October 12, 2014 Pentecost 18/Proper 23 Text: Matthew 22:1-14 And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 2 The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, 3 and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other servants, saying, Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast. 5 But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. 7 The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his servants, The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. 10 And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. 12 And he said to him, Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 14 For many are called, but few are chosen. (ESV) The Parable of the Wedding Feast Someone once said, What s important is not the destination but the journey. That may be true for road trips. It may be true of traveling through our college years. It may also be true of going through our child-raising years. But it s definitely not true in what matters most. When it comes to eternity, the destination is everything. There is a heaven and there is a hell. And if you do not know where you are going, then it s just not safe to die! Just ask the guy in our text who shows up at the wedding feast without the proper attire. The King says to him, Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? 1 He was speechless. But it gets worse. The King, then, says to his attendants, Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 2 What a frightful sentence! And what a stern warning for you and me! This is no earthly wedding feast. No, this is The marriage feast of the Lamb. 3 It is the feast that takes place in eternity after Judgment Day when Christ s bride, the Church, is presented to him in all her glory. And to be present at this feast requires that you be a member of his Church. As such you must wear the proper wedding garments. To be properly clothed at the eternal wedding feast and remember that eternity is always just a tick of the clock away means that you must, even now, be wearing the proper wedding attire. Let s look at Christ s parable in greater detail. Perhaps we can get some clues as to how we get the required garments. It seems that a king has prepared a wedding feast on the occasion of his Son s marriage. The King is God the Father; the Son is Jesus. The King sends out invitations. He sends them by way of his servants (the prophets). But the invitations are not accepted. So he sends out another group Page 1 of 5
of servants to invite others to the banquet. But they were too busy to attend. They had to take care of the farm, manage their businesses, or do something more important. So, they, too, declined the invitation. In the imagery of this parable, those invited are the children of Israel. And the servants who invited them are God s holy prophets. As you know, they murdered some of the prophets. And when their Messiah came, their leaders wanted nothing to do with him. So they declined the invitation to go to the wedding feast in honor of the King s Son. In fact, they crucified his Son. At this point, the parable merges into reality. The King s anger moves him to announce a future event. We read that he will send forth armies to destroy the murderers and to lay Jerusalem waste and set in on fire. 4 This is a prophecy of Jerusalem s future destruction by the Roman armies that took place in 70 A.D. On Palm Sunday, just two days before Jesus told this parable, he looked at Jerusalem from the crest of the Mt. of Olives. He foresaw its rejection of him as its Messiah. Then, through tears, he uttered these sober words to the city, If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation. 5 The destruction of Jerusalem was a horrific event. The Jewish historian Josephus narrates the misery and horrors of its destruction. At one point, he says, The hill... on which the temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it; that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire; and that those slain [were] more in number than those who slew them; for the ground did nowhere appear visible, [because of] the dead bodies that lay on it; but the soldiers went over heaps of these bodies, as they ran upon such as fled from them. 6 How staggering! But I want to make a parallel. If the earthly destruction of Jerusalem was so terrible, imagine the terrors facing the man who, in this parable, is not wearing a wedding garment. He is cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. 7 How awful! And it is worse still because this verdict of eternal damnation comes from the lips of Jesus for whom it is impossible to lie. 8 As we have seen, all but one were wearing wedding garments. How did they get these garments? They neither made them themselves nor did they buy them. They were given to them Page 2 of 5
by the King. They were given to them not by merit but by grace. Isaiah rejoiced to have this garment for he said, [God] has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness. 9 If the LORD looked into your soul right now, would he see you clothed with the robe of Christ s righteous? If not, why do you delay? The LORD, without cost, freely gives you the garments of salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Specifically, they are given to us at our baptisms. Please listen carefully to the words of Galatians 3:27. St. Paul says, All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 10 Did you hear it? In baptism God clothes us with the garments of salvation. Yes, we are robed with the robe of Christ s righteousness. We continue to wear this garment as long as we remain in the faith. We who feed our faith by means of the Word and the Lord s Supper should never doubt that this garment is ours and that we wear it throughout our lives. And, therefore, we will be found at the wedding banquet properly dressed. But what about the one who is baptized but, due to neglect or refusing to repent of his sinful excesses, has stopped following Christ? This is an important question. The painful answer is that he has fallen from the faith. He is no Christian. To be sure, he may still go to church. But since he refuses to repent, he is without Christ. He believes in the religions of the world, all of which teach salvation by works, i.e., salvation on the basis of his own merits. Such a person shall be found without a wedding garment. He shall go to the outer darkness on the last day. There are multitudes out there who spurn Christ and, thus, are without wedding garments. Many tell us forthrightly that they are not Christians. We should tell them the danger that they face. Martin Luther died with the name of Jesus on his lips. Alexander Solzhenitsyn died while maintaining his Christian faith to the end. So did the thief on the cross, as well as St. Peter, and St. Paul. They died while wearing the robe of Christ s righteousness. On the other hand, many others died without Christ. Carl Sagan died while maintaining his atheism. Steve Jobs died as a practicing Buddhist. The 9/11 terrorists died with the words Allahu Akbar, (Allah is the greatest) on their lips. The Hindu dies hoping that he has lived a good enough life. The Jewish man dies hoping that God will reward him for his observance of the sacred traditions and festivals. But according to Jesus, no one comes to the Father except through him. 11 I hope that I m wrong, but I do not expect to see these people in heaven. Page 3 of 5
But I do expect to see you there. We trust in Christ, do we not? We believe and confess that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in the merits of Christ alone. We know that God, in our baptisms, has clothed us with the garments of salvation. We are, even now, preparing to kneel at Christ s altar for the Supper of his body and blood, a foretaste of the great marriage feast of the Lamb. And when our last day comes, the King shall say to us, Come you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 12 There is nothing greater than this! Nothing! In the name of Jesus, the crucified, risen, ascended and returning Lord.... Amen. Soli Deo Gloria! Endnotes 1 See Matthew 22:12. 2 See Matthew 22:13 3 In Revelation 19:7-9, we read, Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure -- for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. (ESV) 4 See Matthew 22:7. 5 Luke 19:42-44. Regarding the phrase, the time of your visitation, the Greek word for time kairos, meaning the appointed time. 6 See Josephus Wars 6:275-276. 7 See Mathew 22:13. 8 In John 14:6, Jesus says of himself, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 9 See Isaiah 61:10. Page 4 of 5
10 See Galatians 3:27, NASB. The Greek word enduō means to put on clothing. Some English translations render the phrase Χριστὸν ἐνεδύσασθε as put on Christ. (So ESV, KJV, NKJV, RSV). Others translate the phrase with the words, clothed yourselves with Christ (So NASB, NIV, NRSV, NET). I prefer the latter translation. 11 See John 14:6. 12 See Matthew 25:34, ESV. Page 5 of 5