When Jesus does stand-up.

The sermon today was about John 2, in which Jesus is at a party and has to provide the keg. Or something like that.

The part that many people have struggled with is when Jesus’s mom comes to Him and says, “They have no wine,” and Jesus responds, “What has that got to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” Yet even though Jesus bitches about having to do something about it, he does something about it. This, in spite of the many times I’ve been told while growing up, “Quit your whining and do your job.” How come Jesus got to complain to his mother and I can’t complain to mine?

I was struck tonight by those words, “My hour has not yet come.” I flipped through my PDA bible quickly—in every other time those words came up, the context is one in which Jesus is in immanent danger of getting killed. People are about to stone him or kill him; but it doesn’t happen yet because his hour hasn’t yet come.

So what, in this passage, puts Jesus in such immanent danger of death? Simple. His mom comes up and says, “They’re out of wine.” You’re at a wedding; the guests expect—no, demand—wine, and you have just been handed the job of announcing that they’re all out. So, in his own subtle way, Jesus responds, “What are you trying to do, get me killed too soon?”

In other words, Jesus made a funny.

Yet we’re so used to taking Scripture so deadly serious that I don’t think I’ve ever heard this interpretation before.