1st Century Weddings

Heavenly Father – Thank You for preachers, teachers, and the brothers and sisters that You’ve equipped to serve You in so many different ways. When they share Your revelations with others, it takes courage and I thank You for giving them that inner strength to do so.  I am so blessed to receive these treasures.  All praise and honor and glory to You – in the mighty name of Jesus – my bridegroom. Amen.

From the 14^th chapter – ‘Drink the Cup’ of Mike Donehey’s book, Finding God’s Life for My Will, ¹ there is a section on First-Century Weddings. I was blown-away.  Excerpts are below:

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‘I was reading and researching the Last Supper some years ago and came across a man named Ray Vander Laan. He’s the founder of That the World May Know ministries and a religion instructor in Michigan who has spent a large part of his life studying and teaching Jewish culture.² He helped me see the provocative nature of Jesus’ request…

‘In the time and culture in which Jesus lived, when a man wanted to marry a woman, he would say something similar to Jesus’ words to the disciples. The man would go to his dad and say, ‘… how do we get married?’

Next, his dad would approach the girl’s dad and together they would agree upon a bride price, the payment from the groom’s family to the potential bride’s family. This payment was a way to ask her permission. She could say no if she wanted, because the payment was only buying the opportunity to ask – not the bride herself. The marriage wasn’t yet a done deal…

If they agreed on a bride price… the groom would sit down with the young woman and, with friends and family all watching, he would present his request to her.  It was very unlikely she would say no, but it was a possibility. So he would fill a cup with wine and slide it across the table, saying, ‘This is my covenant with you. Take and drink.’ If she chose to refuse him, she could slide the cup right back to him, but if she was saying yes, she would pick up the cup and take a long, purposeful drink from the covenantal wine.

At this point, her name would change. During the engagement period, which could be as long as six months or a year, she would not be referred to by her name. She would be called One Who Was Bought with a Price. Meanwhile, she would return to her town, and the groom would go back to his. Chances are they didn’t live anywhere close to one another, so they probably wouldn’t see each other for the entire engagement. In fact the only way they could communicate was through the best man. He served as a real-life messenger, running back and forth… the bride and the groom would not speak to each other or even see each other’s faces until the wedding. On top of that, they also didn’t know when the marriage ceremony would take place.

In effect, the man had to earn his marriage. He stayed at home working on the family insula, a collection of additions making up one sprawling house that could eventually take up an entire block. The insula was added onto, one relative at a time, year after year, marriage after marriage. Each time a new family member was betrothed, he set to work on his mansion…the Aramaic word for ‘mansion’ we see in the Gospels is best translated as apartment. It’s the name given to each new addition to the insula.

So the groom would be working away on his mansion, but he didn’t even get to decide when it was done. He would work all day and sometimes at night, all the while waiting for his father’s approval.  The groom’s father was the only one who had the privilege of deciding when it was done….

The girl, meanwhile, would be waiting at her family home, keeping watch day and night, never knowing the day, the time, or the hour of her pending nuptials.

Then, without any warning at all, the father would announce, ‘All right, son. It is finished. Go get your bride.’

The son would then rally his wedding party, in particular, his groomsmen. Together they would walk into the girl’s town unannounced and blow their ram’s horns, called shofars, and the man and his bride would run down the stairs and down the aisle…

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Scholars believe that during the Passover feast, when Jesus got to the third cup – the cup of salvation – instead of laying it aside untouched as was the custom, He took it and drank it. It was His way of saying… the coming Messiah, yeah, He’s here. It is I… then Jesus held the cup before His disciples and in doing so was mysteriously and symbolically inquiring, ‘Will you marry Me?’

Donehey then muses… I can imagine the awkward moment that followed. The shuffling of feet, the furtive glances, someone blurting out, ‘Go for it, Peter! You’re always rushing into things!’

And then they did. They drank. Perhaps they thought, Well we’ve followed Him this far. Let’s see how far the rabbit hole goes.

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Then Jesus laid it all out before them, essentially saying, ‘I’m gonna have to leave for a while. We won’t see each other for this engagement time, but take heart. I’m sending My best man, the Holy Spirit, and He’s going to communicate messages between you and Me. I’m going home to be with My Father, because in My Father’s insula are many mansions, and I’m going to prepare a place for you. While you wait for the wedding day, your name will be different. You will be called, ‘One Who Was Bought with a Price.’ You will need to keep watch too. The day will come like a thief in the night, and even I don’t know the day, the time, or the hour.  The Father alone knows when the time will be, but when He decides, I’m going to come with My wedding party, the holy angels, and they’re going to blow their heavenly shofars from the four corners of the earth, and I’m going to bring you home for the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ ³

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Points to Ponder:  Jesus’ first sign in the Gospel of John was to turn water into wine at a wedding feast – 120 to 180 gallons of wine – that’s a lot of wine.  Revelation 19:7-8 reminds us that that there’s a wedding feast coming – ‘Our Bridegroom’ is  coming back.  I will never take communion again without remembering the price that He paid… and that I was bought with that price, because I say ‘yes’ to His proposal.

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Lord Jesus, if I haven’t said it lately… ‘Yes, again I say, Yes! I am Yours.’

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1. Mike Donehey, Finding God’s Life for My Will (Colorado Springs: WaterBrook, 2019), 180-184 ↩︎
2. Learn more about Ray and his Faith Lessons video series at www.thattheworldmayknow.com ↩︎
3. Adapted from John 14 ↩︎