Do you know how sometimes as we’re reading a familiar passage of Scripture, something new and profound jumps out at us? Something that’s been there all along, obviously, but the Holy Spirit just opened our understanding to it for the first time. That happened to me the other day as I was reading the account in John 2 of Jesus changing the water into wine.

To refresh your memory, Jesus was in Galilee attending a wedding. His mother was there with him, along with his disciples. Apparently, the person in charge of the reception hadn’t planned very well, because they ran out of wine. Now, Jesus’ mother Mary must’ve been closely acquainted with the wedding party, because when the wine ran out, she felt the need to do something about it. What did Mary do???

She looked at Jesus and said, “They have no more wine.” Just a simple statement, but one full of expectation. Full of faith. Full of knowing, as only mamas can know things.

To this point, Jesus had done absolutely no miracles. Zip. Nada. How did Mary know that Jesus could do something to fix the wine situation? Do you think she had sat up late at night with Jesus, drinking coffee and discussing the fact that he could do things that no other human could do….miraculous things like making instant wine from plain water?

Maybe.

Mary had other children besides Jesus, so I’m sure she could tell that he was very different from other kids. He had never sassed her or lied to her or disobeyed her instructions or fought with his brothers or any of those things that “normal” kids do. But I wonder just how she knew what Jesus was capable of doing at this wedding.

Jesus’ response to his mama is funny to me, “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.”

“Woman”? Really? My dear husband calls me “woman” sometimes just to annoy me, and it works. He says that he does it out of love (i.e., I’m his “woman.”), but something about being called “woman” offends me for some reason.

Not Mary, apparently. Unfazed, she simply turned to the servants and said, “Do whatever he tells you.” I want to laugh out loud here, because Jesus had just told her pretty clearly that he wasn’t ready to start doing miracles yet. His time hadn’t come. Well, his mama thought otherwise. With her hands on her hips, she basically told Jesus to,  “Get to it. Make some more wine so the party can go on.”

Okay, this is the part where Jesus retorts, “I’m not going to do anything. I told you my time hasn’t yet come.” Right? Nope. What did he do?

He obeyed his mama.

He got right on it.

He snapped to.

Jesus told the servants to take the huge stone jars and fill them with water, then dip out some and take it to the master of the banquet to taste. When they did, they found that the water had turned into a very fine wine–fine enough that the master of the banquet chastised the groom for saving the good wine for last, instead of letting people have their fill of the good wine and then serving cheap wine when they were too drunk to notice the difference.

Jesus was around 30 years old when this event occurred, and when his mama told him to jump, Jesus still said, “How high?” I love that. I really love that.

Another thing that I love is that even though Jesus had not performed any miracles before this wedding, Mary knew that he could. She was his mama, and she knew in her heart what Jesus could do. Yes, he was the Son of God, the Savior of the world, but he was also her baby boy.