Answer please. . . .

       As a parent, one sees the various stages that humans go through.  Some might lament the terrible two's, awkward adolescence or those terrible teenage years.  I am aware of an amusing anecdote that tries to sum up the situation. As Children, parents are viewed as Gods. In teenage years, parents are viewed as idiots who seem to know virtually nothing. When a 'child' returns home from college, they are often astounded at just how much the parents have learned.

       Did fully human Jesus have all the knowledge of his Divinity all at once?  Perhaps an unimportant question, I ask because of situations like the one presented in today's passage from John.  Jesus is at a wedding with his mother. Also present are his disciples. That must have been a social coup. Jesus and his entourage!  Jesus has obviously started his ministry but he lacks a certain amount of wisdom or common sense. He has not yet 'returned from college' so to speak. When Mary suggests that Jesus take care of the wine issue at hand, Jesus says ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’. First off, a wise Jewish boy, Man, would never answer his nice Jewish mother that way. I wonder what form of editing took place here!  What was Mary's first response. Nevertheless, she persisted and Jesus does as he is asked by his mother.

        The question as to how much Jesus knew and when he knew it is not answered. How much he actually grasped in those early days is uncertain to me. Clearly he had started his ministry. He heard his calling, he was answering and doing what his Father was asking, at least as much as he as a human could comprehend at the time.

        The truth of the matter is, none of us really know what we are being asked most of the time. In small matters, the turn of a corner at the right time could be the answer to asking for your one true love.  Saying "I do" is leading you on a journey where two become one and there is no road map for where you will be lead.  Joy beyond measure? Heartache, illness, the joy of children? You really don't know what is out there even if you think you have a plan.

         Life itself is so uncertain. The one thing we have control of is how we act and how we respond. Perhaps all of life is simply how we respond.  At this point in the Gospel, Jesus has responded to his call to his father. Jesus started his ministry and he had disciples.  Have we said yes to our father? To my mind that "yes" is neither Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Islamic.  The question is, do we say yes to the Creator God and yes to who we are as people? We have no idea where it will lead us but the 'proof of the pudding' as they say is in our response. Are we willing to follow a course directed by God and the Spirit and less by our own, perhaps selfish, designs and wishes?

          As a Christian, that is translated into are you willing to take up your cross?' Are you wiling to accept yourself and to love others, God's other creations?  

John 2:1-11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.