Saturday, April 23, 2011
Easter: My Big Fat Greek Wedding?
urely you have seen the film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”: while it never won an academy award, it was a sleeper hit, which eventually grossed $241 million. Entertaining, unreal, exotic and strange- that’s what this romantic comedy is all about. As people in the UK enjoy their bank holiday weekend, especially given the stunningly warm weather we have been having, the historic occasion for the break is barely remembered: and those who recall that this weekend is Easter mostly think of some legend, similarly unreal, exotic and strange.
Interestingly enough, the term “wedding” could appropriately be used for what Easter is and in fact, some of the Christian prayers of this season use wedding imagery. Heaven is described as a big wedding banquet and many Biblical stories have some sort of wedding symbolism attached to them: bridesmaids waiting for the groom to arrive, somebody being invited to a wedding but showing up without respecting the dress code, seating arrangements at a big banquet, wine running out before the wedding is over.
This has in part to do with the fact that traditional societies did not have the TGIF (Thank God It’s Friday) habit; celebrations always had a purpose, and one of the main occasions to throw a party were weddings. But that can’t be the sole reason for all this pervasive nuptial imagery. Somehow the Bible seems to expect a real wedding to take place, but between whom? Who is the groom and who the bride?
Surprising to many of us, one of the common images used to describe God is a bridegroom, a lover pursuing his bride. He woos her jealously and goes through great lengths to win her affection. When she is unfaithful, he still does not reject her, because he is madly in love with her. If this sounds silly, then because it is: the creator of the universe, supposedly all-powerful and all-knowing, has a crush on somebody. The bride in question is the human race and God, contrary to popular opinion, is not about to force this woman to marry him. Rather he seeks to win her by expressing his love and his affection: if you don’t believe that, read the Biblical book called “The Song of Songs” and you will be stunned by the romantic, not to say sexual imagery, which is used there.
But three years of wooing and no success; in fact people get fed up with him and
decide to rid themselves of him by executing him as a madman, a religious leader with a Messianic complex. And so he dies a shameful death...end of story. Or maybe not? Christians believe that he died, but that came back to life, because he was more than a man, he was a God-man, and so could not remain dead for ever. And even as he rested in the tomb, the bride had second thoughts: what did I do? Did I really say no? Look how he loved me, coming all the way to me, enduring the shame and pain without saying a word! Maybe I was a fool not to believe that he loved me indeed. And thus some people decided to give into his entreaties and start dating him: that is one way to understand what a Christian is.
The Easter prayers of some Christian traditions pick up this thought by speaking of Christ as “ho Nymphios”, the bridegroom. In fact there is a striking icon depicting him just before his execution, pain-ridden and in agony, yet with a gaze of love. For in a mysterious way the cross on which Jesus died became “the wedding bed on which he consummated the marriage between God and the human race” (St. Hyppolitus). What looked like rejection became in fact the supreme act of love from God toward the human race, and this act won the affection and the relationship of the bride, in a way no over-powering force could.
So Easter is in fact a wedding: not really Greek, not a comedy, but deeply romantic and with a happy end. Two unlikely lovers eventually get wedded: God and the human race. And every Easter the celebration is there to invite you and me to join in the party. “So you don’t eat meat? That’s ok, I’ll make lamb!”
