The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

22 THE WATER MADE WINE
spreads its tender glad colouring over all the rest.
The Evangelist who gave us this incident, knew
the Master better than all the others, and read
with clearer eyes the deep secret of His thoughts
and purpose. And here we are told that He who
came to heal all sorrows introduced Himself with
the sunny gladness of one who could enter into all
pure joys. He who had often to say afterwards,
" Blessed are the mourners," began by saying, " Blessed
are the glad." He commenced His ministry where
joy abounded, because He had come to make joy
abound everywhere, because He had come charged
with the joy of God to spread it everywhere. The
wedding feast typified His purpose; for was it not
to marry heaven to earth that they might be one in
sympathy, hope, labour, and blessedness The joygiving
element was never absent. If He walked
through darkness, it was to change it into light ; if
He endured sorrow, it was to overcome and banish
it ; if He suffered death, it was to destroy death.
Joy was the end of it all, as it was the beginning.
We were made for joy because v^od made us. Sorrow
is but the stranger that tarries for the night, joy
the guest that we should entertain always. Jesus
would not have been the all-round Saviour of men
if He had struck the keynote of His ministry on a
mournful chord. Our own nature is keyed to joy
through all its wild wails of sorrow ; we thirst and
pant for gladness and delight, music and beauty.
And the religion which meets us at every point is
that which comes as a sympathetic, tearful angel to
soothe us in the bitter hours of grief, and as a smiling,
approving angel to bless and sanction our joys, to