Illuminations
The Bridegroom Cometh
"Jesus is coming," says the boy, looking through the window, wide-eyed, as the sky reddens and strange clouds loom in the west. Blaring from the television is a commercial with mostly naked girls, selling deodorant. His brother across the room is unconscious, absorbed in a video game.
"Wait a moment, Meg," says his mother, taking the smart phone from her ear, pausing in mid-analysis of the faults of a good friend. "What did you say?"
"Jesus is coming."
A second or two of silence. It's hard to have such a strange child. She returns to the phone.
Missing the Feast
Some confidence-man from below, a fast-talking Triptweeze, laying his hand on a nation's shoulder and selling it an Edsel without a drive train, which is sinking into a muddy field while mice gnaw the wires and build nests in the upholstery, has created the "Christmas season," which has to do with a rubicund reindeer and a talking snowman and chestnuts roasting and consumers consuming, all to take our minds away from the dread advent of the Lord, when we will see his face, and all that we wish would stay hidden will be laid bare in the light.
When the Lord talks about his coming in judgment, he does not toss tinsel on the tree. He says that it will be as in the days of Noah. He says that people will cry out, "Mountains, fall on us!" It will take people unawares, like a thief in the night. Many will not be ready for it. They will be like the five foolish virgins in his parable, who thought they had all the time in the world, and so when the Bridegroom was coming near and they woke from their slumber—which may be the slumber of ceaseless activity in the world—they found they had no oil in their lamps. So they had to go out into the city when all the shops were closed, seeking for oil where none was to be had. They missed the feast. That is one way to think of eternal loss. You drown yourself in busy sleep, so that you miss the feast.
The Greek Troparion
It is altogether salutary, then, that during the days before the Nativity, we should be reminded of those last days. Here we may be well instructed by the Greek church and its tremendous treasury of hymns. One of its troparia is Idou ho Nymphios erchetai, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh," which the people sing in the Bridegroom Services from the evening of Palm Sunday to the evening of Holy Wednesday.
Think of these things together. Jesus, the Bridegroom, is about to appear to the world in the flesh, as the babe in the manger in Bethlehem. He is the same Jesus who will come again in the flesh, in glory, as the ruler of all the world and its judge. Between that first appearance and the last, there came his entry into Jerusalem in royal humility, when people strewed his way with palm branches and cried out, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" Yet a few short days later, he the Bridegroom would embrace his sweet and bitter Cross, and the very earth would tremble beneath.
Here is a literal prose translation of the troparion:
Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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