My Hour Has Not Yet Come

Date: April 28, 2021
 His first miracle it was, turning water into wine at
 Cana in Galilee.  ‘They have no wine,’ His mother
 told Him at the wedding feast when it ran out.  He obliged, 
 using six stone jars of purification water for the generous
 feat.  But it was done with some reluctance. ‘My hour has not
 yet come,’ he said.  Why?  Surely there was a foreshadowing
 here, although the merry guests garbed in finery could not
 have known it as they drank and ate and conversed gaily
 among themselves. This new wine from the six stone jars
 was the best, usually served first, not last, and the thrilled 
 steward of this wedding feast preened as the guests 
 complimented their host, lingered and drank their fill.
   ‘My hour has not yet come.’
 Did Mary have a premonition of that dark time to come, when 
 water and blood would flow from her son’s pierced side? It
 would not be wine that was poured out then, but His very self.
 What was she thinking as her Son turned water into wine?
 Now, seeing this sign of His glory at Cana, His disciples believed.
    ‘My hour has not yet come.’
 How could they and His gentle mother have known what would 
 be asked of Him and them when that hour came? There would be 
 denial, betrayal, sorrowful recriminations and guilt, and their hearts 
 would be torn in two like the curtain of the temple. The sky would 
 darken, the wind would whip around the three crosses at Golgotha,
 the place of the skull, and their Lord would cry out, ‘My God,
 my God, why has thou forsaken me?’ The lives of those closest
 to Him would be shattered, and there would be a paralyzing time 
 of despair before the dawn of radiant joy that changed everything.  
             ‘My hour has not yet come.’
 His first miracle it was, turning water into wine at Cana.
 And so it began, the ordained journey that would lead to
 an unyielding cross of wood and the greatest miracle of all time.