"For the Lord delights in you.” Oddly, these can be difficult words to hear. We know how unworthy we feel before God. Yet, God, who knows all things and sees all things, still delights in us.

“That woman,” a friend observed, nodding to a somber figure across the room, “is followed by a black cloud.” What he meant was that the person in question seemed perpetually haunted, a steadfast messenger of bad news and victim of “unlucky breaks.”

Three days later there was a wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus and his disciples were guests also. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus’ mother told him, “They’re just about out of wine.”

Stand by Me is a great film about the joys and trials of growing up as a boy. One of the heroes and the narrator of the tale is Gordy Lachance. His older brother was a star athlete and his parents’ obvious favorite. Now the older brother has died, and in their grief, Gordy’s parents have totally lost sight of their younger boy.

Their company’s presentation to the new client wasn’t ready. Another day—even four or five more hours—and they could have had it in the right shape. But her partner said, “No, we’ve got to go. We can’t be late, and we can’t postpone again. This is it. Let’s go.”

In Jesus God has done something new and ushered in a new age. In that spirit of renewal, we ask for the gift of God’s forgiveness.

In the parlance of John’s gospel, his hour was the time of the crucifixion. In that hour Jesus would take his own bride and his glory would be fully revealed. For now, out in Cana, the disciples and Jesus’ mother saw and tasted a new, fine wine that would revive a failing feast. Glorious though it was, however, it was only the beginning.