My Joy in My Bridegroom (Matthew 9:14-26)

[Stephan Choe]

April 14, 2026

Key Verse 15a: “Jesus answered them, ‘How can the wedding guests mourn while the bridegroom is with them?’”

In this world, we experience various sad events, such as illness, poverty, conflict, or even death. Because of this, many people give up hope and live in sadness.

But Jesus Christ came into the world to give us a joyful life. He encourages us to discover the source of joy and to live joyfully, like the bride or wedding guests.

In this passage, Jesus first compares the life of faith to the joy of the bride. Then he vividly illustrates the joy of believers through the healing of a sick woman and the raising of a young girl from the dead.

We are to accept Jesus as our true Bridegroom and enjoy heavenly joy. This is the core message of Christ.

Today, we want to learn more about this core message and experience great joy. May God help us to accept Jesus as our true Bridegroom and experience heavenly joy.

1. Joy of the Wedding Guests (14-17)

Bride and groom Jeon Si-eun and Kim Tae-hyeon (전시은 & 김태현) [1]. They are Christians and actively involved in the "Compassion" project.

Before Jesus Christ began his ministry, John the Baptist served as his forerunner. He preached repentance, and his disciples often fasted (cf. Luke 18:12). When Jesus appeared, John proclaimed him as the promised Messiah. Shortly afterward, John was imprisoned for urging the king to repent of his adultery. Then Jesus began his ministry (4:12).

John's disciples noticed that Jesus' disciples rarely fasted. This was no surprise, since Jesus had taught his disciples that if they wanted to fast, they should do so discreetly (cf. Luke 6:6). Therefore, John's disciples assumed that Jesus' disciples were not fasting.

However, they didn't want to speculate about why Jesus' disciples weren't fasting; instead, they preferred to ask Jesus directly. So they came to Jesus and asked him, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast so much, but your disciples do not fast?"

What did Jesus answer them? He said to them, “How can the wedding guests mourn while the bridegroom is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will almost” (15).

We need to know about the wedding customs in Jesus’ time to better understand Jesus’ words. A wedding in Israel proceeded roughly as follows:

The young man brought a marriage contract and presented it to his chosen bride and her father. Then the young man filled a glass with wine and offered it to the young woman. With this, he proposed to her. If she wished to accept the proposal, she drank the offered wine. By drinking it, she was now betrothed to him. The young man gave his betrothed gifts and then returned to his house, saying to the young woman, “I am going back to prepare our wedding chamber. When I have prepared it, I will come back and take you home.” The young woman then waited for him to take her home and made herself beautiful for her bridegroom.

After the bridegroom had prepared the wedding chamber, he returned to take his bride. He arrives without warning, usually at night. Therefore, the bride makes special preparations, keeping a lamp, her veil, and other items by her bed. Her bridesmaids are also on standby; for example, they must have enough oil for their lamps.

When the groom and his friends arrive near the bride's house, they blow a ram's horn trumpet to announce their arrival. The groom then brings the bride home, and the newlyweds go to the bridal chamber for intercourse. The groom's best friend stands outside, waiting for him to declare that the marriage is consummated and the wedding celebration can begin. When the bride and groom emerge from the bridal chamber, the celebration truly begins. All the friends and relatives then begin the seven-day wedding feast.

The wedding feast best illustrates our relationship with Jesus Christ. You ask, who is our bridegroom? Our bridegroom is Jesus, and we are his bride. He is the heavenly Crown Prince. He came into the world specifically to propose marriage to you and me. What joy!

We rejoice in Jesus' marriage proposal. In his proposal, he says, "I, the Son of God, love you very much and want to marry you. You don't need to worry about any of your sins, because I have atoned for them with my blood on the cross and made you beautiful. If you want to accept my marriage proposal, answer me with 'Yes.' Then I will go to my home in heaven and prepare a room for us there. After that, I will come back and take you home." Have we answered him with "Yes"? Whoever has given him the "yes" is already his bride. But we should now wait for him with a lamp and a veil. The wedding feast has already begun. Now is a time of celebration. We celebrate feasts instead of fasting. For Jesus has brought us salvation and sonship with God and has entered into marriage with us. Through Jesus, we are reconciled to God and have become his beloved bride. All our sins are atoned for, and we have become truly beautiful. We rejoice in Him and His grace. The Holy Spirit and our joy are our beauty as His bride. We can now walk together with Him through life and death and experience a truly overwhelming, joyful life. Our wedding joy doesn't fade in a week but lasts for eternity.

Then Jesus said, “No one patches an old garment with new cloth, because the old cloth would tear at the patch, and the hole would only get bigger. Likewise, no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Old wineskins cannot withstand the pressure of the fermenting wine. Therefore, old wineskins burst, spilling the wine and rendering the skins useless. So, new wine is put into new wineskins, and both are preserved” (16-17).

Old wineskins are legalistic people. They do not accept the grace of God in Jesus. But we are not to be old wineskins, but new wineskins.

Jesus comes to us and proposes marriage. We are to answer him clearly with “Yes.” We are to accept him as our Bridegroom and our Christ. Our wedding with Jesus begins. And we can enjoy heavenly wedding joy, and everyone can celebrate with great joy.

