How good is the gift? How real is the promise?

“A King Gave a Wedding Feast for His Son”

(Matthew 22:1-14, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, March 23, 2008)

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."

Introduction – The turning point of history in the resurrection of Jesus

Something entirely new happened early one Sunday morning so many years ago. How new was the resurrection? While Jesus had performed resurrection miracles during His earthly ministry, this one was very different. All of those others were resurrections to mortal life. Those who had been brought back to life would die again, but when Jesus Himself rose from the dead, he rose to an entirely new kind of life, an immortal life, a permanent bodily life not subject to decay. Jesus would never die again. This would be interesting enough by itself, but there is something else that allows us to speak of the Lord’s resurrection as the turning point in human history: Jesus would not be the only one to rise to this kind of immortal life. His was the first of what would be many resurrections. Our belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a belief that He is the firstfruits of a much larger harvest. Our belief is that when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead, there will be a general bodily resurrection of the dead to an immortal existence. Because of this connection between His resurrection and our resurrections, we can call that Sunday morning so long ago the turning point of history, and the most powerful indication that a whole new life can be experienced by faith now, but will be known physically when Christ returns.

They would not come (1-7)

This is what Christians believe about the resurrection, and it is worthy of a great celebration. We are told that there is a marriage supper of the Lamb of God that is coming, and that those who are invited to that marriage supper are greatly blessed (Revelation 19:9). God the Son will be married to His church, the bride of Christ, on that great day of resurrection. Anticipating that great moment, in the last days prior to His own death and resurrection, the Lord told a parable about the coming wedding feast.

In that parable a king is giving a wedding feast for his son, and He sent His ministers, his servants, to call people to the wedding feast. It is clear that God is the King in this parable. Through the ministers of His Word He sends out the call everywhere inviting people to come to that feast. The wedding is for God’s Son, Jesus Christ. We are told in another place that the church is the bride of Christ and that Christ is the bridegroom. This is a very ancient way of talking about the relationship between God and His people. God is said to cleave to His people as a Husband to His bride. The dedication of His Son’s love is shown on the cross where Christ dies for His bride, but the fulfillment of the blessedness of that marriage is yet to come.

This wedding is not to be missed, just as surely as the blessedness of heavenly resurrection is not to be missed. If you were given a great gift that only required that You claim it, there would only be one reason not to claim that present. That would be if You did not really believe that the gift was real. Even if you had some doubt about the gift, you might still investigate the gift just in case. The only reason not to go to the heavenly wedding feast is if you just don’t believe that there is such a thing. You might want to check yourself on that unbelief of course. Have you actually examined the facts about the matter? Have you considered the meaning of the empty tomb? Have you thought about the missing body? What do you think of the record of the apostles given in the New Testament? Have you examined that as a responsible person? Have you considered the Old Testament seriously and seen that it points to a fulfillment that can only be from God through the giving of His Son? Have you thought enough about the cross, and the fact of the resurrection? The shocking detail of the parable we are considering is that the people who are invited to this wedding, the ones who receive a general call from the ministers of the Word, refuse to come, and they even abuse the messengers who bring the great invitation. They must not have believed that the wedding was real or great, otherwise that would not have let other mundane things get in the way of the best event that could ever be imagined – no, this event is beyond Your greatest imagination.

Invite as many as you find (8-10)

When Christ came to the Israelites, he was rejected. They had received the message of His coming and of a new Kingdom for centuries, but they would not receive Him. According to God’s great plan of salvation, this rejection would mean the end of the Old Testament era and the beginning of New Testament life through the church. The King told His ministers to go out and bring in all kinds of guests.

