I first met Jesus of Nazareth at a wedding in Cana. My cousin, Benjamin, was marrying a Cana girl, Zeresh. They had been childhood sweethearts, and were betrothed by their parents, soon after Benjamin became a Son of the Law. Both families scratched mere existence from the soil, and the wedding feast was largely of the charity of the village wives, farmers and shepherds. Though Cana was betimes a place to starve, at the murmur of a wedding the spores of a particular malady filled the air. All were stricken and the effects manifested themselves in all manner of grim ways. A woman, who could oft raise flour and oil scarce enough for her own needs, would bake a small honey cake too many.  The baker would beg the clearance of two unclaimed barley loaves, which threatened the cleanliness of his oven. A shepherd would come down from the hills with a lamb whose mother’s teats had dried, and bemoaning the threat to his children’s milk, would beg the betrothed to save his family by fattening the lamb for their wedding feast. Vines, olives, figs and oranges would be so contaminated by the tainted air as to shriek for thinning out, and strange to relate, the lowlier the wedding house, the worse the malaise. My cousin would have inspired the charity of a beggar, such was the combined fortune of the two families.
     Therefore was I much surprised to see so great an assembly for the celebration. I learned that Zeresh’ mother, a daughter of Aaron, was sister to Elizabeth, and both were cousins to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary and Jesus had been called because of the recent death of Joseph the carpenter, and the invitation was intended to bring Mary out of mourning.
     And now to the miracle of the wine.
     I wish to God that it had never happened, or that I had not witnessed it. I did not sell my Lord for 30 pieces of silver. He bought me for twelve jars of wine.
     The son of a landowner of Cana had arrived not until the ceremony was over, and the feasting was well underway. He had ignored offers of food, rudely embraced the bride, then ensconced himself by the wine table. After some time, on finding the nearest pitcher empty, he raged along the bench, seeking for more but, largely due to his own recent application, his search was fruitless. He promptly bawled for a servant to bring his horse to him there, in the yard, amid the feasting. This raucous behaviour did greatly offend the gathering, though none dared chastise the offender, partly for his father’s station, and partly for the comfort of the bridal families. Amid the stir I heard Mary say to Jesus “They have no wine”, to which Jesus replied “My time is not here”. Mary held his gaze but a moment, then turned to address a youth of my cousin’s house, saying Attend my son, and heed his instruction”.
     With the merest trace of a wry smile at his mother, Jesus moved across to the wine bench, followed by this youth, Jehu by name, and Jesus addressed the drunkard.
     “Is it wine you seek, wine you need?” The reply was unintelligible but understood, though Jesus ignored it, and turned to Jehu without pause, to ask quietly,
     “Where are the purification vessels?”

     In reply Jehu spoke not, but simply threw back the bench cloth to reveal twelve stone jars, one or two still almost full, varying down to a couple almost empty, all protected from the sun by the shade of the bench. Jesus picked up a goblet and dipped it into the first jar, saying “Here is the wine you need”, and offered it the drunkard who quaffed it greedily, not realising the deception until too late, whereupon he spat it out onto the air amid laughter and derision from the whole company as Jesus continued- “The wine of the desert, the wine Moses struck from the stone!”

     The fool clambered to his saddle and careered madly out of the courtyard, and all the while, the laughter rang round the walls.

     Jesus rolled the first jar onto its side and the water issued all around the table causing a further wave of laughter. Then he picked up another goblet, dipped it into the next jar and bid Jehu offer it to the bride’s father who pronounced it better than what had gone before! By this time Jesus had re-crossed the courtyard to re-join his mother in a secluded corner, and when helpers came to dispense this new-found wine, all twelve jars were found fully charged with this superior vintage.

     Now all the company took this to be evidence of a pleasant deception on the part of Benjamin’s father, the host who, I learned later, took the wine to be the charitable contrivance of a benevolent friend or neighbour, and so did not contradict the general opinion.

     But I had been with Benjamin and others of his house to draw the water for purification at dawn when the stone was cold, and I know that these were the same stone vessels which I had helped to place under the bench.

     It was this event which bound me to Jesus. Not merely that he performed a miracle, for at that time, by my own reasoning, I could not admit it to be so. Rather I fancied an ingenious deception, but because he had the wit and warmth and imagination to aid such people in such a way, and without seeking either gratification or even the slightest acknowledgement. I was not won by the healing of cripples or lepers or blind men- I was won by twelve jars of wine.

I saw nothing more of Jesus for perhaps two months. Then being in Galilee on business, with my father, we visited the synagogue, in Nazareth, of a Sabbath. When it came time for the priests to invite a reader, even as they were carrying the scrolls to the table, Jesus was suddenly there, taking a particular scroll from them, and purposefully seeking the text he desired. He found it, and stood, eyes closed and head bowed for a moment, and when he looked up, I could see that he was much changed. He looked tired, thinner of face (I later learned that he was recently returned from a sojourn of fasting and prayer in the desert) but his eyes shone and burned into the dimness of the synagogue. Then he began to read from the prophet, Isaiah-

     “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”.

     When he had finished and handed back the scroll, there was a tension, an oppression as before a storm, as we awaited his exposition. He spoke-

     “Today, this scripture is fulfilled, here and now, in your presence”.

     The storm broke, or rather broke away, for although it was plain that each man gasped, and wanted to cry ‘shame!’, no-one could call him down. He spoke on, and  

by his very strength of mind and will, he held them back in themselves as he took their own words out of their mouths with-

     “I know you will not believe me, because Israel is blind and deaf and dumb and lame, but the blind will be given sight- insight, the deaf will hear God’s voice in their neighbours’ houses, the dumb will give voice to praising God, and loving fellow men, and the lame will walk into paradise.

     Your Father is not a jealous, vengeful tyrant- he is loving and kind, he is forgiving, because God is love. If you want to live in your Father’s house, you must learn to show love and kindness and forgiveness. These three keys will unlock the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven; they will also unlock the smallest, hardest heart, and then you will find that both of these are one and the same place. You must open your hearts, for the Kingdom of God is here”.

     As Jesus moved back to his seat there were mutterings of a mixed nature. Some were clearly impressed, while others were not, and one voice was clearly heard above the rest, speaking about Jesus only being the old carpenter’s son. Jesus, on hearing this, turned from his seat and cried out- “No prophet was ever heeded in his own country!” and then he strode out of the synagogue. I would have followed him, but Simon, my father, would have been offended if I had left him anywhere short of the threshold of our place of lodging, after service was over.

     That evening I heard people discussing the incident, and someone said they had seen Jesus walking off along the north road. So at sunrise next morning, after leaving a note to tell my father that I would follow him home, later, I requested some food of our host, and set out to the north. I couldn’t have explained why; I didn’t know myself. I only knew that I wanted to hear more from this man. Something in his manner and words was challenging me to listen, to ignore if I could.

      I could not.