Wedding Guests Demonstrate God’s Grace

Wedding Guests Demonstrate God’s Grace

Matthew 22:1-14 T Trinity 20

INI

            God loves weddings. In Scripture, He frequently uses the bride and groom imagery to describe His masculine, self-giving relationship to His bride, the Church. He’d do anything to make her holy and receive His gifts of life and salvation.

            He uses that image in today’s parable of the wedding feast. The Father is the king giving the wedding feast to His Son, Jesus, who is becoming married to the bride, the church. All are invited to be a part of this feast, to join the ceremony! However, the ending of the parable presents a sobering truth about salvation through Christ: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

            Everyone’s invited to join the feast. Likewise, everyone is invited to have life in Christ. But for various reasons, sinful man refuses the invitation. There’s three different types of people illustrated in this parable: the invited guests who refuse to come to the feast, the guests who accept the invitation, and the guest without the proper wedding garment. Each of these three guests teach us something extremely important about God’s grace. They teach us about the persistence of God’s grace, the nature of God’s grace, and the necessity of God’s grace.

            The first type of guest is the one who was invited but refused to come to the wedding feast. He demonstrates God’s persistence in grace. After the king had worked hard to prepare a feast for his son, the party was finally ready. To all his honored and distinguished guests, who knew this wedding was coming, he told them “Come on in! It’s starting!” But no one showed up. Those who had received the invitation were indifferent to the party. Instead of honoring the king’s gracious invitation, they’d rather tend to their farms, businesses, or resort to violence by quite literally killing the messenger.

            These guests from the parable symbolized the Jewish people in Jesus’ day. They had the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants. They were given the Davidic kingly promises. They had been told that their people were going to receive a Messiah. God gave them the invitation! Yet when the wedding feast between God and His people came, what did they do? They did the same thing that they did to the Old Testament prophets, to John the Baptist, and to the Messiah Himself. They killed all the messengers sent from God.

            But what does this show us about God’s grace? It shows that His grace is incredibly persistent. God never gave up on the Israelites who denied the invitation. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and many more were sent to correct the corrupted ways of the Israelites. John the Baptist was sent to prepare the Israelites to receive Jesus, yet the Pharisees saw John as a threat, and King Herod beheaded him. Jesus was sent to be the Messiah and king to the Jews – to be the groom to His bride. Yet they crucified Him on a tree, and many Jews never repented of this sin and turned to Him in faith.

            This shows us that God never gives up on His people. He constantly sends messengers to bring the Good News of His grace. He sends pastors, teachers, and others in authority not to preach a message to score points with a sinful world, but to preach a message that Jesus and God’s prophets preached: that is, repent of your sins and take hold of God’s promises in faith. But even when the message is rejected, and sinful people would rather mind their own business, than accept God’s invitation of grace, God sends His messengers anyway. Think of Jonah, and his reluctance to go to Ninevah. He didn’t want his enemies to be saved. But God did. God was persistent in sending a prophet to turn their hearts to Him.

            Even though this first group rejects the invitation, the King doesn’t give up on the feast. He tells His servants to go out to the roads and bring in anyone He can find. This leads us to the second type of guest in the parable: the one who accepts the invitation. This guest isn’t necessarily anyone special, or worthy. They didn’t get the invitation in the first place. Yet, they’re  the ones who’re going to enjoy the spoils of the feast!

            What’s interesting is that the text mentions these guests were both “good and bad”. That is to say, it wasn’t the moral character of the guests that got them into the banquet. It was the generosity of the King who that got them into the banquet!

            So, this type of guest demonstrates the nature of God’s grace. We get into heaven not because of our moral character and righteousness. We sin in thought, word, and deed. Our whole nature has become totally corrupted by sin and our own evil desires. As a result, we deserve to be cast to hell. Yet, because of Christ and His perfect life that He lived, we have the hope of eternal life with Him. Because of Christ’s moral perfection and righteousness, we have life. God didn’t wait for us to become perfect before His favor towards us started. He sent His Son to die for us even while we were still sinners, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).

            This grace is echoed from our Isaiah reading: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” This invitation is for all people. He comes for the hungry. For the poverty-stricken. For the sinner. All He asks is this: “Seek the Lord while He may be found call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

            His grace is for all people – for the moral and the immoral. The good, and the bad. And when the invitation is accepted, both the good and the bad, the moral and immoral take off their old dirty rags, and put on new clothes – a perfect righteousness given by Jesus. For by giving up His own perfect, holy life, Jesus purchased the wedding garment for you. This garment is given to you in Holy Baptism, where God’s grace comes to you. The blood of the Lamb is applied to you in this lavish washing, and it covers your sin. You don’t cover your own sin. Rather, you confess it. And God covers your sin with Christ Himself. You reveal the sin to God. You don’t hide it. Only God can hide it, and He hides it underneath the perfect righteousness of His Son. His righteousness is the robe you wear. That’s what makes individuals within the church beautiful. Because Christ makes them that way through His image.

            The third type of guest is the guest without this garment. When the King’s servants brought in the good and the bad guests off the streets to join the banquet, there’s an understanding in the story that they were given specific wedding clothes to wear. That way, there was no way to distinguish between those who were rich or poor, good or bad. Everyone at the banquet was made equal, and they were properly dressed for that occasion.

            To not wear the garment showed a complete act of disrespect, signaling a rebellion and prideful arrogance. But lo and behold, there was one guest who snuck into the feast without being properly dressed for the occasion. He was given the right clothes. Yet, he refused to wear them. So, the king threw him out of the banquet and cast him into the outer darkness where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth.

            This guest teaches us the necessity of God’s grace. Without His grace given in the clothes we receive in Holy Baptism, we will perish. Without daily wearing these clothes by drowning the Old Adam that lives within us and emerging to new life by the power of Christ, there’s no living in Christ’s forgiveness.

            Jesus gives a stern warning in this parable. He warns us that there is a hell. There’s no amount of weeping that can deter that reality from coming to sinners. And those who go there are the ones whose sins remain unconfessed and unforgiven because they wear their own righteousness as their clothes, and not Christ’s righteousness as their clothes.

            This is why God is so persistent in bringing His grace to sinners. Because He knows we need it. You need to wear the wedding garment. And if this wedding garment isn’t worn, you must spend eternity in hell. That’s what Jesus is communicating to the Pharisees, and to us, in this parable.

            Pride doesn’t want to admit what it deserves. The old sinful Adam hates to admit that it isn’t good. But that’s the only way to everlasting life. Only by dying to yourself and the sin you want to wear, can you then receive the robes of Christ’s righteousness, which He gives to you by grace.

Many are called—meaning everyone is invited to join God in heaven. Both the good and the bad alike are welcomed. The only requirement is to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness, received through genuine faith that trusts in the work of our Lord for security and comfort. Yet, only a few are chosen—not because of any fault of the King, but because sinful man, in his stubbornness, rejects God’s kingdom, choosing instead to pursue the fleeting riches, cares, and pleasures of this world.

This parable powerfully illustrates that God’s grace is both undeserved and essential. His invitation to eternal life is extended to all, yet only those who receive Christ’s righteousness by faith are truly chosen. Through the innocent suffering and death of Christ, you are given new life, to live in and through Him, both now and forever.

Come, be joined to Christ, for the feast is ready, and the invitation is for you.

INI

Pastor Joshua Ralston