Christ the Bridegroom

Christ the Bridegroom

Then people said to him, "Why do the disciples of John fast often and make supplications, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but your disciples eat and drink?  He said to them, "Can you expect wedding-guests to fast as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; that will be the time for them to fast." Luke 5:33-35

These verses fall within the larger section (5:17-6:11) called The Conflicts. The word conflict is used because the one who questions Jesus has a hostile attitude. We were told at the start of this section that men had come from "every village of Galilee and Judea and out of Jerusalem." Jerusalem is religious headquarters. They are not friendly to Jesus, but have come to evaluate him and report back to the authorities. 

Remember, Jesus was accused of blasphemy (a God insult) for forgiving sins. They grumbled at Jesus because he ate with ritually unclean people. The wrong people. Here, things come to a head and Jesus knows it. In so many words they are saying to Jesus, "You know, you're young, you have a lot to learn; you really don't know how to go about it." Jesus has an answer and announces here that a day will come when this hostility towards him will break out in a violent way, "the bridegroom will be taken away." Our minds might go to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus was arrested in a thoroughly violent scene and taken away by temple guards.

But I can't say I've ever heard a homily reflecting on Jesus as the bridegroom. Jesus would have known this biblical image from the Old Testament:

"And I will make for you  a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord." Hosea2:18ff

A covenant is a heart to heart agreement as bridegroom and bride enter into. Notice that this heart-union is with all of creation - even the animals are included. God's creation-idea is revived. God intends the end of violence, and that we would be able to rest in safety. In Jesus, there is God's love, which Hosea likens to that of a newly wed.

But a bridegroom is an ancient image of fertility as well. Psalm 19:4ff references the sun (which makes the planet alive) arising each morning like a bridegroom—who after the wedding night emerges from his tent. The bridegroom is also an image of freshness. Even a backwoods kind of guy, or a man who knows only hard labor, cleans up for his wedding day.

Fertility and freshness are images for richness of new life, fruitfulness, inner creation, personal evolution. Contrast with these gospel grumblers who surround Jesus with complaint and rejection. In the following parables we'll hear Jesus likening their religious brand to an old cloak that's got holes in it and dried out wine skins (made of animal hide) that are rotted through and easily ruined. 

But what about my own kind of religion - do I feel the fertility and freshness? Even a regular Mass-goer might ask about that.

Christ the Bridegroom

Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were keeping a fast. And people came and asked him, "Why is it that when John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are keeping the fast, yours are not keeping it?" Jesus said to them, "Can wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But a time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and when that day comes, they will fast.  (Mark 2:18-20)

IN THE EARLY 1970's, bored and bumming around the seminary library stacks one night, friends found a huge tome titled, The Catholic Educator, written at the turn of the century. Gathered around a large table, our mouths dropped open when one of us read aloud from the chapter, Instructions to the Bridegroom. That for the sake of virtue and chaste love in his marital obligation the bridegroom ought to emulate the bull elephant which stays hidden in the brush until the last minute, completing the pro-creative act as quickly as possible and then immediately to the river to bathe.

I'm sorry to say but those are the ideas of an unfulfilled and joyless priest. It reflects an uptight and prissy view of sexuality under the guise of modesty and virtue. Twisted up religion!

It also makes for Christians who think their mission is to be shocked and appalled (read the Letters to the Editor in so many Catholic newspapers) at the moral weakness of the world rather than transformed in the mind by the un-imagined, or yet-to-be imagined Jesus. Christ loving the world like a bridegroom loving his honeymoon wife. We're not talking hand-holding here.

Jesus the Bridegroom in all of his self-gift, his desire for the beloved, in the intimacy and vulnerability of the wedding night. Could this be why Jesus is stripped a number of times in the Gospel Passion accounts and naked on the cross - to image this vulnerability in love?

Many of us will remember when the altar in Catholic Churches faced at least symbolic east. That altar usually resembled a sepulcher or tomb. One author reflecting on that altar and the male priesthood suggests that the priest there, leaning over deeply, is an image of Christ leaning over his wedding bed! The first and last thing the priest does at every Mass is to lean over to kiss the altar. Perhaps the kiss signifies more than the veneration of relics.

Is this too much? Too far-fetched? Unsettling or discomforting? Or does it take your breath away? Of course, the suggestion of Christ's loving marital physicality takes us at once to the much deeper interior and en-passioned lean of his heart towards humankind in all of its wounded disarray and fatigue.