The service of the Bridegroom

Beginning in the evening of Palm Sunday and continuing through the evening of Great and Holy Tuesday, the Orthodox Church observes a special service known as the Service of the Bridegroom. Each evening service we chant the Matins service of the following day (e.g. the service held on Sunday evening is the Matins service for Great and Holy Monday). The name “Service of the Bridegroom” is derived from the parable of the Ten Virgins, in which Christ speaks of mystical marriages in which the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night. Some of the brides were prepared with lamps to receive Him; others had come unprepared and consequently were left out of the wedding feast (Matthew 25:1-13). The term “Bridegroom” suggests the unifying intimacy of Christ’s divine-human love for us all and is of great significance; in the parable He compares the Kingdom of God to a bridal chamber. The “Bridegroom” also suggests the Parousia, and in the patristic tradition the parable is also related to His Second Coming: it is associated with the need for spiritual vigilance and preparedness, by 

which we are enabled to keep the divine commandments and receive the blessing of Union with God both in this life and in the age to come.

 

The first part of Great & Holy Week presents us with an array of themes based chiefly on the last day of Jesus’ earthly life. The story of the Passion, as told and recorded by the Evangelists, is preceded by a series of incidents located in Jerusalem and a collectin of parables, sayings and discourses centered on Jesus’ divine sonship, the kingdom of God, the Parousia, and Jesus’ castigation of the hypocrisy and dark motives of the Jewish leaders. The observances of the first three days of Great and Holy Week are rooted in these incidents and sayings, and the services constitute a single liturgical unit having the same cycle and structure of daily prayer. The central theme of the services for the Matins of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Holy Week is that we must always be prepared to receive Christ, Who is predestine Bridegroom of all humanity. This teaching is appropriately expressed in the Troparion of the Bridegroom: Behold the Bridegroom cometh in the middle of the night… The Scripture lessons, hymns, and commemorations highlight significant aspects of salvation history, by calling to mind the events that anticipated the Passion and by proclaiming the inevitability and significance of the Parousia. On Great and Holy Monday (celebrated on Palm Sunday night) we commemorate the beloved son of Jacob, Saint Joseph the Patriarch, a major figure of the Old Testament. Joseph’s story is told in the final section of the Book of Genesis (chapters 37-50). Because of his virtuous and remarkable life, in the patristic and liturgical traditions Joseph understood as prefiguring Christ’s Life and Death. The story of Joseph, his bondage, sale into slavery in Egypt and final restoration there illustrates the mystery of God’s providence, promise and redemption in Christ. The lesson to be learned from Joseph’s life is that his slavery or “death in Egypt” was turned into a glorious life. In this biblical narrative the descent of Christ as a slave into Hades where He turned His slavery and death into eternal life for all humanity, was unknowingly prefigured.

 

On the same day, the Church commemorates the event of the cursing of the fig tree (Matthew 21:18-20). The episode is quite relevant to Holy Week, for together with the event of the cleansing of the Temple this episode is another manifestation of Jesus’ divine power and authority and a revelation as well of God’s judgment upon the faithlessness of the Jewish religious leadership. The fig tree is symbolic of Israel’s bareness by her failure to recognize and receive Christ and His teachings. The cursing of the fig tree is a parable in action, a symbolic gesture. Its meaning should not be lost on any one in any generation. The withering of the fig tree, then, is a reminder that any religious traditions which bear no fruits will wither and die just as the fig tree which was full of beautiful and healthy leaves, but had not fruit.

 

During the Great and Holy Week the Old Testament Lessons read out in the church at Vespers are taken from the books of Exodus and Job. The reason for this choice is obvious: In Exodus we have the narrative of the Jewish Passover which prefigured the passing of all humanity from the affliction of death into Eternal Life through Christ’s self sacrifice and Resurrection. In the book of Job we have the very same experience of overcoming death through perseverance and absolute trust in God from the point of view of a Saint who was not a Jew; yet He received Divine Revelation and enjoyed Vision of God thus prefiguring in himself not only the Passion and the Resurrection of Christ but also the universality of Salvation.