MATTHEW 14: 1-14 (NRSV)
I confess that there are things God is still working with me on in
understanding and seeing the reason for why Jesus uses the figures of speech he
does. “Bridegroom, Bride, and Wedding Feast” has always been one of them.
He worked with me this week to struggle through our text and see
why it’s necessary to Jesus’ message to use these examples.
A pastor once sent his elderly parents a microwave oven for
Christmas. Here’s how he told his congregation about the experience:
“They were excited that they now could be a part of the “instant”
generation. When my father unpacked the microwave and plugged it in, and literally
within seconds it changed two smiles into frowns! Even after reading the
directions they couldn’t make it work.”
“Several days later, my mother was playing cards with a neighbor
and confessed her inability to get the microwave to even boil water. ‘To get
this thing to work,’ she told the neighbor, ‘I don’t need better directions; I
just need my son to come along with the gift!’”
I got a new phone yesterday and it’s going to take me a long time
to learn how to use it; I’ve already had to go to the company’s website to get
more technical info to put it together.
I think all of us older, technologically challenged folks would
agree. Technology and electronics are moving faster than most of us can keep up
with.
Thank God, that when God gave the gift of salvation, he didn’t
send complicated directions for us to figure out on our own; He sent His Son.
God’s promises, His Love, and the grace of Jesus Christ are pretty
straightforward concepts. It isn’t too hard to understand and walk once a
person has come to know God.
It get’s simpler as you grow older.
A pastor in a small church was disappointed that things were not
“happening” in his church, and so he asked one of the most respected deacons,
“What is wrong with the church? Is it ignorance or apathy? The deacon
responded, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
But ignorance and apathy are killers – the rut of the usual road
and path we walk daily gets deeper each day and the direction and how we walk
harder to change with every step. It’s why communicating with God in prayer and
in your daily life is a necessity.
I will not sugarcoat today’s message that has Jesus using a
parable comparing the believers and churches’ relationship to Jesus being as
one like a wedding feast and that the invitations are the fulfilling of
prophecy. Let’s hear Matthew 14: 1-14:
Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared
to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call
those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.
Again he sent other slaves, saying, 'Tell those who have
been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have
been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.'
But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm,
another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and
killed them.
The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those
murderers, and burned their city. Then
he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those invited were not
worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the
wedding banquet.'
Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all
whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
"
But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a
man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, 'Friend, how
did you get in here without a wedding robe?' And he was speechless.
Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and
foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.' For many are called,
but few are chosen."
Jesus’
parable needs to be explained somewhat to modern believers to translate what
He’s really saying because they rooted in the Jewish marriage customs in
existence during His life. Wedding hosts would send out two invitations for a
wedding.
The
first was sent out far in advance to let people know that a wedding was being
planned and prepared and that they were invited. This was necessary because
weddings were major events that could last as long as a week. It also allowed
time for the replies (the RSVP’s) to come back.
Then
when everything was ready, messengers were sent out with a second invitation
telling the guests that it was time for the celebration to begin. The hosts
would also provide suitable clothing/gowns for all honored guests, and guests
were expected to wear what was provided.
To
turn down the second invitation and/or not wear the customary attire, which was
the one the guests in the parable refused, was not just bad manners, but was a
rejection of the host family’s hospitality and considered as an insult to their
dignity.
Jesus
is using this framework to tell this parable.
We
know that God had sent Israel an “early” invitation to His Son’s wedding
banquet through the Old Testament Law and prophets as the called for Kinsman
redeemer promised Eve at the fall of man.
Now
Jesus is announcing God’s second invitation, and the parable is warning of what
a rejection of that second invitation will mean.
As
we look around a world in rebellion from God I can say not many have sent God
an RSVP for the coming wedding banquet of Christ and His church.
Many
have ignored God, some have become hostile toward God, and some are just so intentionally
ignorant that God’s never came up in their life.
Imagine
their surprise when God holds them accountable for the invitations they received,
rejected, and have now been thrown off the list of the wedding feast!
Revelation
20: 11-15 tells us how the final judgment goes:
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on
it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And
I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were
opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life.
The dead were judged
according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the
dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them,
and each person was judged according to what he had done.
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The
lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the
book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
I
have often pondered the question of who the guest is who has gotten in without
wearing the proper wedding robe.
After
some thinking I wonder if he might be that old serpent we called Satan, who has
had access to heaven and creation as an angel, but because he chose to do it
his way, rebelled from God?
Scripture
tells us, just like this wedding guest, that he will be bound hand and foot and
cast into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20: 9-10) for all eternity:
“And the devil, who
deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and
the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night forever
and ever.”
God’s people, that’s you and me, need never fear God’s judgment –
the Grace of Jesus Christ is sufficient to cover our sins. I finally understand
how the church is the bride and Jesus is the bridegroom.
We have been invited and have sent our RSVP to the Banquet. We
have the Victory in Jesus! Amen.
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