“Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?”
Luke 5:34–35
Cultural referenceSettledJesus
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; then they will fast. (Luke 5:34–35 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A loose metaphor for happy times.
The cultural key
A village wedding meant seven days of feasting, and rabbinic ruling exempted the wedding party ('sons of the bridechamber') from fasting and certain duties; celebration was legally protected. Deeper: in the prophets, the bridegroom of Israel is God himself (Hosea 2; Isaiah 62:5). Jesus answers a question about fasting by casting himself as the bridegroom.
Recovered meaning
His presence makes it a wedding week; fasting now would be as absurd as mourning at a marriage. And quietly, the bridegroom role he claims belongs to God. 'Taken away' is the first shadow of the cross.
Parallels: Matthew 9:15; Mark 2:19–20