Sunday, January 28, 2007

Woman---MOTHER of Jesus

Hi! I hope you have come prepared to receive the teachings with a believing heart. You would be wise to check out some of the things I wrote to see whether I am in line with the scriptures. It is a good idea not to think too highly of people. People are not perfect. Mistakes are made by experienced and well taught teachers of the scriptures. Check out the messages carefully and prayerfully. Let your main teacher be the Holy Spirit. If the teachings are of God, you will be able to get a witness from the Holy Spirit if you are a child of God. You may even get filled with the Spirit as you read the messages. You may get a witness of increased faith and joy or increased peace.


Let us find John 2:1-11 (KJV).

The first verse gives us a name of a place in Galilee. That place was Cana. The occasion was a marriage. One person in particular was at the wedding---the MOTHER of Jesus.


The second verse shows us that Jesus and his disciples were invited to the marriage in Cana.

In the third verse we learn that there was a problem at the wedding. They ran out of wine. Jesus was at a wedding where they served wine? Surely, that wine couldn't have alcohol in it, some of you may be saying. It was probably just fruit juice---grape juice you know. Well, we don't know. At this point there is no mention of the type of wine they were using.

One thing was for sure. They wanted more wine. It seemed that having more wine was very important. It was so important that the MOTHER of Jesus went into action to save the marriage feast from disaster due to lack of wine.

She took the matter to Jesus. She said to Him, "They have NO wine."

Let us consider what happened next in verse four.

Jesus responded to His MOTHER by addressing her as WOMAN and not as MOTHER. Why? Did Jesus mess up then and displayed disrespect to His MOTHER?

He told her that His hour was not yet come. In other words, I may not (not I cannot) supply you with more wine at this time. I have to wait for the time to be right. Jesus was not giving an answer that was written in stone. His MOTHER knew that.

In verse five, she turned her attention to the servants and gave them the instruction, "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it." She did not accept the answer that Jesus gave her as a final NO. She acted in faith and expected that her faith would be rewarded.

But who would reward her faith? And in whom should she put her trust? She could not get more wine by miraculous means if she had placed her trust in Jesus as the son of Mary. No Sir. She understood that she must place her trust in Jesus, the Son of God.


Jesus, the son of Mary, also knew that He could not grant her request just because He was her son. Both Mary and Jesus understood that Mary must come to Him as Lord Jesus in order to get the desired result. It was for that reason that Jesus never addressed Mary, His MOTHER, as MOTHER, but as WOMAN. She, like all other women, must make request with FAITH IN JESUS AS LORD GOD. God spoke through Jesus, His Son. As God, Jesus had every right to address His creation as MAN or WOMAN. No wonder the officers in the temple at Jerusalem, when they went to arrest Him, could not do so. Their reason was that He spoke with authority.

Jesus was not disrespectful to His MOTHER when He called her WOMAN. If Jesus was disrespectful to His MOTHER, He would have been guilty of sin. That would have made it impossible for Jesus to proceed to the next step in providing a suitable solution to the problem of lack of wine.

Proceeding to verse six, we see that there were six stone containers with water in them. The amount of water in each container was about eighteen to twenty-seven gallons. Do the math. We should realize that there were more than enough wine to supply the wedding feast. Jesus would have made sure of that. He would not allow His glory to be diminished by another shortage of wine at the wedding feast. He had to do a good work.

In verse seven, Jesus went into action. Yes, the objection that He made to His MOTHER---about His hour not right for the miraculous supply of wine---was overcome by Mary's faith in the LORD Jesus. Jesus moved into creative power by the anointing resting on Him. He was working a miracle which His Father in Him was working. So when Jesus moved He was moving as His Father in Him was moving. Jesus was not moving to do such a powerful work as the son of Mary but as the Son of God. So the Father in Jesus spoke, "Fill the water pots with water."

Read the rest of the verses and see what happened. What I would like you to retain is the teaching that Jesus was not disrespectful to His MOTHER, Mary, when He called her WOMAN. He did the same thing at the cross (John 19:26). You should understand, like Mary understood, that you must bow to Jesus as your LORD. To round off these teachings and to block any resistance, you should consider other scriptures where Jesus, as LORD, speaking by the Father, called some disciples children. Jesus could have spoken to Mary and called her child and He would not have offended her. He could have called her daughter also. Check the scriptures for yourself.

Peace be to you.

Abdool N.