TEXT:
When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”
John 2:3-5 (ESV)
Some people think of the first miracle of Jesus as being rather trite and trivial. After all, there was no life-and-death matter involved. No one was healed or delivered from demonic possession. It was nothing like that at all. It was simply a matter of sparing a bride’s father the social embarrassment of being ill-prepared for hosting his daughter’s wedding reception. Although this was a serious social offense, it was not in any way life-threatening. But those who would dismiss the miracle at Cana in this way are missing the point, which is that Jesus is concerned about everything in our lives, not just the critical things, and that in everything that He does the Lord is revealing Himself to the world so that they might believe and be saved, as John points out in the final verse of this narrative when he writes: “This, the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory. And His disciples believed in Him” (John 2:11).
Another lesson to be learned from this incident at Cana is the example set by the mother of our Lord in praying with confidence. Even though there is no formal prayer in this story, Mary does come to Jesus to intercede with Him on behalf of the wedding hosts. She brings their problem to Jesus’ attention and leaves the matter in His hands, fully expecting Him to take care of it as He deems best. Also, she does not give up when her request appears to go unanswered, but she perseveres, still confident that the Lord will deal with the matter in His own time and in His own way. All of this is exactly what you and I are called upon to do when we are encouraged to “pray for one another” (James 5:16). So that we might learn more about prayer and thus be better prepared to approach the Lord’s throne of grace with confidence born of faith, we will examine this evening Mary’s example in praying with confidence.
The first thing that we can learn from Mary is how she completely resigned herself and her concerns to the Savior’s care and keeping. She didn’t bother Him with a lot of specifics; she simply placed the matter before Him and left it up to Him to deal with it. She didn’t tell Him what to do about the problem, nor did she give Him any kind of deadline for addressing the problem. She simply said to Him: “They have no wine.” Her demeanor as she approached her divine Son with this matter shows how completely she trusted in His power, His wisdom, and His concern for people. Once she committed the matter to Him, she stopped worrying about it herself. It was no longer her concern; it was His. And He would deal with it whenever and however He chose. There was an old religious slogan many years ago that went like this: “Let go and let God.” While this slogan has been misinterpreted to imply that God needs our permission to “release” His divine power, it is nevertheless a valuable truth if we take it at face value, meaning that when bring a matter to God in prayer, we are “letting go” of it and becoming mere spectators as He does His work.
When we pray, how do we compare with the example set by the mother of Jesus? Not too well, I’m afraid. What would we have done had we been at Cana “when the wine ran out”? Would we have sent Jesus to the state store with a credit card or a cash advance from the hosts? Would we have told Him precisely what He needed to do for us and in what manner it was to be done? Would we have specified a certain time when we needed and expected this matter to be resolved? I think that’s enough questions to make my point. In our prayers we tend to be worrisome and demanding. We want to be assured that our issues will be addressed in the way that we want them to be addressed and in the time that we allot. We do this because we lack confidence in God’s ability or desire to make things happen for our benefit. And if things don’t work out quite the way that we had envisioned, we then conclude that God hasn’t answered our prayer and that He doesn’t care about us--or at least that He doesn’t care about the matter that we brought before Him in prayer. Mary has a lot to teach us about bringing our cares and concerns to the Lord and trusting Him to deal with them.
Another thing that we can learn from Mary is that she was confident that Jesus would deal with the matter that she had presented to Him. She wasn’t deterred, even when Jesus had apparently denied her request. His reply to her most likely was not what she wanted or expected to hear: “Woman,” He said to her, “what does this have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” He wasn’t being rude or disrespectful or insensitive; He was simply and gently letting her know that His main concern was the salvation of sinners, which He was to accomplish some three years later by suffering and dying in their place. And nothing could or would distract Him from that all-important mission. When we bring our requests to the Lord, we need to remember what Mary was told: that Jesus cares about everything in our lives (even the apparently trivial things), but He cares most of all about our spiritual and eternal welfare. Mary’s confidence in the wisdom of her Son and Savior assured her that whatever He chose to do about the situation would be what ultimately was best for all concerned.
Mary’s confidence in God inspired her willingness to submit to His will, just as she had done some thirty years earlier when the angel told her of her pregnancy and the Child that she would bear. Even though she didn’t completely understand everything and most likely had some misgivings about what was to take place, she nevertheless rested in the knowledge that God’s ways are always best. So confident was she in the wisdom of her Son that she told the servants: “Do whatever He tells you.” While we often pray (without too much attention to our words): “Thy will be done” (Matthew 6:10), what we really mean all too often is: “Thy will be done, as long as it’s the same as mine.” To submit to the will of God when we pray to Him is to have confidence in His power to do all things, His fatherly love for sinners like us, and His wisdom to know what is best for us and to carry it out.
Perhaps the most significant lesson about prayer that we can learn from Mary is a lesson that Mary herself learned from this particular interaction with Jesus: She addressed Jesus as her Son, but He addressed her as her Savior and Lord. When we approach our Lord in prayer, we are coming to the One who has redeemed us from sin and death with His own blood--the One who knows what is best for us and is able and willing to bring it about. He always answers prayer, but in His own way and in His own time, according to His infinite wisdom and His good and gracious will. With Mary, we are confident in Him--not necessarily having any certainty that He will grant our requests but knowing that what He gives us is what is best for us. He has a lot invested in us and He will bring it all to fruition, in us and through us, to the glory of His name and for the benefit of the sinners who He has redeemed.
Amen.
May the One who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, making us kings and priests before His God and Father, lead you to a life of repentance and trust. May He also be glorified in the lives of you, His people. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.