Isn’t that what Jesus has been doing in His ministry? He speaks to prostitutes and tax collectors. He blesses little children. He touches unclean lepers with His hands. He has compassion on crowds of all kinds of people. Isn’t that also what the apostles did as they brought the word everywhere? Philip explains the prophet Isaiah to an Ethiopian eunuch, who sees that Jesus Christ is the suffering Lamb of God who takes away our sins. The message goes forward to despised and irreligious people north of Judea called Samaritans. Peter is clearly instructed by an angel to go and preach the truth about Christ and the resurrection to Gentiles who have gathered by the instruction of an angel. Not knowing exactly what to expect, they are visited by the Spirit of God. Paul goes to synagogues everywhere throughout Asia Minor and Macedonia. He faces great persecution. Some Jews believe, but especially large groups of Gentiles receive the message of the cross of Christ and of His resurrection. In short, those who were decidedly outside of the Old Testament invitation list are now invited into the New Testament church, and they will be there at the marriage feast of the lamb, for they have come to believe what millions have receive over these many centuries. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, sent from heaven. Jesus died for my sins. Jesus rose again as the first resurrection man. I will have a resurrection life through Him. That wedding hall will be filled with guests.

A man who had no wedding garment (11-13)

So far, so good. There is such a sense of mercy, of forgiveness, of inclusiveness, and of hope, but the story is not finished. In verse eleven we hear that there is one man who has no wedding garment. Have you ever been to a formal occasion and found out upon your arrival that you were not even close to being dressed appropriately? It is very embarrassing. Something like that happens in the parable, but the consequences are way beyond embarrassment. The king comes up to the one man without the proper garment. He asks him how he got into the place for the wedding. The man is speechless, and then the king instructs them to tie him up and to cast him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Occasionally when a parable is being told there is a sudden gaping hole in the story and we burst out into the reality that the story symbolizes. Clearly we have been talking about resurrection heaven all along, and outside of this is the place of eternal punishment, where God’s frightening justice is experienced without end. We were talking symbolically about wedding garments, and then we broke through to the reality of hell. What seems to break down the wall of the story is the absence of this necessary wedding garment. What does that symbolize?

It cannot stand for a man’s relative goodness when compared with other men. Verse 10 says that the servants gathered those who were “both bad and good.” What could this necessary clothing mean? From the moment that God first clothed Adam and Eve with garments that required the shedding of blood, clothing has had a very important symbolic significance in the Bible. Specifically as it relates to our relationship to Jesus as the Lamb of God, who shed His blood that our sins would be forgiven, those who have embraced that message are said to have garments that symbolize the perfect righteousness of Christ. You cannot be in God’s presence without that perfect righteousness, and that righteousness is credited to us when we believe in Christ. Without faith in Christ, there is no crediting of Christ’s righteousness for sinners. Without that righteousness, no one can come to the wedding feast. With the righteous robes of Christ, we are counted as beloved guests of the Father, and even as the bride of the Bridegroom. Faith in Christ is the only way for us to have the blessedness of eternal resurrection with Christ in heaven. While we live out that faith even now, what we do here is only a start.

Called and chosen (14)

The truth about Christ, about righteousness by faith in Him, and about the life of faith that God has for us now is what the ministers of the Word of God are supposed to be telling You. If You have received some other message, it is a false invitation. There is no salvation except through the blood of Christ, and there is no good life at the resurrection marriage supper of the Lamb without the righteousness of Jesus Christ for sinners, received by faith alone. The call goes far and wide to many. Most do not believe. Some even persecute the messengers of good news. Some, however, are chosen by God. They show God’s electing love in their lives because they receive the message that they hear. They believe. They put on the wedding garment of Christ’s righteousness that could only come from God. Do not miss the resurrection! Please believe me. If you are still skeptical, come and look at the facts carefully. Do not take someone else’s skepticism as necessary fact for you. Find out the truth for yourself. The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What is the meaning of the first group invited to the wedding feast? Relate this to the context of the parable.

2. What is the second group invited to the feast? How does this relate to the early decades of church history?

3. What can be said about the one man who does not have proper garments? Why is this detail included?

4. What is the point of the last verse? How are we to understand these words “called” and “chosen?”