2. The Healing of the Woman with the Issue of Hemorrhage (18-26)

While Jesus was still sharing the good news, a leader of the church came to him, knelt before him, and said, “My daughter has just died. Come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.”

He believed that Jesus, through his divine power, could bring his dead daughter back to life. Jesus was moved by this faith. Therefore, he immediately got up and followed him. Of course, his disciples followed him.

But his visit was delayed by a woman. The woman had suffered from bleeding for twelve years. She had visited various doctors and spent all her possessions. But her illness kept getting worse (Mark 5:26).

According to Jewish law, a woman with bleeding was considered unclean. And anyone who touched her was also considered unclean. Therefore, this woman was not allowed to attend church services or have fellowship with others.

But when she heard about Jesus, she didn't want to miss this unique opportunity for her healing. Therefore, she approached Jesus from behind and secretly touched the hem of his garment. For she said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be healed.”

The hem of the garment that she touched was actually called the tassel (or fringes). According to Numbers 15:38-40, the Israelites were to attach blue tassels to the four corners of their cloaks as a reminder of God's commandments.

The Tassels of the Jews (or: Frills) [2]

This woman believed that Jesus could heal her if she would only touch a small part of his cloak. She believed that touching the very edge of his cloak for a second would be enough to cure her incurable illness. For she believed that the smallest thing Jesus did was more powerful than all the world's medical skill combined. So she touched the tassel of his cloak.

But her action did not go unnoticed by Jesus. He knew immediately and blessed her: “Take heart, daughter; your faith has healed you.”

Although Jesus healed her through his own power, he emphasized her faith and said, “…your faith has healed you.”

Jesus is the great God. He is present and active wherever people believe in him. Unfortunately, most people today are like the people who accompanied Jesus. Some of them touched his cloak. Or some of them even touched his hands. But none of them could experience the power of Jesus because they didn't truly believe in Jesus and his divine power. But this poor, sick woman believed in Jesus and his power and was healed. Each of us needs personal faith in Jesus and his power to experience his power.

We should ask ourselves whether we truly have faith in Jesus or not. Do we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and has the power to heal our sickness and grant us eternal life and the Kingdom of Heaven? Have we expressed our faith practically, like this woman? Or is our faith a dead faith?

We should believe in Jesus and his divine power and be certain of his help. He will surely help us with our various problems. Ultimately, he will raise us from the dead and bring us to the Kingdom of Heaven.

After Jesus had healed the woman, he went to the house of the ruler. There he saw the flute players and the mourning crowd. In those days, it was customary to employ flute players and mourners when someone died. The Talmud prescribes that a man should hire at least two flute players and a mourner to attend the funeral of his deceased wife. Because Jairus was wealthy, several flute players and mourners were hired. The flute players played mournful melodies, and the mourners, with their disheveled hair, lamented the girl's untimely death. And everyone was under the spell of death.

What did Jesus do when he arrived at Jairus's house? Did he mourn the girl's death?

Let's hear what Jesus said to the mourning people. He said to them, "Go out! For the girl is not dead, but asleep!"

Jesus called the girl's death "a sleep." Because the girl was asleep, the people should not make noise but rather leave her room. In Jesus Christ, death is only a sleep. That's true. Every night we go to bed. But no one is sad about it because after sleeping we will wake up refreshed and revitalized.

In Jesus, our physical death is just like our everyday sleep. After our physical death, we will rise again with a healthy, new body.

Jesus drove the people who were mocking him out of the girl's room. But he invited the girl's parents and his disciples into the room (Mark 5:40). And he took the girl by the hand. Then the girl stood up! That was a great sensation.

Through this raising from the dead, Jesus made it known to everyone who he is and what power he has. He is the Son of God, God incarnate. He came into the world to free us from sin and the power of death. Through his healing and raising from the dead, he demonstrated his person and his power. He does not want us to suffer under the power of sin and death. He wants us to believe in him and his power and to be joyful.

The power of death reigns everywhere in the world, for example, on the battlefields of the Middle East, such as in Kobani, or in the African countries ravaged by the Ebola epidemic. Death is a dominating power over which all people are helpless. And our televisions and media report on it incessantly.

But Jesus came to disempower death and give us eternal life. He says to us, “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he is willing” (John 5:21). And he also says, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).

We should heed the Good News. The Good News is: “Jesus is the Son of God. He has disempowered death and brought us eternal life.”

Jesus is our Bridegroom, our great joy!

Satan claims to rule the world through the power of death. He wants us to become powerless and hopeless. He wants to make us slaves to the power of death. But we must not be deceived by his deception. For Jesus Christ has come and has taken away the power of the devil. He has brought us eternal life and the Kingdom of Heaven. He is the Son of God and Savior. He has conquered death and the devil and brought them under his power.

When we are sad because of our unbelief in Christ, he rebukes us, just as he rebuked the mourners in Jairus' house. We should not be sad like them. Rather, we should rejoice greatly, like the bride over her bridegroom. For Jesus is our Bridegroom. He loves us deeply. And he has taken away the power of death and brought us eternal life and the Kingdom of Heaven as his wedding gift. We should accept Jesus as our Bridegroom and rejoice greatly. May God bless us all! Amen!

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[1] https://www.autotribune.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=14622

[2] www.bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/14659/

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