Jesus Dismissing Mary?

[Lily_Bernans]

I can assure you that any sane man even if he knows will be resurrected would not wish to go through the pain, agony, humiliation of crucifixion. Branded a common criminal, spat upon, mocked, whipped, nailed and suspended till you die of suffocation. And 3? hours to die. You seem to make light of his suffering just because he knows he will be resurrected. With scars to show for it.

theguardian.com/science/2004/apr/08/thisweekssciencequestions

Someone nailed to a crucifix with their arms stretched out on either side could expect to live for no more than 24 hours. Seven-inch nails would be driven through the wrists so that the bones there could support the body’s weight. The nail would sever the median nerve, which not only caused immense pain but would have paralysed the victim’s hands.

The feet were nailed to the upright part of the crucifix, so that the knees were bent at around 45 degrees. To speed death, executioners would often break the legs of their victims to give no chance of using their thigh muscles as support. It was probably unnecessary, as their strength would not have lasted more than a few minutes even if they were unharmed.

Once the legs gave out, the weight would be transferred to the arms, gradually dragging the shoulders from their sockets. The elbows and wrists would follow a few minutes later; by now, the arms would be six or seven inches longer. The victim would have no choice but to bear his weight on his chest. He would immediately have trouble breathing as the weight caused the rib cage to lift up and force him into an almost perpetual state of inhalation.

Suffocation would usually follow, but the relief of death could also arrive in other ways. “The resultant lack of oxygen in the blood would cause damage to tissues and blood vessels, allowing fluid to diffuse out of the blood into tissues, including the lungs and the sac around the heart,” says Ward.

This would make the lungs stiffer and make breathing even more difficult, and the pressure around the heart would impair its pumping.

The agony is worse for him because he knew he will die by crucifixion even before the trial, the most painful death of the time. Knowing you will get up 3 days later doesn’t give a lot of comfort. Ordinary men would be clueless and still hoping to get acquitted and an “ignorance is bliss” statement may be apt for them.

No, no, no, no, no! I was not making light of his suffering at all! I apologize for the confusion.

Yes, you are, once again, entirely correct. I thought about that when making my post, though I failed to write it. Even with the knowledge of resurrection and glorification three days after death, no one in his right mind would want to be crucified, but avoid it instead. It was the thought of the agonizing death he was facing that caused Jesus’ agony in the Garden and caused him to ask his Father to “remove this cup” if that be his will.

Just reading your post made me uncomfortable. I do try to read The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ every Lenten season, but I have read that the translator embellished Bl. Anne Catherine’s Emmerich’s words. Still, I feel the book is valuable. Some people take offense a the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” but I find it valuable for bonding oneself to Jesus’ sufferings, especially during Lent even though there are parts of the movie I wish Gibson would have done differently.

Thank you for clearing up my confusing posts of yesterday. Yours are quite clear, and I do agree with them 100%. I was more focused on saying that beloved as she was and is, Mary did not cause Jesus to begin his ministry prematurely. I think you’ve shown us that by showing us that he already had disciples by the time of Cana; his ministry might not have been in full force, but it had begun. I think he was aware of his fate by the time of his baptism in the Jordan if not sooner. But I do not think he was aware of it as a boy or an adolescent.

 

[ericc]

the miracle at Cana was his first miracle IIRC, so people weren’t clamoring to meet him as I’ve stated.

The miracle at Cana was his first recorded miracle. BUT, look at Mary’s response. Her statement would have been meaningless if she wasn’t expecting Jesus to perform a miracle. At first glance, Jesus statement and Mary’s response seems to be disconnected. Dissonant. If Mary is expecting a miracle from Jesus , then I’d postulate than either that has been prearranged that when an opportunity arise, he would be asked to do it (and he did that without public fanfare). Which lead to the possibility that some conversation may be missing or omitted before Mary’s instruction to the servants.

