The question had to cut deep. Maybe even deeper, more penetrating was the wording. He didn’t even say, “Mother.” Woman. Woman. Thirty years she has leaned on him, depended on him, even sought his advice as her oldest son. There is some evidence that she may have been widowed early leaving her that much more dependent on him. Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.
The scene is a wedding party. All of the bustling, joyous, expectancy of any wedding. There was food to be prepared, dishes to be corralled, a great sense of hospitable service to be shared. Make sure they feel welcomed. She, it seems, is somewhat of a coordinator of sorts. She recognized when the wine was ebbing. It could have been an off-hand, over-the-shoulder, dependent comment to the eldest son. We’re getting low on wine.
Mary, like all of Jesus’ disciples, had a difficult lesson to learn . . . strangely difficult because of her position as his mother. Thirty years he has been her son. But now he has officially entered in to his ordained ministry. He has set his face toward Jerusalem, that city, that hill, that tree. Golgotha. His hour has not yet come, but the hands have been set in motion. Now is the time to distance for the sake of real intimacy.
But time stopped for an instant. All of the banter, the music, the joviality ceased for a moment. Woman, what does this have to do with me?
In that moment she knew. Yes, she needed him, but she needed him not as her son any longer but as something more. It was a moment she knew but dreaded. In an instant he went from being a son to a Savior. Bittersweet. No longer was she Mary the mother of Jesus, but she was a woman, frail, finite, sinful, needful. It was not what she wanted in the moment, but it was what she needed most and would soon desire more than anything else.
Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and Jesus’ beloved disciple, John. Pushing himself up on the spikes driven through flesh and bone, he spoke. Woman . . . look at John. He is my replacement. Behold your son. John . . . take care her. He was given a drink of sour wine. It is finished.
