The Eastertide reflections are on the Holy Week services of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And the dominant image of the Liturgy on those days was Our Lord Jesus Christ as the Bridegroom. Holding those services together was a prayer, said serveral times each service. And the prayer was this:
Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching; and again, unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless. Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom. But rouse yourself crying: Holy, holy, holy, art Thou, O God. Through Blessed Mary Theotokos, have mercy on us.
It is a rich prayer because it calls us to reflect upon our life from the point of view of having died, and looking back at the way we led our life. In my life have I watched? In my life have I desired Christ above all else? O my soul, the prayer reads, do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death and lest you be shut out of the kingdom. The five unwise virgins were shut out of the Kingdom after they had died, whereas the five wise virgins, after their death, were admitted to the marriage feast. To be weighed down with sleep is to be weighed down with sin. As Saint John teaches today “Every one who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.” To commit sins means we do not receive the mercy of Christ. It is Christ’s mercy which is the oil that keeps aflame the light of our life in the Holy Spirit. We receive the oil of mercy by being merciful, through lives of virtue and faith, our heart given to God. To not be merciful means not receiving oil, which leads to the death of our spiritual life, an obscuring of God in our life, which leads to being weighed down with sleep. And if we are weighed down by sin, we will not be able to be lifted up.
All Christians must know that Jesus Christ appeared in order to take away sins. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. And at the Second Coming at the end of days, He will come again as the Bridegroom, at midnight after we have slumbered and slept the sleep of death. The Bridegroom will show Himself in His glory as wounded; with nail holes in His hands; in His glory He has a tear in His side. These wounds are a permanent part of the Bridegroom, a permanent marking of His love for us. He will come again and show His suffering, for His Passion on the Cross recapitulates all the suffering He endured in Scripture as His people forgot time and again the innumerable benefits procured unto us by Him. All the Bridegroom has done is for our salvation: His sacrifice entirely that we might be redeemed, and be gathered by Him our Bridegroom into the Marriage Feast.
Our Bridegroom is the Good Shepherd. He has laid down His life for His sheep. That is, for us, for we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Our Bridegroom is He who leads us to feed in green pastures: to feed on Him Who is our daily bread, found in Scripture and in Holy Communion. Our Bridegroom brings us forth in the paths of righteousness, and He leads us to dwell with Him in the house of the Lord forever. He is known by His voice when He calls us by our name. And our Bridegroom seeks after his sheep when they go astray, seeking them so as to be found by Him, that all of the angels rejoice in His finding of us. And our Bridegroom is He who by His death destroyed death: that is by His death He destroyed the power death has over us. Our Bridegroom is He who shows that death is an illusion, for death leads to life. Perhaps it is this very reason why He carries us on His shoulders (why Him our Shepherd carries us the sheep): because He has trampled down death by death, and this trampling carries us over the gate of death into new and yet more abundant life after death. Thus Saint John teaches, “See what love the Father has given us.” He has given us the love our Shepherd has for us, love which tramples down the power Satan has over death, and does so through His death on the Cross.
The Bridegroom, as God, grants unto all who watch with flasks full of oil an incorruptible crown. He adorns in wisdom all with full flasks from having done good works. How can we not love the Bridegroom? How can we not love Him Who wounded Himself for us, wounds which heal us? How can we not love Him Who suffered for us, suffered even that He had no form or comeliness that we should look at Him, no beauty that we should desire Him. But how can we not desire Him Who emptied Himself for us? How can we not desire Him Who through Himself made us?
Let us not remain outside the bridal chamber of Christ. Let us keep our lamps aflame with virtues and true faith. Let us watch and let our days be days spent in prayer and service. Let our hearts be given to God, and let our mind be led by wonder into the greatness and majesty of our Lord: the greatness and majesty of Him Who is the Bridegroom, even the same Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, Who lives and reigns with the Father Almighty in the unity of the Holy Ghost: ever one God, unto the ages of ages. Amen.
On the Shepherdly Love of the Bridegroom