The Bridegroom

Friday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 86 (85):3, 5 Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I cry to you all the day long. O Lord, you are good and forgiving, full of mercy to all who call to you.

Collect God of might, giver of every good gift, put into our hearts the love of your name, so that, by deepening our sense of reverence, you may nurture in us what is good and, by your watchful care, keep safe what you have nurtured. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Psalm 36; Luke 5:33-39

They said to Jesus, John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking. Jesus answered, Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast. He told them this parable: No-one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no-one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no-one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.' (Luke 5:33-39)

The Bridegroom The disciples of John the Baptist were disciples of an outstanding and wonderful master. Their teacher was, according to our Lord himself, without peer. No-one greater than he had been born of woman, our Lord once said — going on, however, to place membership in the Kingdom of Heaven higher still (Matt 11:11). When we look at the Gospel account, we can see three things marking the religious life of John. He was a man of tremendous prayer and self-denial. The young John “grew and became strong in spirit, and was in the wilderness until his manifestation to Israel” (Luke 1:80). He was dressed with camel skins and ate locusts and wild honey (Mark 1:6). He lived for God in prayer and self-denial. At the same time, he directed all — people, publicans and soldiers — to be just and merciful, especially towards the needy (Luke 3: 10-14). In his life and teaching he was in the direct line of the prophets, and in the Sermon on the Mount our Lord presumes the same pillars of religious life (Matthew 6: 2-18): that is, prayer, fasting and works of mercy. John had many disciples, and the Acts of the Apostles records how Christians came across pockets of disciples of John in various parts of Asia Minor. They feature in the Gospels too. In the Gospel of St Matthew (9:14) they approach Jesus following his refutation of the Pharisees at his dining with publicans and sinners. They ask our Lord, why is it that “we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?” In his account of this, St Mark writes that “they” — probably meaning just “people” — came to Jesus and pointed to the practice of fasting by the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees. His disciples, though, did not fast (2:18). In our passage today from Luke (Luke 5:33-39), it is now Christ’s opponents (the scribes and Pharisees) who put this objection. Further, there is a new twist: The “disciples of John fast often and make prayers, as do those of the Pharisees also,” but “yours eat and drink” (Luke 5:33). So the scribes and Pharisees are putting themselves in the company of John, and are including the practice of prayer.

All up, then, the disciples of John, the people, and the scribes and Pharisees — depending on which Gospel one is reading — place our Lord in the context of the religious tradition of their time and of the Old Testament, and find him wanting. He is not insisting on the standards of prayer and fasting of the religious leaders of the day — the scribes and Pharisees, and of the great prophet John. The disciples of John and various people are perplexed, while the scribes and Pharisees are simply critical. But as our Lord explains, they have got it wrong. He cannot be simply placed among the religious leaders of the day, nor simply among the prophets. He transcends them all, and his presence is a cause of rejoicing for the time being. He is the Bridegroom come among the people. It cannot be regarded as business as usual, in a religious sense. A new start is being made, and the new start has to be totally appreciated. Jesus Christ came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets, and he is the fulfilment of them — “Can any of you convict me of sin?” he challenged his opponents. “I always do what pleases him,” he observed of his relationship with his heavenly Father. He is sinless, and he has come to take away the sin of the world. The fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets in him was a new beginning. It could not be regarded as a mere addition to what was present before — this would be a mere sewing on of yet another patch. Rather a new garment is now present — and a bit of the new cannot be sewn on to the old. Nor is new wine poured into old wineskins. The point in our Lord’s answer is that in him there is something utterly new, but long alluded to in revealed religion. Christ is the Bridegroom — and all who knew the prophets knew of the Bridegroom. The Bridegroom was Yahweh God, and the Bride was his covenanted people. John the Baptist himself had referred to Jesus as the Bridegroom (John 3: 29). Our Lord is telling his interlocutors that they must not regard him as simply yet another prophet or religious teacher. He is the Bridegroom of the chosen people, and the overriding thing at this point was to appreciate that. It is this which he wished his own disciples to understand.

The time would come, with this altogether new basis of religion laid, for his disciples to pray continuously, to live a life of self-denial in imitation of him who chose the path of the cross, and to love all others in the way he loved them. But the basis must first be laid. The basis of revealed religion is the person of Jesus Christ. The Kingdom of Heaven consists in union with him and living accordingly. He is the heart, the soul and the Object of religion. This must not be missed — as it could be, with an excessive emphasis on other things. Jesus Christ is the life of the Christian. As St Paul writes, to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21).

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A Second Reflection: (Luke 5:33-39)

Then They Will Fast Our Lord tells his critics that once he, the Bridegroom, is taken away from his disciples, then they certainly will fast (Luke 5: 33-35). Our Lord refers to the future, indicating our situation now in which Jesus is no longer visibly among us. He is no longer visibly among us, but he is very much with us nevertheless. Our Lord said that anyone who loves him will keep his word, and that then he and his Father will love him and come to him and make their abode with him. So he is in us, and by grace we are in him. The essential purpose of this indwelling is that by the action and power of the Holy Spirit, we will be transformed into the likeness of Christ our Bridegroom. This transformation means, as St Paul often insisted, being crucified with Christ so as to experience the power of his resurrection — his risen life. Being one with the crucified Jesus — especially in the Holy Eucharist and Mass — means following in his footsteps by carrying our cross daily. Thus we must, to use our Lord's word in the Gospel passage, "fast". We must expiate with Jesus for our sins and those of others by daily renunciation.

"But the time will come, the time for the bridegroom to be taken away from them; that will be the time when they will fast."

(E.J.Tyler)

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