Wedding Clothes

To prepare for the sermon on Revelation chapter 19 I have been reading about ancient wedding customs.  It's really interesting.  We have lots of wedding customs and some weddings are very lavish.  There are huge weddings with large wedding parties that make it to TV.  But they aren't even close to the standard of Weddings a few millenia ago.

This understanding will also help us read through all the wedding language that Jesus spoke in.

So here's a quick taste of how a wedding, marriage, and party went.

1.  The groom would leave his father's house and go to the bride's house.
2. The groom would pay a "purchase" price to the father for his new bride.
3. They would then drink wine from a cup to legalize this and make a new covenant.
4. The man and woman were then legally married, but the husband would return to his own father's house in order to set up a room for him and his wife.  This may take up to a YEAR!
5. The bride was betrothed and would be a widow if the husband died in this time.  She was "set apart" which is also what "holy" means.
6. The groom would return with his wedding party to pick up the bride at her dad's house and she would come out with her maidens.
7. They would then go to the wedding party which would be 7-14 days in length!  They knew how to party!
8. At the wedding feast they would have robes that they were supposed to wear (they being everyone involved and invited).

This sure makes the parables about weddings and several things that Jesus said about covenants mean a lot more to me.

-Jesus' first miracle is at a wedding and he turns water into wine.   Notice point #3.
-Read Matthew 22:1-14, seems to make more sense with points #6-#8.
-John 14:2 seems to take on more significance looking at point #4.

The background of the metaphor sure helps tie a lot of the New Testament together.

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