Jesus statement reinterpreted “what is it to us if the host runs out of wine” is Just Jesus way of saying he is not really keen to go into this sort of thing. Which is helping the host from being embarrassed by his miscalculation. All his other miracles tend to help people of sickness, driving evil spirits out, etc but never to get people out of an embarrassing situation. It would appear this is a family situation. This incident has not much ministering value for Jesus seeing that this miracle wasn’t perform to highlight the glory of God. There was no preaching. Just a low key back stage helping out situation without publicity.

Anyway, that’s my take on Cana.

 

[Tim_D]

Jesus statement reinterpreted “what is it to us if the host runs out of wine” is Just Jesus way of saying he is not really keen to go into this sort of thing. Which is helping the host from being embarrassed by his miscalculation. All his other miracles tend to help people of sickness, driving evil spirits out, etc but never to get people out of an embarrassing situation. It would appear this is a family situation. This incident has not much ministering value for Jesus seeing that this miracle wasn’t perform to highlight the glory of God. There was no preaching. Just a low key back stage helping out situation without publicity.

This is an excellent response that highlights why I consider Mary to have been the cause of Jesus beginning His ministry before the “appointed time.” It was Mary who took pity on the couple; it was Mary who asked Jesus to intervene; it was Mary who commanded the servants to do “whatever He tells you.” Jesus acquiesced to His mother’s intercession even though it was outside of His timeframe.

 

[Mintaka]

The Messiah’s “hour” and takeover was supposed to be associated with the Messianic banquet attended by all the good people in the world, with everflowing wine, and a bunch of other stuff.

So Mary is saying, “Son, do something about the wine, you know and I know that wine access is in all the prophecies.”

And Jesus is saying, “Fine, I’ll do something wine-related, but not the everflowing thing. Not yet.”

You can read a lot about this in Brant Pitre, or in his talks on messianic expectations.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

The miracle at Cana was his first recorded miracle. BUT, look at Mary’s response. Her statement would have been meaningless if she wasn’t expecting Jesus to perform a miracle. At first glance, Jesus statement and Mary’s response seems to be disconnected. Dissonant. If Mary is expecting a miracle from Jesus , then I’d postulate than either that has been prearranged that when an opportunity arise, he would be asked to do it (and he did that without public fanfare). Which lead to the possibility that some conversation may be missing or omitted before Mary’s instruction to the servants.

Jesus statement reinterpreted “what is it to us if the host runs out of wine” is Just Jesus way of saying he is not really keen to go into this sort of thing. Which is helping the host from being embarrassed by his miscalculation. All his other miracles tend to help people of sickness, driving evil spirits out, etc but never to get people out of an embarrassing situation. It would appear this is a family situation. This incident has not much ministering value for Jesus seeing that this miracle wasn’t perform to highlight the glory of God. There was no preaching. Just a low key back stage helping out situation without publicity.

Anyway, that’s my take on Cana.

I’m sure you’re correct in your assumption that we don’t know all the conversation that took place between Mary and Jesus at Cana. And I am sure you are correct in saying that Jesus’ ministry had already begun - he had disciples, some of them were also at Cana. Sometimes his first words to Mary after her request are, “What has that to do with you and me?” I don’t see that as any rebuke by Mary, only that Jesus’ ministry and miracles were to encompass the spiritual realm (the miracles the spiritual by way of the physical much of the time). Helping out a host who had miscalculated the amount of wine he needed was not something that pertained to his ministry. In the end, though, he did it out of love for his mother.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

He’s referring to John 2:4 I believe.
First of all, the actual Greek is “Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί;” This may be the wrong path for me to take, as I’m essentially still in the very early stages of learning Greek (so someone please correct if I’m wrong), but me (ἐμοὶ) and you (σοί) are both in the dative case, meaning they are both indirect objects.

Correct.

It seems odd to pit one as the subject or object of the other since they’re in the same case.

Yes. And this isn’t typical Greek. John is probably one of the more difficult Gospels to read for he sometimes uses very subtle puns and obscure bits of grammar.

They are both receiving whatever is going on here, whatever action this sentence is taking is being applied to both of them, not one to the other. “καὶ” just means “and” in this verse. “Τί” means “who”, “which”, or “what (thing)” or something along those lines. The end of our analysis is seeing that this is a question (indicated by the Greek question mark “;”, so we can add a word or two to English to make it make sense as such. So watch my hubris as I render it “What is this to you and me?” Or, allow me to risk making a fool of myself, he’s essentially asking “Is this really any of our business?”

