Last night I was privileged enough to hear Dr. Brant Pitre, New Testament theologian from Our Lady of Holy Cross College, speak about the gospel as the new covenant wedding initiated and fulfilled by Christ. Either Dr. Pitre is a major up and coming New Testament scholar, or a disseminator of the essential knowledge of the Gospel scripture, but now I understand most of the scriptural depictions I didn’t before by listening to his 1 ½ hour talk.
That being said, the focus was on marriage of the bridegroom Christ to Church bride. A little side note: I usually try to avoid talks on marriage, because truth be known I’d love to be married to the right person and home school at least 4 children, but we can’t all have our deepest desires!
But this was different of course, and if I didn’t know Christ loved me before, wow! do I see it now in the wedding feast of the Last Supper and the Covenant ceremony of the Crucifixion. Pitre used New Testament scripture to point to key aspects of the wedding celebration that take place. (He did miss the money dance, I don’t know if they did that in Jewish tradition, but I’d say the carrying of the cross maybe?)
Here are some of the points he made in flow chart form:
That being said, the focus was on marriage of the bridegroom Christ to Church bride. A little side note: I usually try to avoid talks on marriage, because truth be known I’d love to be married to the right person and home school at least 4 children, but we can’t all have our deepest desires!
But this was different of course, and if I didn’t know Christ loved me before, wow! do I see it now in the wedding feast of the Last Supper and the Covenant ceremony of the Crucifixion. Pitre used New Testament scripture to point to key aspects of the wedding celebration that take place. (He did miss the money dance, I don’t know if they did that in Jewish tradition, but I’d say the carrying of the cross maybe?)
Here are some of the points he made in flow chart form:
My small chart doesn’t do justice to the wonderful joy that Dr. Pitre showed in discussion, but I will point out his website: http://www.brantpitre.com/ and you can get this talk on tape there.
He concluded that the Cross and the Eucharist are the same in that they are part of the wedding feast initiated and consummated by Christ, that expresses God’s infinite and tender love for all humanity.
