The first three services of Holy Week in the Orthodox Church are the Bridegroom Services. They began Palm Sunday night and are celebrated on Palm Sunday night, Holy Monday Night, and Holy Tuesday Night. They are actually Matin services, which normally are the morning services of the Church, but on Holy Week the services go topsy turvy, so that on several mornings we celebrate vesperal Divine Liturgies. The word vesperal tells you that these are evening services, but they are celebrated in the morning during Holy Week. But, back to the Bridegroom Services.
Why are the services celebrated in semi-darkness? Well, one of the webpages of the OCA has the following:
The first three days of Holy Week are referred to in the Church as “The End.” Jesus was walking into the very midst of those who sought to take His life. He experienced deep anguish within Himself (John 12:27). Despite the triumph of the Palm weekend, which had confirmed the outcome of His Passion even before it had taken place, the Lord had already told His disciples that:
…he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. (Matthew 16:21)
The moment of truth had arrived. No longer did Jesus speak to the people from boats or in the countryside. He spoke openly in Jerusalem itself. He confronted His enemies and publicly refuted them. Addressing Himself to the religious leaders and students of the Divine Law, the Pharisees, scribes, and elders, Jesus called them hypocrites, blind guides, murderers, and liars.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in. (Matthew 23:13)
He went directly to the Temple and cleansed it of the crooked moneychangers. He spoke to them sharply: “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you make it a den of robbers” (Matthew 21:13). He refuted all the questions which the leaders put to Him in order to “entangle him in his talk” (Matthew 22: 15ff.) He condemned the fig tree which had not brought forth fruit. He spoke and acted with great urgency:
Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out. (John 12:31)
The moment of truth revealed that even in the supposedly most religious and righteous places, the world was under the sway of evil. The Messiah came to inaugurate a New Age.
The Bridegroom Services contain long quotes from Passion Week. In these quotes, we no longer see a gentle Jesus. Now, the quotes are full of warning of coming Judgment. Now we see the dark gathering and the opposition about to loose its most potent attack against Our Lord. On Monday matins (Sunday night), we hear of the cursing of the fig tree. On Tuesday matins (Monday night) we hear of the blind Pharisees. On Wednesday matins (Tuesday night) we hear the phrase, “now is the judgment of the world.” On those three days the themes of darkness and the Lord’s return are blended together in one troparion:
Behold! the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching; and again, unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless.
Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death, and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom.
But rouse yourself, crying: “Holy! Holy! Holy! art Thou, O our God. Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us!”
These are services that call our sins to mind; the reason why Our Lord had to come and be crucified. These are services celebrated in semi-darkness to symbolize the darkness in which we find ourselves. And they are hooked together for us with yet another troparion:
Thy Bridal Chamber I see adorned, O my Savior, but I have no wedding garment that I may enter. O Giver of Light, enlighten the vesture of my soul, and save me.
We have no wedding garment unless the “Giver of Light” gives us a garment. Note that at the end, it is made clear that it is our soul that needs to be enlightened, not an outer garment. It is our soul that needs to receive the Light of Christ. And that enlightening is a gift from Our Lord for which we can only appeal. On Wednesday night, we shall receive Holy Unction that the Holy Spirit may indeed enlighten our souls.
On Thursday morning, we shall see what happens to him who does not appeal to the Lord, who does not receive the Holy Spirit. It is on Thursday morning, at the Divine Liturgy of the establishment of the Lord’s Supper that we hear of Judas’ betrayal. His light is now completely darkened and his greed is ascendant. This is what shall happen to us if we reject so great a salvation. It is on Thursday that the Paschal Triduum shall begin, the darkest night before the dawning of the new day.
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