The ; is a later addition to the Greek, it wasn’t in the early copies. But the word “ti”, automatically makes the sentence a question and expects a pronoun. So you do need to choose a noun to agree with ‘ti’ in the sentence [eg: this/that] – eg: I think, “What [is] this/that to me and to you?” is perfectly fine.

(With the implication being it’s not your wedding or mine, yet. Let’s not forget the next phrase which puts Jesus’ response into context, “my hour has not yet come.” His response is to tie this into his messianic mission, to the consummation of his own wedding at the cross.

Well… yes, but there is something more to the context of the wedding.
eg: exactly why are the couple out of wine? Did more people come to the wedding than were expected?

Mary was invited to the wedding (John 2:1 does NOT say Jesus was), but Jesus comes anyway on account of his mother. That’s probably fine – but not only did Jesus come, but all the people who John the Baptist had been telling to follow Jesus also came.

So, here’s this wedding couple, they invite one person – Mary – and all the sudden a huge number of people who are following Jesus because of John the Baptist, (and perhaps the epiphany at the river?) also show up. I think there is an obvious cause and responsible party for the wedding couple not having enough wine to give to all the opportunistically drinking disciples. So – who’s responsibility is that?

It’s not a coincidence that his first public miracle was at a wedding. It’s not a simple question of whether they should get involved. This is too relevant to be an accident or a random, unplanned (by God) occurrence, which would be the conclusion from your Father’s interpretation, which makes this miracle a result of Jesus being pressured into doing it by his mother.)

Oh, I’m sure Jesus’ mother put some pressure on him. After all, he’s a grown man and responsible for his disciples actions… right? Especially if all these freeloaders make Jesus’ mother odious to a wedding couple whom invited HER and not Jesus in the first place. He has no major reputation yet, so that people would put faith in him because of anything he has done himself. I mean, not even John the baptist worked food miracles; and he’s the one who pointed Jesus’ disciples in this general direction.

Hopefully someone more knowledgable of the Greek can comment on this and correct me if I’ve erred.

The phrase isn’t necessarily dismissive. Whether I’m right about the Greek, I also think we need to understand that translating from one language to the others might lose the true meaning of a phrase. “Once in a blue moon.” “When pigs fly.” Etc…

Yep. I’m loving it. Well thought out response. “Jesus, They are out of wine and you know why!”

Plus, we don’t know how it was said. Perhaps it was with a smile on his face in good nature. It’s no less of an assumption to assume he was being negative or derogatory towards his mother, especially when the fourth commandment is about honoring one’s parents, and Jesus, the perfect man, stresses keeping the spirit of the law, not just its letter

Anyway, Jesus follows through with it. I’d hardly see it as disrespectful. And what happens immediately after this? Jesus is ready to start his ministry.

 

[ericc]

This is an excellent response that highlights why I consider Mary to have been the cause of Jesus beginning His ministry before the “appointed time.” It was Mary who took pity on the couple; it was Mary who asked Jesus to intervene; it was Mary who commanded the servants to do “whatever He tells you.” Jesus acquiesced to His mother’s intercession even though it was outside of His timeframe.

Oh but I don’ t think Cana was the start of Jesus ministry. See my post #16 to Lily.

Reproduced

“I think Jesus already began his ministry prior to Cana. In Jn 2:2 his disciples were already with him at Cana. In Mat 4:17 we see he already started preaching even before he had his disciples gathered, which happened in ver 18. I’d place the start of his ministry at verse 17.” Which is before Cana where the disciples were already present.

His “hour” as far as I can determined from John’s Gospel always refer to Jesus impending death.

