Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus tells the parable of the wedding banquet during Holy Week. The chief priests and some pharisees have confronted Jesus about His authority to teach. Since this is the last conversation that Christ will have with these men, He doesn’t hold back. Even at this last hour, Jesus hammers at their hard hearts so that some of them might turn from their spiritual pride, repent, and be saved. He tells them three parables, telling them bluntly after the second, “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it” (Matt 21:43). Their obstinate unbelief and their continual rejection of repentance and its fruits will lead only to judgment. The kingdom of God will be taken from the Jews and given to another nation, one that believes Jesus is the Christ, repents of its sins, and bears the fruits of repentance. The chief priests and pharisees are perceptive enough to know Jesus speaks of them. They want to seize Him right then and there but cannot because of the multitudes in the temple for Passover, multitudes that took Jesus for a prophet.
Having just told them that the kingdom of God will be taken from them and given to another nation, He tells the parable we hear today. The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son. The marriage is the incarnation of the Son of God. God the Son unites with human flesh, becoming fully human, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, so that He can take a bride for Himself, the church. He washes His bride with water and His word, cleansing her of every sin, so that all who are members of His church are holy and without blemish in His sight. All that is His—His innocence, righteousness, and blessedness—He shares with His bride, because He gives Himself fully to her, so that the church says of Christ, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (Song 6:3). This is the marriage banquet to which God called Israel through Moses and the prophets. The ceremonies Moses gave Israel and the sermons the prophets preached all pointed to this marriage which God the Father would one day bring about. God the Father sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. It wasn’t that God wasn’t sincere in His invitation or that He harbored some secret will that they not enjoy the banquet. Israel was unwilling. So, God sent His servants again, saying, “Tell those who are invited, ‘See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.’” God’s call went out, promising Israel free grace, every mercy, and eternal life. They didn’t have to provide anything themselves.
But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. Many willfully rejected the promise of the gospel because they preferred earthly possessions. Others preferred earthly business to partaking in the wedding banquet prepared for God’s Son. They received the call with apathy. The rest received it with acrimony. They seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. These Israelites hated God and the wedding banquet for His Son so much that they treated the prophets with contempt, even to the point of murdering them so that they wouldn’t have to listen to the gospel call anymore. Why would anyone do such a thing? Who turns down an invitation to a banquet at which all things are freely given and generously provided? Israel rejected the invitation because it a call to acknowledge one’s sins, to sincerely repent of them, and receive forgiveness and righteousness as a gift. But Israel didn’t want to be given those things. Paul says in Romans 9:31-32, “Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law.” Many in Israel were Epicureans and atheists, living only for earthly pleasure. Many more sought the kingdom of heaven and true righteousness, but they missed both because they the kingdom of God and true righteousness aren’t attainable by works of the law. They are attainable only by coming to the wedding banquet. Only at the wedding banquet would they receive all that God had promised them. But they rejected the call and judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life. The king’s response to their rejection was fury. He sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city, which is precisely what happened nearly forty years after Jesus spoke this parable to the Jews, when the Romans besieged Jerusalem and razed it, and everyone in it, to the ground. The wedding was ready, but those who were invited were not worthy by their rejection.
God then told His servants, “Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.” God sent not only prophets, but apostles as well. Once the Jews considered themselves unworthy of everlasting life and rejected the call to the wedding feast—the gospel—the apostles invited the gentiles. And that call goes on this very day. God’s servants continue to invite all people to come to the wedding banquet. That includes the Jews. Paul tells the Roman Christians that even as there was a remnant of true believers during the days of Elijah, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace (Rom 11:5). In every age there are Jews who hear the gospel, believe it, and find eternal life through faith in Christ. The call includes those whom the world thinks of as good but it also includes those whom the world thinks of as bad. Those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. St. Paul says something similar to the Corinthians, and his words are true in every age, “You see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called” (1 Cor 1:26). God the Father wants His banquet hall full with those who accept His invitation, who are called by the gospel, repent of their sins, and trust in God’s mercy for Jesus’ sake.
But it’s not enough to be in the building, the banquet hall, that is. When the king comes to see the guests, he sees a man who isn’t wearing the wedding garment that he had been provided upon entry. He had taken it off once he was admitted and changed back into his own clothes. This is the person who enters the Church and initially enjoys Christ’s blessings in true faith, but then willfully goes back to His sins. The wedding garment is Christ. Paul says in Galatians 3:27, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” To put on Christ is to put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness (Eph 4:24). The wedding garment is Christ. Having put on Christ, we know God’s will and we want to live in it. But this man has entered the wedding banquet and then put off Christ and put on the old sinful nature instead by living according the passions and desires of the sinful flesh instead of fight against them. The one, who outwardly is part of the church but inwardly lives for himself and his own desires, will, on the Last Day, be bound foot and hand and cast into the outer darkness of Hell where there is eternal weeping in sorrow and the gnashing of teeth in regret.
“For many are called, but few are chosen.” Israel imagined that since they had been called, they were chosen no matter how they responded to the gospel. Many in the visible church think the same. They imagine that they can make light of the gospel call—treating it as a small or insignificant thing—and go their own way of relishing in the possessions, business, or self-righteousness. The chosen—the elect of God—are those who not only hear the call, but heed it, and not only once, but daily, and persevere in faith unto the end. St. Peter tells us, “Be even more diligent to make your call and election sure” (2 Ptr 1:10). We make our calling and election sure—not to God but to ourselves—by hearing God’s Word as often as we’re able since God calls us to faith through His Word. We make our election sure by adhering to God’s word in faith, praying diligently, abiding in God’s goodness, and faithfully using the gifts we have received from Him (FC SD XI.21). Or, to put it another way, we make our calling and election sure by daily wearing the garment God has given us—Christ and His righteousness. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts (Rom 13:14). This is why Paul tells us in today’s appointed epistle, “Walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming—or making good use of—the time. The days in which we live are evil because they are full of temptations to put off Christ and put on our sinful desires instead. In these evil days we walk circumspectly, we are careful as to how we live, since we “understand what the will of the Lord is.” We don’t have to search for it. Christ has told us in the parable. Come to the wedding and wear the wedding garment, so that we are meditating on God’s word and speaking it to one another, so that we are giving thanks to God for the forgiveness and righteousness He gives, so that we are submitting to one another, serving one another in love. Many are called, but few are chosen. Make your calling and election sure by attending the wedding banquet in the garment God has given you—Christ Jesus and His perfect righteousness. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
