we find in reconciling religion with
joy, God with nature, does Christ reveal His glory first at a
marriage-feast, not in the temple, not in the synagogue, not by taking
His disciples apart to teach them to pray, but at a festive gathering,
that thus they may recognise in Him the Lord of all human life, and see
that His work of redemption is co-extensive with human experience. He
comes among us, not to crush or pour contempt on human feelings, but to
exalt them by sharing in them; not to show that it is possible to live
separate from all human sympathies, but to deepen and intensify them;
not to do away with the ordinary business and social relations of life,
but to sanctify them. He comes sharing in all pure feelings and joys,
sanctioning all natural relationships; Himself human, with interest in
all human interests; not a mere spectator or censor of human affairs,
but Himself a man implicated in things human. He shows us the folly of
fancying that God looks with an austere and morose eye upon outbursts
of human affection and joy, and teaches us that to be holy as He is holy
we are not required to abandon the ordinary affairs of life, and that
however we make them the apology for worldliness, it is not the
necessary duties or relations of life that prevent our being Christlike,
but these are the very material in which His glory may be most clearly
seen, the soil in which must grow and ripen all Christian graces and
fruits of righteousness.

This, then, was the glory Christ wished His disciples first of all to
see. He was to be their King, not by drilling men to fight for Him, nor
by interrupting the natural order and upsetting the established ways of
men, but by entering into these with a gladdening, purifying, elevating
spirit. His glory was not to be confined to a palace or to a small
circle of courtiers, or to one particular department of activity, but
was to be found irradiating all human life in its most ordinary forms.
He came, indeed, to make all things new, but the new creation was the
fulfilment of the original idea: it was not to be achieved by thwarting
nature, nor by a one-sided development of some elements of nature, but
by guiding the whole to its original destination, by lifting the whole
into harmony with God. We see the glory of Christ, and accept Him as our
Ruler and Redeemer, because we see in Him perfect sympathy with all that
is human.

4. While enjoying the bounty of Christ at the marriage feast,