(Matthew 22:1-14)
How can God possibly convince you? What illustration, what picture, would be enough for it to sink in how good it is to be in Christ’s kingdom? What does it take so that your view of Christianity and Christ’s church is so much more than just a social club or service to tap into when you need it, but so much more? Think about what it would take for that to sink in, because God wants you to know how really great it is to be in his kingdom.
So Jesus tells a story. This story shares some similarities with previous stories – parables – we’ve heard from Jesus, but also a few unique elements. One that stands out: the party! “Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son’” (v. 1-2).
Mind you, this is not just anyone in the neighborhood throwing a party – this is a king. This is someone with the resources to put together a spectacular party! Someone in that position, for an occasion like that – a wedding reception for his son – is able to spare no expense in spoiling all of the guests gathered to celebrate his son’s marriage.
The king even makes sure his servants are highlighting his extensive preparations when he sends them out to personally follow up on the invitations he had extended. “Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet” (v.4). He was not throwing some party on the cheap, holding out and hoarding the best of the best for himself sometime down the road, but was planning to serve the best beverages, choicest cuts of meat, and every delectable treat one could ever hope to sample. It was all going to be there!
And it’s all right here – right here in Christ’s kingdom to which we believers belong. That – this – is the kingdom Jesus is portraying in his parable, and while it certainly includes the fullest measure of what is waiting for us in heaven, by no means are the blessings of the wedding banquet off limits to us until then! While the blessings of being in this kingdom are many, I want to highlight just a few that repeatedly seem to top the list for many believers: hope, peace, forgiveness, and love.
A familiar statement popped up again in a recent devotion. I’m not sure who is credited with coining it, but here’s the reminder of one of the great blessings of being in Christ’s kingdom: “Many people see only a hopeless end, but you have an endless hope.”
In a society that has more resources than it’s ever had at its disposal – in terms of stuff, support, treatment, etc. – it seems to take so little for people to slip into hopelessness. Yes, in recent decades we have done a poor job of teaching younger generations the value of resiliency and how to handle adversity, but there’s more to it than that.
If we don’t have the God of hope in our lives, then should it surprise us that so many are feeling hopeless? Let’s not make it more complicated than it needs to be! Paul captured the blessing of hope in the closing thoughts of his letter to the Christians in Rome. To those who had more than enough earthly reasons to feel hopeless, as persecution in the early church raged, he wrote, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).
Without the “God of hope,” where else would we expect to be hopeful? But with him, hope overflows – a hope that is fueled by the certainty of the full-blown wedding banquet waiting for us in the future. And that hope is related to another blessing of being in this kingdom: peace.
Will peace exist in the middle east when terrorists stop attacking Israel and Israel stops retaliating? Is peace merely a matter of putting down weapons? Of course not. Fear and terror of what could happen at any moment in the future would continue to exist on both sides.
That’s because peace isn’t found in the absence of war and aggression; it’s found in reconciliation. It is found only when two sides have completely hashed out their differences and restored and repaired their relationship. But as long as something – anything – stands in the way of that, there is no reconciliation, and therefore no peace.
When we are riddled with guilt over what we’ve done wrong, we don’t need someone to merely brush it off and say that what we did was no big deal. No, we need something more. We need reconciliation. We need assurances that what we’ve done doesn’t stand between us and that person. We only have that in Jesus, who alone is able to assure us that because of his saving work, because of the forgiveness he came to secure for us, no sin or guilt remains between a Holy God and a sinner like me. The assurance Jesus gave to his disciples after his resurrection is also our assurance: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27). You are at peace. Jesus says so, because Jesus made it so. And just as your peace is related to the hope we have, so is your peace the result of another blessing of being in the kingdom: forgiveness.
Notice how beautifully that forgiveness is depicted in Colossians: “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14). We have been rescued! We were dominated by darkness, but having been brought into the King’s kingdom, a kingdom characterized by forgiveness.
It’s what sets this kingdom apart from all others. Other kingdoms are established by a show of might or political gamesmanship, but not this one. This one is far more powerful, for it is based on the authoritative pronouncement of God himself to the whole world, that his forgiveness through Christ means he doesn’t hold our sin against us.
But what should prompt all of this? Why should the likes of any of us be able to rest in the hope, the peace, and the forgiveness that belong to us in this kingdom?
Simply because the God who is love loves you with a love that will never burn out or be bored of you. His is an eternal love, put into action before creation, carried out at Christ’s crucifixion, and continues to all in his kingdom.
Jesus’ disciple John, who preferred to be known not for his great sermons, his special privileges as being in Jesus’ inner circle, or any of his own accomplishments, but to be known simply as the disciple Jesus loved, wrote, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1).
In Christ’s kingdom we have all of these blessings – hope, peace, and forgiveness – because God loves us. In light of these reminders, doesn’t Jesus’ description of the lavish wedding banquet seem like a gross understatement? How could any worldly illustration – even Jesus’ own parable – possibly come close to adequately describing the blessings God lavishes on his people?!?
Yes, Jesus’ story is one of a lavish invitation to a never-ending party that nothing else will ever come anywhere close to imitating. But Jesus’ story tells us even more: everyone is invited. All are welcome! No one is excluded from being invited to the banquet! How liberal is God with his invitation, to exclude no one and include everyone?!?
