Jesus, Miracles, His Mother, and The Temple

  It's that time again! You can expect at least a spiritual post every week. :)
  This week I will be writing about some of the things that happen in John 2.
  In the beginning of the chapter Jesus is in Cana of Galilee attending a wedding. His mother and His disciples are with him. They ask Mary where they can find some wine and she informs them that there is not any. There are a couple of things that impressed me about what happens next. Jesus asks His mother what He can do to help. In the inspired version of the Bible we find out that the actual translation is that Jesus told her He was willing to do whatever she asked of Him. Jesus Christ respected His mother so completely. I love that! Another interesting thing that happens in this exchange is that He calls Mary "Woman". Hearing a son say this to his mother today would seem rude, however, in Christ's time it was exactly the opposite. James E. Talmage shared a wonderful quote about this in his book Jesus the Christ on pages 144-145(it can also be found in the Institute Manual: New Testament on page 30). He writes:

… The noun of address, ‘Woman,’ as applied by a son to his mother may sound to our ears somewhat harsh, if not disrespectful; but its use was really an expression of opposite import. To every son the mother ought to be preeminently the woman of women; she is the one woman in the world to whom the son owes his earthly existence; and though the title ‘Mother’ belongs to every woman who has earned the honors of maternity, yet to no child is there more than one woman whom by natural right he can address by that title of respectful acknowledgment. 

I love this explanation! It shows how much Jesus Christ really loved and respected His mother. He understood how she was the way He came into this world and how much effort she put into raising Him. He understood that she was an extremely important part of Heavenly Father's plan and that she had lived worthily and done all she could to be an example for Him. He understood the divine role of mothers and made sure that everyone listening (or reading) would understand that too. Wow.
  As we keep reading we find out that Mary asked servants at the wedding to bring pots to Jesus and to do whatever He said to do. He tells them to fill them up with water and they do to the brim. He then tells them to take them to the governor of the wedding and they do. I love their obedience to Christ! That is some faith!! When he tastes the water, it has been turned into wine, and very good wine at that. My husband pointed out to me that wine takes a long time to age. Time was clearly not an issue for Christ! How cool is that? Oh. And according to the Institute Manual for the New Testament, Christ turned about 100-150 gallons of water into wine. That's a lot!!!
  After the wedding is the Passover and Jesus goes to Jerusalem. While He is there He visits the temple and finds that people are selling animals and it is not holy. He takes the time (in one of my classes we talked about how patient He was, even though He must have been very upset) to make a scourge and chases everyone out and says, "Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise." I think this applies to us today. I know that I think about worldly things and I care about things that shouldn't matter. I think His call can be to us to make sure our hearts and minds are cleared of the things of the world. We do not need to clutter it with things that might be OK, He wants us to keep our hearts and minds on the Him, serving others, and keeping the commandments. This week I am going to try to do that. I need to de-clutter my mind. I will let you know how that goes!

That's all for now. Is there anything that you need to de-clutter? Have you talked to your mother recently?? Make sure you thank her!!!