John 2:4

Ver. 4. “ Jesus saith to her: What is there between me and thee, woman? My hour is not yet come. ”

Jesus makes Mary sensible of her incompetency in the region into which she intrudes. The career on which He has just entered, is that in which He depends only on His Father; His motto henceforth is: My Father and I. Mary must learn to know in her son the servant of Jehovah, of Jehovah only. The expression “ What is there between me and thee? ” is a frequent one in the Old Testament. Comp. Jdg 11:12; 2 Samuel 16:10; 1 Kings 17:18; 2 Kings 3:13. We even meet it, sometimes, in profane Greek; thus the reply of a Stoic to a jester is quoted, who asked him, at the moment when their vessel was about to sink, whether shipwreck was an evil or not: “What is there between us and thee, O man? We perish, and thou permittest thyself to jest!” This formula signifies, that the community of feeling to which one of the interlocutors appeals is rejected by the other, at least in the particular point which is in question. Mary had, no doubt, well understood that a great change was being wrought in the life of her son; but, as often happens with our religious knowledge, she had not drawn from this grave fact the practical consequence which concerned her personally. And thus, as Baumlein says, Jesus finds Himself in a position to reject the influence which she presumes still to exercise over Him. The address γύναι, woman, is thereby explained. In the language in which Jesus spoke, as well as in the Greek language, this term involves nothing contrary to respect and affection. In Dio Cassius, a queen is accosted by Augustus with this expression. Jesus Himself uses it in addressing His mother at a moment of inexpressible tenderness, when, from His elevation on the cross, He speaks to her for the last time, John 19:26. Here this expression, entirely respectful though it may be, gives Mary to understand, that, in the sphere on which Jesus has just entered, her title of mother has no longer any part to play.

“Here for Mary,” as Luthardt well observes, “is the beginning of a painful education.” The middle point of this education will be marked by the question of Jesus, “ Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? ” (Luke 8:19 f.) The end will be that second address: Woman (John 19:26), which will definitely break the earthly relation between the mother and the son. Mary feels at this moment, for the first time, the point of the sword which, at the foot of the cross, shall pierce through her heart. After having made her sensible of her incompetency, Jesus gives the ground of His refusal.

The words: “ My hour is not yet come ” have been understood by Euthymius, Meyer, Hengstenberg, Lange and Riggenbach (Leben des Herru Jesu, p. 374), in a very restricted sense: “the hour for performing the desired miracle.” The following words of Mary to the servants, according to this view, would imply two things: the first, that Jesus received a little later from His Father an inward sign which permitted Him to comply with His mother's wish; and the second, that by a gesture or a word, He made known to her this new circumstance. This is to add much to the text. Besides, how could Jesus, before having received any indication of His Father's will, have said: “not yet,” a word which would necessarily mean that the permission will be granted Him later. Finally, this weakened sense which is here given to the expression “ my hour ” does not correspond with the solemn meaning which is attached to this term throughout our whole Gospel. If it were desired to hold to this weakened meaning, it would be still better to give to this clause, with Gregory of Nazianzum, an interrogative turn: “Is not the hour (of my emancipation, of my autonomy) come? ”

Let us remark that the expression “ my hour ” is here connected with the verb is come, as in all the passages in John where it is taken in its weightiest sense: “ His hour was not yet come ” (John 7:30; John 8:20, comp. John 13:1); “ The hour is come ” (John 12:23; John 17:1). His hour, in all these passages, is that of His Messianic manifestation, especially through His death and through the glorification which should follow it. The analogous expression my time, John 7:6, is also applied to His Messianic manifestation, but through the royal entry into Jerusalem. This is the meaning which seems to me to prevail here. Jesus makes known to Mary, impatient to see Him mount the steps of His throne, that the hour of the inauguration of His Messianic royalty has not yet struck. It is in His capital, Jerusalem, in His palace, the Temple, and not in the centre of His family, that His solemn manifestation as Messiah must take place (Malachi 3:1: “ And then He shall enter into His temple ”).

This sense of the expression “ my hour ” could not be strange to the mind of Mary. How many times, in her conversations with Jesus, she had doubtless herself used this expression when asking Him: Will thine hour come at last? That hour was the one towards which all her desire as an Israelite and a mother moved forward. Jesus rejects Mary's request, but only so far as it has something of ambition. How often in His conversations, He replies less to the question which is addressed to Him than to the spirit in which it is put (comp. John 2:19; John 3:3; John 6:26). He thus lays hold of the person of His interlocutor even in his inmost self. Mary desires a brilliant miracle, as a public sign of His coming. Jesus penetrates this ambitious thought and traces a boundary for Mary's desires which she should no more attempt to cross. But this does not prevent His understanding that along with this, there is something to be done in view of the present difficulty.