HOPE! - Jesus the Groom

In the second part of chapter 3 John contrasts Jesus' talk of being born again with a scene of Jesus baptizing. Jesus goes into Judea with his disciples and baptizes. John the Baptist is also baptizing people nearby, at Aenon. 

And John's disciples tell John that Jesus is also baptizing people, more than John it seems.

John replies that "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less."

He finishes by saying "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

This passage is meant to show John's acceptance of Jesus' superiority as well as a further emphasis on belief in him as the path to eternal life.

In the world at the time that Jesus began his ministry, Jewish girls would get married typically between the ages of fourteen and fifteen. Husbands were typically in their mid-twenties. The family of the husband would pay the “bride price” or dowry. And the husband would go home to prepare a place for her — which often took months or years to prepare.

And the bride had no way of knowing when the groom would come for her. She just had to be ready. When everything was finished, the groom and his friends would go get the bride. They would gather in the courtyard, and the man would take the woman into their home and consummate the wedding. And the best man would actually stand outside the door and shout when he could hear the evidence that the marriage had been officially consummated. (I know, right?) This would in turn trigger a long celebration with family and friends.

But this is also what John the Baptist was talking about when he came up with the parable of Jesus as the groom and himself as the best man. When John says that his “joy is made complete” at the “coming” of Jesus, this is what people would say about the best man when he finally got to stop listening in on the marriage consummation. “His joy is made complete!” Jesus shows up to start the wedding (he marries us, his church), and John’s job is over now that Jesus has come.