The details in the parable capture this quite well. The king had already sent out invitations, but he didn’t just sit back and wait for people to show up. Rather, in addition to sending out the invitations, he took the initiative to follow up with all of those who had been invited to remind them of the invitation and urge them to now come and join in the festivities, for everything was ready.
If you’ve ever planned a party or an event – whether it’s been for just a small group or a large one – you know this is no small thing. It’s a lot of effort to make sure all of the details on the invitation are correct. Then, how will the invitations get distributed? Will you mail them with a stamp, send out an email and hope it doesn’t go into their spam, or create an event on social media? Will you invite via a phone call or text message?
There are so many ways to get the word out, which also means so many more ways for the word to get lost, ironically making follow up as necessary as ever! And who of us hasn’t wanted to pull out their hair trying to do that (or from the other perspective, been the ones responsible for causing others to want to pull out their hair because of our lack of response!)? Getting a response from people at a time when ghosting has become acceptable behavior is no easy thing! So see and appreciate what great lengths the king went to in his invitations, sending his servants out multiple times to follow up.
When one goes to such great lengths to plan and prepare a party and thoroughly extend invitation upon invitation, it makes it all the more inexcusable that any should react as they did. Some simply ignored the invitation. Others were preoccupied with other priorities, heading off to work or tending to a project at home. Still others did the unthinkable and murdered the messengers.
Recall that we witnessed this same behavior in the last parable Jesus told of his vineyard. However, this time Jesus included what it looked like to “bring those wretches to a wretched end,” to use the words from the last story of Jesus. He describes it here. “The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city” (v.7).
Yes, there will be punishment for those who reject Jesus’ offer of free and full salvation. While some may conclude that such punishment is unnecessary and that God goes too far and way over the top in carrying out such punishment, they forget that consequence is simply what we brought on ourselves way back at the first sin.
We brought it on ourselves. What’s more, remember that’s the very thing God sent out the invitation to rescue us from! So if we refuse his rescue, then we have just chosen for things to be the way we always deserve – to be punished ourselves for our sin and cut off from God’s grace forever. To those who reject God’s gracious invitation, God will give them what they want instead.
But for those who do by faith accept his invitation, we notice from this parable that there’s also only one way to get into the banquet: you have to be wearing the wedding clothes.
The king saw one guest who was not properly dressed and he was dismissed – thrown out of the party! He didn’t have on the right fit. The only appropriate dress wear in Christ’s kingdom is Christ’s perfection. His holiness. His righteousness. Anyone who insists on wearing his own good efforts, noble intentions, or positive thoughts and vibes, will end up on the outside looking in.
So after the invitations went out, who are those left out? Only those who chose not to attend the banquet and those insisting on getting in on their own terms.
So it is with the kingdom of God. The invitations literally could not have been sent out more liberally! They went out to everyone! Not only that, but the appropriate attire – the credit of Christ’s perfect life through faith – is also offered to everyone in attendance. And don’t forget the rich blessings of being in attendance: hope, peace, and forgiveness, all driven by the King’s love for you. How lavish & liberal is the king’s invitation?!?
Who are you in this parable? Wherever you are in life, there is a role depicted in the parable. Are you rejecting the invitation and/or those messengers who bring it? Preoccupied with other things that you don’t have time of the party? You want to come to the party but you insist on getting in on your own terms? Feel like your guilty past means you didn’t make the guest list? All are invited! The servants were sent out repeatedly to others with the invitation? At times we fall into different roles in the parable, but as we wrap up Jesus’ stories, let us make sure we take him up on his invitation. Not only does our eternity depend on it, but we don’t want to miss out on the party – then or now! And it’s so easy for us to miss out if we take for granted what is included in Christ’s kingdom.
The story is told of a family who wanted to travel to America for the chance at a better life. After saving up, they spent all they had on tickets for the family to travel on an ocean liner to America. Friends and family provided bread and cheese for the family of four. Dad figured they could stretch that out to last the ten-day trip and then they’d be much better off after arriving in America.
After six days of cheese & bread sandwiches, their little boy couldn’t take it anymore. Dad mercifully scrounged together enough change for the boy to go to the ship’s store and buy an apple. After quite a bit of time had passed, the boy hadn’t returned and dad, being worried, set out to find him.
As he left the lowest tier of the ship and climbed each level, accommodations became increasingly luxurious. Eventually the father made it into the the grand dining room, where he discovered his son sitting at a table surrounded by an amazing spread of food. “What are you doing?”, dad lamented. “We can’t afford that! I’ll be arrested and we’ll be taken back home!”
As the son replied, he took out the change his dad had given him and returned it, explaining, “Dad, all of the food is included in the price of the ticket. We could have been eating all of this for the past six days instead of cheese bread sandwiches!”
So often that describes how we go through life. We settle for cheese sandwiches instead of tapping into the banquet that God provides for us. Realize how lavish the party is in Christ’s kingdom, and rejoice that you’ve been invited by taking advantage of all of the blessings he provides! Oh, and don’t forget to pass along to everyone else that they’ve been invited, too!
