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John 2.1-11 (CEV)
1Three days later Mary, the mother of Jesus, was at a wedding feast in the village of Cana in Galilee. 2Jesus and his disciples had also been invited and were there.
3When the wine was all gone, Mary said to Jesus, "They don't have any more wine."
4Jesus replied, "Mother, my time hasn't yet come: You must not tell me what to do." 5Mary then said to the servants, "Do whatever Jesus tells you to do."
6At the feast there were six stone water jars that were used by the people for washing themselves in the way that their religion said they must. Each jar held about twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus told the servants to fill them to the top with water. Then after the jars had been filled, 8he said, "Now take some water and give it to the man in charge of the feast."
The servants did as Jesus told them, 9and the man in charge drank some of the water that had now turned into wine. He did not know where the wine had come from, but the servants did. He called the bridegroom over 10and said, "The best wine is always served first. Then after the guests have had plenty, the other wine is served. But you have kept the best until last!"
11This was Jesus' first miracle, and he did it in the village of Cana in Galilee. There Jesus showed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him. 12After this, he went with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples to the town of Capernaum, where they stayed for a few days.
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Mary, the Mother of Jesus, presents to Jesus the problem of lack of wine. Mary does not requests her son to do anything. Yet, likely, her words imply a request: "They don't have any more wine."
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Jesus gives Mary a response. He says: ""Mother, my time hasn't yet come: You must not tell me what to do." A literal reading is: "What~to me and to thee, woman? not yet is mine hour come" (YLT), and "Woman, what have I to do with you? mine hour is not yet come" (ASV). Says Thomas Keating about Jesus' reply:
A more down to earth translation might be: “Why anticipate the purpose for which I have come into the world just because this couple have not provided enough wine for their guests?” In other words, “Why, Mother, are you concerned?”
Mary put Jesus on the spot. If he does a miracle, Jesus will launch his public ministry. Jesus appears to be unclear about the timing of the launching~after all, discernment of timing is often of most importance in spiritual activity. While Mary tells the waiters, "Do whatever he tells you," apparently assuming Jesus will act, we are left in suspense as to whether or not Jesus himself will discern his Father is calling him to do so.
Keating presents the discernment that must go on within Jesus at this time:
If Jesus was to take Mary’s statement seriously, he needed to know whether her request was reflecting ... the divine will using her human goodness to express an immense movement of love in the heart of God. Her concern and her expression of it did in fact initiate the whole redemptive process. When Mary whispered to the waiters, “Do whatever he tells you,” Jesus recognized that she was manifesting not just her own will, but a movement of the Father’s love requesting him to perform a miracle that would transform the admiration of the apostles into faith in him as God’s Son.
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