“O woman, what is that to thee and to me? Mine hour has not yet come”
This, too, is an Epiphany, a making known of the essential divinity of Christ. This, too, is a scene of wonder and amazement. This, too, is a matter of disquieting questions put to Mary. Here he says in response to her observation that they have no wine, “O woman, what is that to thee and to me?”A strange and disturbing question, not unlike the one we heard last Sunday. “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” Such questions might seem to border on the impertinent and the rude, perhaps even a tad disrespectful! But no.
In the context of the Epiphany, we are to see these scenes and hear these questions as belonging to the two natures of Christ, to the union of the divine and the human in the person of Christ. Only so can we begin to see that the making known of the things of God makes certain things known to us and our humanity. Last week, it was about the vocation of our humanity as students in matters of things divine. This week it is about the presence of God in our lives sacramentally and spiritually, but only through the awakening to human limitation that opens us out to the abundance of grace in God, the God who seeks the very best for us in our lives which is more than we can desire or deserve. Such is the radical significance of the miracles of the Gospel. They have to do with two things: the miracle of creation itself as the work of the Creator and the miracle of God’s redemption of our humanity. The miracle stories of the Epiphany all show us what God truly seeks for our humanity.
This is “the beginning of signs,” John tells us, the beginning of the miracles that belong to the understanding of human redemption. This beginning is most instructive. Most of the miracles are anything but mere displays of power. Most of the miracles of the Gospel are about human healing and salvation: “the blind see, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed, the lame walk, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them.” To be sure, and yet the beginning of all such signs is this miracle story of the changing of water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana of Galilee, a story which has, I think, an inescapable sacramental quality and significance. What does it mean?
Simply that God seeks the very best for us which is always, always beyond our limited perspectives and ordinary assumptions. As such, today’s question, like last week’s question, leads to a more profound understanding of Christ’s mission and purpose. That very best is, I think, our social joys. Christ seeks our blessedness, our happiness as found in him and with one another. This counters the individualistic and possessive relation to Jesus that so often results in smugness and complacency and not a little in the way of self-righteousness. This story, like last Sunday’s story of the boy Jesus teaching and learning in the temple, the Divine Teacher and the human student, humbles us. Only so shall we be exalted. Such is the constant dialectic of the spirit.
Only in the awareness of our limitations can there be the awareness of God and his fullness for us.
But this does not yet explain Christ’s question in response to Mary’s statement that “they have no wine.” The spiritual significance of her remark has been often noted. She names and highlights the human predicament. We have no wine. We lack the means of our joys and blessedness. It cannot be found in us alone but only through God and only through God using the things of this world as the instruments and conduits of his grace and mercy. Such is the meaning of the sacraments. Such, too, is the meaning of the miracles of the Epiphany which illumine the meaning of God’s wisdom and power made manifest in Jesus Christ.
Here is “the beginning of signs” which contains the deep meaning of all the signs, of all the miracles of the Gospel. Our salvation is about our healing and wholeness, to be sure, but for what end? That we might delight in God and in one another. How can that be accomplished? By what Christ says to Mary in this extraordinary scene. She points out the problem. The assumption seems to be ‘what are you going to do about it?’ to which Jesus says “O woman, what is that to thee and to me?” Does he mean that this is not something which belongs to human ingenuity and resourcefulness, a problem for us to solve? Something then which goes beyond human relations and human acts? The meaning lies in the words which follow: “mine hour has not yet come.”
It refers to the hour of his crucifixion and death, his passion on the Cross as the fulfilment of the purpose of his coming. There, and there alone in the Christian understanding of things, do we have the fulfilment of all our human desires. What we seek is nothing less than God and God in us. And that cannot be not at the dictates of our bidding but always and only “at thy word.” Such is the meaning of “mine hour.” Christ points to his crucifixion as the inner meaning of all the miracles of the Gospel. They belong to the redemption of creation and to the fulfilment of creation’s purpose. The world and ourselves in it live for God’s delight and for our delight in God in one another.
Last Sunday, Mary and Joseph “understood not the saying which he spake unto them,” though Mary “kept all these sayings in her heart.” Here Mary’s response shows the Epiphany in her. For she immediately says to the servants, “whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” The phrase, it seems to me, echoes wonderfully her fiat mihi, her “be it unto me according to thy word.” Only so will we discover the good wine of divinity which alone perfects and delights our humanity. Only so will we enter into God’s delight.
“O woman, what is that to thee and to me? Mine hour has not yet come”
Fr. David Curry
Epiphany 2, 2019