Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them?
The presence of Jesus is meant to be the cause of joy for us. In some sense, then, the wedding guests can never mourn. This bridegroom promised to be with us always, to the end of the age (see Matthew 28:20). This is true in spite of the circumstances in the world around us. We see these and wonder how we can do anything but mourn. We feel the need to all but force ourselves to be joyless in response. But the presence of Jesus, the sign of the consummation of the love between God and his people, is meant to mean more to us than circumstance. We are meant to have joy that no one can take from us.
We are meant to have joy that no one can take from us (see John 16:22).
The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.
How would the bridegroom be taken? Looking back, it couldn't have been the Ascension, for that was precisely the moment when he assured us of his ongoing presence with us. He must have referred to the cross, when darkness separated him from his apostles and they were each scattered. It was then, certainly, that they mourned. So then, no more need of that, since the cross gave way to the resurrection. Or is there?
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (see Colossians 1:24).
The bloody offering of Calvary was completed once for all. But the unbloody offering of that sacrifice continues, in the mass, and in our hearts.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (see Romans 12:1).
We do still experience sorrow. We are called to unite that sorrow with the sorrow of Jesus, when he was taken from us. Mourning and fasting have meaning for us because they help us to more intentionally share the cross of Christ. The cross is meant to draw all men to Jesus (see John 12:32). Yet it is an occasion where he is taken from us. The cross is itself the cry of Jesus for the world to come to him for salvation. Our own sufferings can be expressions of the same desire. When we feel Jesus far from us, we mourn and fast so that not only we ourselves, but the whole world can come to him and have life.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you (see James 4:8).
The old ways of orienting our lives, the old law, our old habits of responding to circumstance, all of these prevent the Spirit from flowing freely. We must let them go. We must "pour new wine into fresh wineskins".
When we mourn and fast we do not enter into darkness that is absolute, nor into suffering that we bear alone. It is rather then that we share in a special and indeed privileged way of being united to Jesus. Within whatever darkness there is we become connected to the certainty Jesus has of the joy set before him (see Hebrews 12:2), even from Calvary. We hear the prophecy of the renewal of all things, and we believe it.
I will plant them upon their own ground;
never again shall they be plucked
From the land I have given them,
say I, the LORD, your God.
The joy of the LORD is available to us now, because of the both now and not yet way in which the renewal of all things is accomplished. If we are in darkness we need not despair. Even there it can be found, if we look for it in Jesus. And so if Jesus feels in anyway absent let us not shortchange that desire but turn it into a prayer that rises from deep inside of us.
Kindness and truth shall meet;
justice and peace shall kiss.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
and justice shall look down from heaven.
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