Title: Woman, What Do I Have to Do With You?
One of Jesus’ strangest behaviors could be that Jesus referred and called His mother Mary woman. How many times did Jesus call Mary woman? Two times: At the wedding in Cana which is the beginning part of His public ministry and on the cross which is the ending part of His ministry (Jhn 2:3-5; Jhn 19:26-27).
There are some people suggesting that the incident shows Jesus disregard or disrespecting Mary, ie Jesus had no love towards His parents. This is absurd and nonsense.
The 1st commandment from the 10 commandments is ‘You shall have no other gods before me’, and the 5th commandment is ‘Honor your father and mother.’
Jesus is the Word became flesh according to Jhn 1:14 and He obeyed the Word of Father God to the point of death according to Phil 2:8, as Jesus understands the meaning of the 5th commandments and how He should keep it properly, how could He break and disobey God’s commandment?
There is other groups suggesting that when Jesus referred His mother as woman, the Word that He used was a highly respectful word like ‘Madame.’ So, Jesus was still honoring His mother.
However, this suggestion has no solid ground because the Greek word Jesus used was ‘Guine’ which is used commonly referring to any woman (Mat 15:28; Luk 22:57).
- A humiliation God gives is a blessing
Jesus, for the first 30 years of His life, served and took care of His mother well and called Mary ‘mother’. However, all of a sudden, Jesus called Mary ‘woman’. Jesus also said, “What do I have to do with you?” It is not a kind and warm pat talking but a challenging and even hostile speech. If we look at other scriptures where the same phrase is used, we can see that it has a hostile impression (Mat 8:29; Mrk 1:24; Luk 8:28).
What truly happened was Jesus gave a shocking moment of great humiliation to Mary, but it became a chance to force Mary to think about this incident and come to the faith (Jhn 2:4-5).
The founding pastor explained that it seems like verse 4 and verse 5 happened simultaneously but there is a time gap between them. After Jesus said “Woman, what do I have to do with you”, Mary had to think for a while. Only when she found the answer, she responded to Jesus by faith and said to the people “Do whatever He says to you.”
Jesus has both humanity and divinity. During His private life for the first 30 years, Jesus lived as the son of Mary. However, when the public ministry began, Jesus works as the living God. It was the same Jesus but as God’s time changed, Mary had to understand Jesus in a new way. That’s what happens when God’s time is shifted.
Look at Luk 2:19 and Luk 2:51, the one who accurately remembers the fact that Jesus was not born through husband-and-wife relationship is Mary. So, all this time, Mary remembered and treasured them in her heart. But through this incident, all the memories and what remembered was formed as faith.
Those memories and personal relationship work until Jesus began His public ministry. However, once God’s time is changed, Mary had to come to her faith. Jesus gave a chance to Mary to bring about the faith through the time of humiliation. The time of humiliation awakened Mary to have faith a confession “Do whatever He says to do.”
So, is the incident of Jesus calling Mary ‘woman’ a blessing or what? It wasn’t in physical and literal sense, but it is in spiritual sense.
- A tribulation is God’s blessing
We’ve been studying and meditating a lot about the time of Babylonian Captivity. It is the time when the people of God lost their country, being enslaved, and lost the house of God.
We can say it is the time of tribulation and persecution, but we can also say that it is the time of humiliation.
During this time of humiliation, what happened? God’s time is changed: from the time of Old Testament to the time of new covenant.
Not that the old covenant is bad but they needed to have new covenant and learn the new way to worship God and become His people. The rituals they learned before becomes an aid to learn new way of worshipping God.
The time of last tribulation before His return will be the time of humiliation and the time of great shock. But through these times, God wants us to explore the Word we have learned, the memories we have, and bring about the true faith in Jesus and Father God. God wants us to stop seeing His human side but fully understand His divine side that He is God, and He is Spirit.
At the end, what Mary had to believe and what we have to believe are the same. We pray that when we encounter the time of distress or the time of tribulation, may we all bring about faith that God looks for, so that you and I will become people of new covenant, people of New Jerusalem and people of New heaven and New earth.
Amen.
The Lord's Covenant Church Malaysia 