How to love like Jesus...

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 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 2:1-5 ESV)

What strikes me most about this chapter is the fact that even though Jesus says no to his mother, she still believes that he will still come through for her. Mary had raised this man from birth, and knew him better than anyone, and here we see a beautiful example of her absolute faith in his character. When I have read this passage in the past, it has often bothered me because it seems like such a trivial little story. John records it as the first of Jesus' miracles, but the other Gospels leave it out, and that makes me wonder, perhaps did they thought it was trivial too? Tonight as I was reading and processing this chapter, it occured to me that for Mary, this was not a trivial matter, and Jesus saw that and responed to it. One of the most beautiful demonstrations of love is when someone can see into your soul and value how important something is to you, even when they don't understand why. We don't know Mary's relationship to the couple at this wedding, and we don't know why this wedding was so important to her, because John doesn't tell us. All he tells us is;

a). the success of this wedding was important to her, and in her view, running out of wine would have ruined it; 

b). that Jesus was not really that concerned with the wedding, and if the wine ran out or not; and 

c). even though the wine situation was of no real importance to Jesus, he still acted and performed the miracle of the water turning into wine. 

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter WHY this was so important to Mary. The message I receive from this passage today is that love means serving someone in their present need, no matter how trivial, or silly it may seem to you. When you love someone, you value what they value, you care about what they care about, and what bothers them bothers you. When you are too busy judging someone's values and worries, you have no time to love them. Jesus loved his mother, and he cared about what she cared about. I also believe that this moment had a huge impact on Mary, and that this simple miracle was to her a treasured gift of love from her son. My reasoning here is that as I mentioned before, this story does not occur in any of the Gospels excpet John. Why? I think the simple answer is that John loved Mary to way Jesus loved her. At the cross, Jesus spoke to John and gave the care and love of his mother over to him. And I believe that as he spent time with Mary, listening to her and serving her, she would have recounted this story to him, and recounted how much it had meant to her. On hearing this story, John could easily have brushed it off as the ramblings of an old woman, and not included it in his account of Jesus life as too trivial and unimpressive next to the miracles of healing and the like. But John loved Mary like Jesus loved Mary, and he valued what Mary valued and when she recounted this story to him, he was listening so closely that he could hear how much this simple act had meant to her. John not only loved Mary, but he respected and honoured her, and I believe that this is evident in the inclusion of this simple tale in his Gospel. Jesus came to earth to show us how to love, and I believe that this is one of the most beautiful examples of that.