' James Freeman Clarko,
ST. JOHN II. II 133
glory of Christ, for St. John saw that it was full of truth. Therefore, neither strength nor craft is the glory of Christ. For the glory of Christ is the glory of God, and none other, because He is very God, of very God begotten. In Christ, man sees the unseen, and absolute, and eternal God as He is, was, and ever will be. And the true glory of God is that God is good.
He was always in possession of glory, but He did not always manifest it. Generally it was veiled. It was only on rare occasions that He withdrew the veil and allowed it to flash forth. The sun always has glory, but not always do we see it ; but it is made manifest when the gate of day is opened, when nature is sunned into one beauteous picture. The musician always has glory, but he manifests it when he elicits from his instrument the most delicious harmonies. Jesus had glory when His power was silent and inoperative, but He manifested it when He changed water into wine. He then showed that He was Lord of nature, that nature was His servant and subject to His commands.
\ He believed that all things were one big Miracle, and when a man knows that much he knows something to go upon. He knew for a certainty that there was nothing great and nothing little in this world ; and day and night he strove to think out his way into the heart of things, back to the place whence his soul had come.^
^ To the wise man, the lightning only manifests the electric force which is everywhere, and which for one moment has become visible. As often as he sees it, it reminds him that the lightning slumbers invisibly in the dewdrop, and in the mist, and in the cloud, and binds together every atom of the water that he uses in daily life. But to the vulgar mind the lightning is something unique, a something which has no existence except when it appears. There is a fearful glory in the lightning because he sees it. But there is no startling glory and nothing fearful in the drop of dew, because he does not know, what the thinker knows, that the Hash is there in all its terrors. So, in the same way, to the half-believer a miracle is the one solitary evidence of God. Without it he could have no certainty of God's existence.^
•[[ We are more sure that God was in Christ when He said, "Eise up, and walk," than when He said, with absolving love, " Son, thy sins be forgiven thee " : more certain when He furnished wine for wedding guests, than when He said, " Father,
1 Rudyard Kipling. ^ F. W. Robertson.
134 THE FIRST SIGN
forgive them ; for they know not what they do." 0, a strange, and low, and vulgar appreciation this of the true glory of the Son of God, the same false conception that runs through all our life, appearing in every form — God in the storm, and the eartliquake, and the fire, no God in the still small voice ; glory in the light- ning-flash, no glory and no God in the lowliness of the dew- drop; glory to intellect and genius, no glory to gentleness and patience; glory to every kind of power, none to the inward, invisible strength of the life of God in the soul of man.^
In what respects, then, did this first miracle manifest the glory of Christ ? What was there in it to stir the thought and attract the adoration and trust of the disciples ? Was it worthy to be the medium of conveying to their minds the first ideas of His glory they were to cherish? And what ideas must these have been ?
1. It was the glory of creative power. — In this first miracle, Christ enters physical nature as its King, who can use it for His high ends. Never before has He wrought a miracle, but in this first command to nature there is no hesitation, no experimenting, no anxiety, but the easy confidence of a Master. He is either Himself the Creator of the world He comes to restore to worth and peace, or He is the Delegate of the Creator. We see in this first miracle that Christ is not an alien or a usurper, but One who has already the closest connection with us and with all things. We receive assurance that in Him God is present. ^ The growth of every seed is a work of creation.^ ^ In every grape that hangs upon the vine, water is changed into wine, as the ' sap ripens into rich juice. Christ had been doing that all along, in every vineyard and orchard ; and that was His glory. Now He has come to prove that ; to draw back the veil of custom and carnal sense, and manifest Himself. Men had seen the grapes ripen on the tree ; and they were tempted to say, as every one of us is tempted now, " It is the sun, and the air, the nature of the vine and the nature of the climate, that make the wine." Jesus comes and answers, " Not so ; I make the wine ; I have been making it all along. The vines, the sun, the weather, are only My tools, wherewith I worked, turning rain and sap into wine; and I am greater than they. I made them; I do not depend on them ; I can make wine from water without vines, or * F. W. Robertson. "^ Luther.