Friends, in today’s Gospel, the Lord says his disciples do not fast because God is holding a great wedding banquet.
You find the theme of the wedding throughout the Old Testament as a motif to express God’s covenant with his people. We’ve fallen apart in sin. We’ve gone into exile. And what does God want? He wants to call us back to a great wedding banquet.
Throughout the ministry of Jesus you find that same motif: he will gather the scattered tribes—yes, the elite, but also the sinners and the outcasts. All are welcome around the table of the Lord, establishing this wedding banquet and unity that God wants with his people.
Jesus presents himself as the coming together of heaven and earth. He’s the coming together of divinity and humanity in his own person. He is this wedding banquet. “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Because this great banquet is going on!