John 2:5 - Do whatever He tells you

“Do whatever He tells you”. Now what are we to make of this in the light of the previous verse? Jesus has just told Mary that His hour has not yet come and has essentially rebuked her. Well let’s look first at verse 3. Mary just told Jesus that they had run out of wine, she did not actually ask Him to do anything. Now remember what Matthew and Luke tell us. The angel had told Mary and Joseph that she would have a child by the Holy Spirit (Matt 2:20,21; Luke 1:35) and that suffering would come (Luke 2:34,35). Mary knew that Jesus was special and something amazing was going to happen.

So Mary is submitting to Jesus, recognising that He is infinitely greater than her. She is putting things in His hands and instructing the servants to do the same. Whether He is going to do something about the wine or not He is to be trusted.

Now we know that He did do something about the wine. And of course the wedding at Cana was of little importance on the grand scheme of things. There are things that crop in our lives which certainly do matter to us, but looked at eternally may be trivial. If we put an undue focus on the little things we will just end up nervous wrecks or stressed out. But if we look at the bigger picture, if we focus on God’s plans, then we will find that He takes care of all sorts of minor matters as well. Indeed, this is what Jesus said in Matt 6:33,34.