Jesus the Bridegroom: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told by Brant Pitre

Author:Brant Pitre [Pitre, Brant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7704-3546-2
Publisher: Image
Published: 2014-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

Five hundred executions per day, for any length of time, is a horrific number. In the first century, crucifixion was a weapon of mass destruction.

In sum: In a first-century Jewish setting, the Roman practice of execution by crucifixion was widely considered to be one of the cruelest and most shameful ways a person could die. As such, it was hardly the kind of death that anyone would ever associate with the happiness of a wedding.

THE PASSION OF THE MESSIAH

With all of this in mind, we can now take our third and final step by asking: If crucifixion was so cruel and so shameful and so bloody, why would Jesus—or anyone else, for that matter—compare the event to a wedding day? And if so many hundreds, if not thousands, of Jews before and after Jesus suffered the same death on the wood of the accursed tree, then what makes Jesus’ crucifixion different? Why is his crucifixion the only one in human history that anyone has ever described as a marriage, and what light does this shed on who he was, and why he died on the cross?

In this final section, we will try to answer these questions by focusing our attention on three key moments from his passion: (1) the crowning with thorns; (2) the casting of lots for Jesus’ seamless garment; and (3) the piercing of Jesus’ side. As I hope to show, each of these events when seen through ancient Jewish eyes, presents us with important parallels between the crucifixion of Jesus and the wedding day of a Jewish bridegroom. Indeed, I would suggest that the authors of the Gospels are inviting us to look beyond the history of Jesus’ execution to the mystery of the Bridegroom Messiah’s wedding day. Let’s now look carefully at each of these moments in turn, from both vantage points.

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