August 28, 2016 Matthew 22:1-14
Pentecost 15 Parables of Jesus Series
During the summer we’ve studied several of Jesus’ parables. Each one tells a little story about God’s love and his saving plan for sinners. He told these important truths in stories we can relate to and remember. Today we are with Jesus on Tuesday of Holy Week. In four days he will be tortured and die on a Roman cross. The cross would be “part two” of why he had come. “Part one” was the 33 years of perfect obedience to God which he lived in our place.“Part two”was the eternity in hell he would spend for us, separated from God’s love and blessings on the cross. Now, with Good Friday’s gloom and death approaching, Jesus tells another parableof God’s love and saving plan for sinners – not about “part two” – not about a sad funeral - but about “part three” – a prophecy about a joyful wedding banquet for a Son who is alive again and whose special guests are the ones for whom he died. This is a parable about the Father’s gospel invitation to all:COME TO THE WEDDING BANQUET!
1. A gracious invitation – don’t turn it down!
Whenever you get a wedding invitation in the mail you can tell right away what it is.It isfancy and costlyto emphasize the importance of the occasion and how much they want you to be there. If you're a close friend or relative of the bride or groom, their feelings are hurt if you can't make it, so we mark our calendars to we can be there.
Jesus’ story wasn’t about your run-of-the-mill wedding, but a royal wedding. The father of the groom was a king: this would be a grand event and no expenses would be spared.If you were invited, you would bevery honored guests!
But hold your seats! Nobody wanted to come! Can you imagine how insulted and hurt the king was? Yet with incredible patience he ignored the insult.“Maybe they didn’t understand. Maybe they didn’t think I really meant it.”So he sent more messengers. "Seriously, friends, the food is all prepared: succulent roasts, juicy steaks, the finest wine, desserts that are out of this world –all you can eat! Come and share my happiness!”
Can you believe it? Somestill said, "Can’t come. I have better things to do" andignoredthe message!Others actually hated and resentedthe fact that they were being bothered.They lashed out at the messengers and even killed them!
This is not just a story. It actually happened!Not to an earthly king, but to the Lord of heaven and earth! This is a story ofhow the Jews treated God and his message of the coming Savior from sin.God reached out to them through his prophets and invited them to join him in heaven. His Son would be the bridegroom and they would be both s bride and guests at a celebration in glory forever. Butmost of the Jews repeatedly turned down the invitation and even beat up and killed the prophetswho delivered the message. So in his parable Jesus prophesied what was coming to them for their rejection. About 40 years later,in 70AD, their time of grace ended. The Romans laid siege to Jerusalem to starve them. Then they breached the city walls, destroyingthe Temple and Jerusalem and killingmost of them, ushering them intoan infinitely worse destruction under God’s eternal judgment inhell.
Now here’s where you and I fit into this parable. The kingcouldn’t let all that good food go to waste, so he sent out messengers to invite anyone who'd like to come. He wasn't fussy: he invited those who were respectable in the eyes of the world (“good”) and those who were not appealing – the outcasts (“bad”). In other words, the invitation that the Jews rejected has now come to us, the Gentiles. We who were once far off have been brought near to God through the blood of Christ. Now we are his honored guests, on our way to a marriage feast in heaven with his invitation in hand!
In fact, Jesus even gives us an appetizer of this heavenly feast in the Lord's Supper. Here every guest partakes of the finest of food: the forgiveness of sins and peace with God through the body and blood Jesus shed for us on the cross.As Jesus told his disciples during the first Lord's Supper, "I have eagerly desired to eat this with you before I suffer. I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God."No expense was spared: "Since God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him freely give us all things?"
