Well Played, Mary, Well Played

What's going on in John 2:4

And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
- John 2:1-5

Jesus then goes on to turn water into wine. The conversation between Jesus and his mother, Mary, seems odd, even hostile. It seems that Jesus says no to Mary's request, and then Mary acts like he said yes. However, a look closer will show how the conversation makes more sense. Let's start with the term "woman". Bill Munce writes:

Jesus heals a crippled woman, and says to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability” (Luke 13:12; ESV). There is no getting around that the fact that the use of “woman” sounds pejorative to our ears, and yet there is nothing pejorative at all in the Greek γύναι. After all, this is what Jesus calls his mother (John 2:4; 19:26). It is the term Jesus uses to address the weeping Mary at the tomb (John 20:15).

Some translations just say “woman” and leave it up to your study to figure out what it really means (NASB, ESV, NIV, HCSB, NRSV, KJV, NET, TEV, NJB). I applaud the NLT for apparently being the only translation that tries to do something about this in their translation, “Dear woman.”

Munce goes on to talk about the difficulty of translating the Greek word into English but that the term was definitely one of endearment.

Next, let's look at the phrase "what have I to do with thee?" Michael Hieser explains the phrase in his blog post:

There is no reason to see John’s use of this idiomatic expression as indicative of irritation, or that his mother had become insufferable to Jesus. When Jesus says to Mary, “What to me to you?”, he isn’t saying “What is it now, lady?” He’s basically asking his mother, who brings a concern to him, “What can I do for you?”

Next, let's look at the phrase "mine hour is not yet come". In the gospels, Jesus heals people but tells them not to tell anyone (Matt. 8:4, Matt. 9:30, Matt. 12:16) and when someone figures out that he is the Christ, he forbids them from telling anyone (Matt. 16:20, Mark 8:30, Luk. 9:21, Matt. 17:9). This is because Jesus didn't want to be glorified publicly until after his Resurrection. So when Jesus tells his mother that his hour had not come, she understands that Jesus cannot do a miracle if it would publicly glorify him. So she thinks of a way for him to do it so that he would not be publicly exposed: through the servants. And it works:

When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,
-John 2:9

Well played, Mary, well played.