Engaging the Doctrine of Marriage. Matthew Levering
Jesus in the Synoptic accounts of this parable also points toward his Cross, through his reference to the day when the “bridegroom” will be “taken away” from his disciples. Pitre unpacks the connection of the day of the Cross with the day of the consummation of the marriage between God and his people. Specifically, Pitre states that during the seven-day wedding celebration that was characteristic of Jewish culture at this time, “[o]n the night of consummation, the bridegroom would leave his friends and family and enter into what was known as the ‘bridal chamber’ . . . in order to be united to his bride, not to emerge again until morning.”131
The high point of the seven-day wedding feast, then, was when the bridegroom left his friends; and this is precisely what Jesus says that he will do. Thus, Pitre concurs with the New Testament scholar Craig Keener’s remark (about Matthew 9:14–17) that “Jesus is the groom of God’s people in the coming messianic banquet. . . . The ‘taking’ of the bridegroom, of course, is a veiled reference to the impending crucifixion.”132 The bridal chamber of the marriage of God and humanity, therefore, is the Cross, where Jesus spills his “blood of the covenant.” By means of this action, Jesus renews and perfects the covenantal marriage of God and his people that was sacrificially sealed at Sinai but to which Israel could not live up. In this action, Jesus takes on the role of Israel’s bridegroom, a role that only God can truly have. Pitre cites Joseph Ratzinger on this point: “Jesus identifies himself here as the ‘bridegroom’ of God’s promised marriage with his people and, by doing so, he mysteriously places his own existence, himself, within the mystery of God.”133 As Pitre observes, this is one of Jesus’ clearest claims to divinity. Jesus Christ is God come to consummate his marriage with humanity. In making this argument, Pitre includes smaller details such as the crown of thorns (Mark 15:17; Matt 27:29; Luke 22:11) that Jesus wore on the Cross, since a Jewish bridegroom wore “a crown on his wedding day.”134 The fact that on the day of his crucifixion, according to John 19:23, Jesus was dressed in a seamless robe also relates to Jesus’ status as Israel’s bridegroom. In accord with the covenantal signification of marriage, a Jewish bridegroom dressed like a priest, and the high priest’s robe was seamless (see Exodus 28:31–32).
If Israel could not live up to the demands of this marriage—namely the demands of holiness—how can Christ’s bride the Church live up to these demands? On the one hand, humanly speaking the members of the Church are sinners and cannot live up to the demands of holiness. But on the other hand, Jesus’ sacrificial blood on the Cross accomplishes the forgiveness of sins and provides an ongoing fount of reconciliation for his people. Furthermore, as Pitre remarks, the “blood and water” that come forth from the crucified Jesus’ side in John 19:34 has been read as a parallel with the coming forth of Eve from Adam’s side; and the Church comes forth from Christ’s side when from Christ’s side symbolically flow the mysteries of baptism and the Eucharist. Pitre finds, therefore, that the Church is permanently married to Christ in holiness precisely insofar as Christ is continually giving the Church “supernatural life.”135
Similarly, although the New Testament scholar Raymond Brown thinks there is likely no connection to the Genesis account of Eve coming forth from Adam’s side—and although he considers that baptism and the Eucharist likely are only a secondary symbolic meaning of the text—Brown agrees that the water and blood symbolize supernatural life. In light of John 7:37–39, the water stands for the “living water” that is the Holy Spirit and that is poured out only when Jesus has been “glorified” by shedding his blood on the Cross for the forgiveness of sins.136 It is evident that for John, as for the Letter to the Ephesians, the Church has its origin and its sustenance in nuptial holiness in Christ the Bridegroom’s sacrificial dying for his Bride: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her” (Eph 5:25–26). In light of Ephesians 5, Pitre concludes that “the day of Jesus’ crucifixion is his wedding day”—the prophesied marriage of the divine Bridegroom with his Bride “in an everlasting marriage covenant.”137
Pitre adds that the wedding, while begun, is not yet complete, since the Bride is not yet fully perfected and the full number of the elect has not yet been gathered. The Cross of the risen and ascended Lord continues to wield its saving power in the world, sanctifying believers. As Pitre says, not only will many persons continue to come to faith while the world endures, but also “those who have come to faith in the Bridegroom and become members of his bride have often ‘soiled’ their wedding garments through sin and acts of spiritual infidelity.”138 In this light, Pitre points out that the end of the world should be viewed not merely as a cataclysm but as the joyful fullness of the marriage between God and humanity made possible by Christ and his Spirit.
Lest the analogy of marriage seem to break down here—since Christ either consummated it on the Cross or he did not—Pitre notes that in ancient Judaism “one of the duties of the bridegroom was to prepare a home for his bride, so that when the wedding was finally consummated he could take her from her own family and bring her to live with him.”139 Pitre has in view John 14:2–3, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself.” With respect to this passage, his interpretation concurs with that of the New Testament scholar Adeline Fehribach in her book The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom.140
In Pitre’s analysis, then, a tension emerges between the “already” and the “not yet,” a tension that characterizes the New Testament’s eschatology as a whole. Already, through his Cross and Resurrection, Christ has accomplished the perfect marriage of the divine Bridegroom with his people (Israel reconfigured around the Messiah, now with the Gentiles included). But the marriage of God and humanity, though in this sense accomplished already by Christ, awaits its full accomplishment as, over the course of ongoing history, the full number of the elect is brought in and the members of the Church are sanctified by the power of his Cross and Resurrection. Thus, even though the marriage of God and humanity is accomplished by Christ when he is “glorified” on the Cross (as Pitre says), it is also correct to add—as Pitre does in light of the book of Revelation—that “all of human history is headed toward the wedding supper of the Lamb and the unveiling of the bride of Christ.”141 The Christian understanding of the end of time is not about destruction but rather is about the glorious “‘unveiling’ (Greek apokalypsis) of the bride of Christ. Just as an ancient Jewish bridegroom would lift the veil of his bride on their wedding day, so too at the end of time Jesus will unveil the glory of his bride, the New Jerusalem.”142 Among the characteristics of the Bride are perfect holiness, perfect peace, perfect worship, absence of corruption and death, and the fact that the blessed “shall see his face”—the face of God and the Lamb (Rev 22:4), the face of the Bridegroom who has everlastingly married his beloved people.
Pitre brings his book to a close by displaying the theme of the covenantal marriage of God and humanity as it informs the teaching of the Church Fathers—especially their teaching on the sacraments and the religious life—as well as the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and recent popes. Rather than tracking his discussion of the Fathers, let me simply draw attention to the passages of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that Pitre quotes. First, as has been one of the main points of Pitre’s book, the Catechism states that “[t]he entire Christian life bears the mark of the spousal love of Christ and the Church” (§1617). Second, the Catechism states the following: “The nuptial covenant between God and his people Israel had prepared the way for the new and everlasting covenant in which the Son of God, by becoming incarnate and giving his life, has united to himself in a certain way all mankind saved by him, thus preparing for ‘the wedding-feast of the Lamb’ [Rev 19:7]” (§1612).143 Both of these quotations come from the Catechism’s section on the sacrament of marriage.
At this stage, however, we must turn again to our original question.144 In the prophetic books of the Old Testament, it certainly can seem as though God the lover is also God the abuser. Let me now examine why this is so.
II. YHWH the Abusive Male?
What are we to make of passages such as the following?
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