 

[ericc]

I’m sure you’re correct in your assumption that we don’t know all the conversation that took place between Mary and Jesus at Cana. And I am sure you are correct in saying that Jesus’ ministry had already begun - he had disciples, some of them were also at Cana. Sometimes his first words to Mary after her request are, “What has that to do with you and me?” I don’t see that as any rebuke by Mary, only that Jesus’ ministry and miracles were to encompass the spiritual realm (the miracles the spiritual by way of the physical much of the time). Helping out a host who had miscalculated the amount of wine he needed was not something that pertained to his ministry. In the end, though, he did it out of love for his mother.

The Greek word “gynai” used to address his mother at Cana is the same word he used when he handed Mary over to John at the cross. So I don’t think there was anything disrespectful with this word, perhaps, just the way the English language sound when translating an ancient language. And Jesus couldn’t possibly break his own commandment by dishonouring his parent.

Lily, no apologies are needed where no offense is intended. We are all here to share and learn from each other. And a frank exchange really is a great way to do it. We set forth our views and of course we try to support it with whatever info we have.

 

[ericc]

I’m sure you’re correct in your assumption that we don’t know all the conversation that took place between Mary and Jesus at Cana. And I am sure you are correct in saying that Jesus’ ministry had already begun - he had disciples, some of them were also at Cana.

I think I may have made a mistake in my assumption that Cana was the first recorded miracle. It wasn’t. It would be Luke 4:35. If my following explanation makes sense. Help me bring me to my senses if I am wrong in my analysis. (It has been a long day)

After the temptation of the devil in the desert, he started preaching in the synagogues Luke 4:15, Mat 4:17. In Luk 4:35, he cast out a demon. If that is considered a miracle, that would be his first one. But if someone were to deny that feat as a miracle, then the next suitable candidate would be the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law in Luk 4:38. That would surely qualify as a miracle. And if disregarded, Luk 4:40 should cover it.

Why would this be his first miracle? Because at this stage he haven’t recruited his disciples. That would be in Luk 5:1-11. In Cana, his disciples were already with him. Hence the events in Luk 4 should precede Cana. More bullets to deny a Cana start of Jesus ministry.

Since he already demoed his miraculous powers previously, now the Cana statement sounds even more reasonable. To read as, I don’t do miracles to save people from embarrassment or losing face. (Losing face is a big big thing in those days.) But for you mum, I’ll do it. (Probably the missing statement) And Jesus would have brought great honor to his mother.

 

[PJM]

=Fauken;13401558]Hello everyone!

So, I recently told my parents that I am going through RCIA. Their reception to that went swimmingly well, though they disagree with Catholicism. When my father and I were talking, he said that Mary could not be held in as high of a regard as we think because (apparently) Jesus said something along the lines of “Woman, who are you to me” to Mary before his crucifixion. This did not sit well with me in the back of my head, as I have not encountered such a remark to Mary in Scripture. just browsed through the Gospels and still have not found such a remark. Am I overlooking something? Did Jesus ever say anything along those lines to Mary? Or is my father mistaken?

Thank you for your answers and time!

We can make multiple points here, but I’ll limit ti to two:

The passage you seem to quote is from the First Miracle at the wedding at Cana; where Jesus introduces His Divinity at the urging of His Mother:

JN. 2: 4-5 “And Jesus saith to her: Woman, what is that to me and to thee? my hour is not yet come. [5] His mother saith to the waiters: Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye.”

This is clearly not a dismissal: Christ then turns the water jugs into wine jugs.

The second point is when Jesus hung on the Cross; one of His seven Last Words was: I THIRST!

This "thirst: of our God was proclaiming, literally moments before His death; that He desired to do more:

Jn. 19:: 25-27 “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother’ s sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen. When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman,** behold thy son. **[27] After that, he saith to the disciple:[John the Beloved] Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own.”

The “More” that Christ desired became manifest in the following ways:

A few hours prior He instituted the Catholic Priesthood: “Do this in memory of Me.” and at the same time the most Holy Eucharist; the gift of Himself into perpetuity.

Then in the waning moments of His Death Jesus literally shares His Mother with Humanity so that She could guide, lead protect and assist each of us on our journey of salvation.

That my dear friend is a LONG ways from what you dad [mis] understands.

God Bless you!

Patrick