Whenever you get a wedding invitation, it comes with an RSVP. Are you coming or aren’t you? We may pass up many invitations, but no one can afford to turn this one down. Yet many people still have things they CONSIDER MORE IMPORTANT than going to heaven and busy themselves trying to make their own heaven on a dying earth. Others are DOWNRIGHT HOSTILE to the invitation and lash out at God's grace in Christ. God’s judgment on the unbelieving Jews is a permanent warning of what will happen to anyone who rejectsGod’s only way to heaven. Let’s earnestly pray that God’s kingdom continues to come through the message of God's saving love in Christ and brings many to faith in Jesus. And let’s plead with the Father that he rouses his Churchfrom apathy, petty quarrels and foolish priorities among her members as we treasure what we have in his gracious invitation: “COME TO THE WEDDING BANQUET!”
2. A glorious occasion – wear the right clothes!
The next part of the parable sounds unusual to us today. It tells about a man who was not dressed for the occasion. "When the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, "How did you get in here without wedding clothes?"
Whenever I've gone to a wedding I've always worn my own suit. Even if you're in the wedding party, you buy your own dress or rent your own tux. But in the ancient Orient, especially with royalty, the host provided every guest with special clothes to wear for such a festive occasion. What an honor it was to wear those beautiful garments! In fact, you wouldn't be seated unless you were wearing the wedding clothes he provided. But when the king in Jesus’ parable entered the room to feast his eyes on the splendor of his grand banquet, his eyes caught sight of a guest in plain street clothes. He was totally out of place. Alarmed, the king demanded to know how this guy had managed to get in. The man was speechless.He was a wedding crasher. Hethought he could get in on his own.
You see, it’s all about wearing the right clothes. They are described for us in Isaiah 61:10- "I delight greatly in the Lord...for he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness." These are the "white robes... washed...in the blood of the Lamb" that John saw in Revelation 7. Paul wrote about them in his letter to the Philippians: "I consider (all my own efforts to earn heaven) rubbish (street clothes), that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own...but that which is through faith in Christ- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. (the king’s wedding clothes)" These are the clothes that every Christian is wearing today, for "all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." Those who do not want Jesus to save them from their sins, who think they can manage just fine on their own, will be "thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth"...as Jesus describes hell’s unending punishment.
Why some accept God’s gracious invitation and others don't is something God doesn't fully explain. He simply tells us that those who believe in Jesus know that it is all the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Those who reject Jesus have no one to blame but themselves. "Many are invited but few are chosen."So the real question isn’t, “Why are some saved and others lost?”The real question is,"What about me? Am I too busy to pay attention to the invitation? Do I feel I have more important things to do than get ready for the marriage feast? Am I one of those who expects to slip into heaven without Jesus? Am I laying aside the robe of righteousness God gave me in baptism because the world and its cares and desires fit me better – and I think I’m doing pretty well on my own? Am I saying, "Lord, Lord”, but my heart is far from Him?” A Christian man once commented, “Would to God that the dear Lord world teach us thoroughly and bring us to that point that we would realize what great mercy we have received in being invited to such a blessed feast, where we share find salvation from sin, devil, death, and eternal wailing!” (Martin Luther) Think of it: if the Holy Spirit can keep a person’s faith alive on just a few minutes of his Word in worship each week, imagine how much more certainty and joy and thanksgiving he could give us if we gave him a few minutes each day growing in his Word!
God’s invitation is in our hands today: “Come to the wedding banquet!”This is where all of Jesus’ parables are pointing us. The struggles we all face from Satan, the world, and our own sin,which wars against our souls – soon it will be exchanged for our Savior’s open arms of welcome as he seats us at our place of honor at his table.What awesome, wonderful giftsJesus has in store for us – all you can eat! – all you can take in of his love and pleasures forever!This is theinvitation we’re holding by faith, the only invitationwe cannot afford to pass up in life. And his wedding garments are the best set of clothes we own:JESUS YOUR BLOOD AND RIGHTEOUSNESS MY BEAUTY ARE MY GLORIOUS DRESS MIDST FLAMING WORLDS IN THESE ARRAYED WITH JOY SHALL I LIFT UP MY HEAD!(CW 376)Amen