she is observant of our unmet needs and alerts Jesus.  Jesus did not  immediately respond with an affirmative answer but it is Mary who directs us to listen to Jesus, to go to Him and to do whatever Jesus tells us to do.  Jesus follows the will of His Father and does not act on His own. It is always the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit working together to reveal God’s love, compassion, understanding and mercy toward us, even in the embarrassing moments of our lives when we, too, run out of “wine.”