This is the authority
of Jesus. This authority He received
from His Father. He earned this
authority by bearing the sins of the world on the cross. Jesus rules us because we are His. He owns us.
He has purchased and won us, not with gold or silver, the way the rulers
of this world buy favor and obedience and by which they manipulate their
subjects. No. But Jesus made us His by
buying us with His own holy and precious blood – by becoming our servant – by
paying our redemption price with His innocent suffering and death. All this He did in order that we, as we
confess in the Small Catechism, “may be
His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting
righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.”
This is the kingdom of
heaven. But Jesus doesn’t describe it
this way, does He? Not here, at
least. Instead what He does is describe
for us in a parable the standard response that has been given throughout
history to God’s gracious activity in Christ.
God is patient in His
invitation, as His parable shows. He
sent prophet after prophet. His people
rejected them. They built altars to
false gods who had done nothing for them, and they took lightly the invitation
to worship the true God who had made a covenant with them. He kept sending prophets to preach the coming
deliverance from sin and death to be ushered in by King David’s son and Lord,
that is, by Christ. But they rejected their
King. They stoned the prophets. They treated them shamefully. And so the wrath of God was upon them.
But the message
remained valid. The invitation remained
authentic. The wedding, so to speak, was
still on. God is patient in His
invitation, because God is true to His promises. “All is
ready,” the prophets preached, “All
is ready.” Of course it was not
until after the miraculous birth of Jesus and after His obedient life, that the
promised Savior would shed His blood to redeem the world. Yet God had promised. And His promise stood. All was ready—from God’s perspective. He had promised. Although it had not yet occurred within time—in
God’s mind His Son was already bound to the altar as Abraham once bound
Isaac. He was bound to the altar of the
cross as the Substitute for all of sinful humanity. Here God bound Himself to mankind as He
suffered for our sin, in order that by faith we might be bound to God in His
glorious resurrection from the dead. This
was the feast to which the prophets invited the nation of Israel. It was the marriage of God to the humanity He
would redeem in the person of Jesus Christ.
It was an invitation of grace to receive the benefits of this union by
faith in the Gospel. “Tell those who are invited,” the king
said, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my
oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to
the wedding feast.” But time and
again God’s gracious invitation was rejected.
They were not
worthy. They rejected the good
news. They wouldn’t hear it. So the king sent troops to kill those
murderers and burn their city. This is a
reference to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70. It was God’s doing. It was God’s punishment. Jesus’ threat was not empty. The continual rejection of the prophets whom
God sent met its peak in the rejection of God’s own Son, whom God sent to be
born of a woman. In fact, it was the
same rejection. “He who receives you,” Jesus said, “receives Me; he who rejects
you rejects Me.” The rejection
of the king’s servants was the rejection of the Gospel. It was unbelief.
But of course the
wedding to which they were invited – the joining of God to man in the person of
Jesus Christ – did not depend on anyone’s acceptance of the Gospel. Faith does not create the good news; faith
receives the good news. Thank God. Thank God especially since it was through the
rejection of Jesus that God extended His gracious invitation beyond the nation
of Israel. It is as Jesus said, “And
I—if I am lifted up from the earth—will draw all nations to Myself.” This He said, signifying by what death He
would die (Jn. 12:33). The Jews
rejected Jesus and nailed Him to a tree.
By raising Him up on the cross, they not only fulfilled Scripture, but
they made way for the Gentiles to be saved.
Consider Jesus’ parable. The king told his servants that because there
was no one worthy who had been invited, to go into the streets and invite
whomever you find. Invite everyone! And so they did. Both good and bad – it didn’t matter. Their job was not to look and see who might
appear like the type the king would like to have present. No. Their
job was to invite – invite, invite, invite.
Or, as the parable translates for us, preach, preach, preach. And the wedding hall was filled.
Now obviously, the
parable that Jesus tells here deals with the historical situation with the
Jews, and how they rejected the Gospel and how the Gospel shall then be
preached to the Gentiles, and so forth.
This is true. But the unbelief of
the Jews who stoned the prophets is no different than the unbelief of the world
that ignores the coming of God’s kingdom today.
And so this parable also serves for
us as a stern warning. The unbelief
of the Jews who crucified Jesus is the same as the unbelief of those today who
feel no need to gather on a Sunday morning in order to hear of Christ crucified
for sinners. It is no different. And neither is the punishment.
Those invited to the
wedding feast had their perfectly good excuses.
Some went out to farm and tend to the pressing needs of
agriculture. Some went to their
businesses in order to tend to the acquisition and management of money. Oh, these were important concerns – just like
all of ours. But they were invited to a
wedding – a wedding! The reason they didn’t go was not because
they were too busy. It’s because they
didn’t care. It’s that simple. The unbelief that rejects Jesus by stoning
the prophets is the same unbelief that rejects Jesus by not caring. And the end for such unbelief is the
same. It is utter destruction.
But the invitation is
the same too. And the invitation stood,
just like it still stands today. The
invitation continued and continues patiently to ring out. And just as in the invitation that the
servants spoke, the voice of the king could be heard, so also in the message
that Christ’s servant preaches from this pulpit, God’s kingdom comes to you in
His invitation to hear the word of God.
Dear Christian, hear
it. Hold it sacred. Gladly learn it. Consider what God invites you to celebrate. When the mind of God, which is as high above
us as the heaven is from the earth, was laid out and revealed – when the Son of
God was crucified as it was planned from the foundations of the world – when
Jesus did what He was born to do – when God redeemed the flesh that He assumed in
the womb of His mother – then, there, for us, in the realm of history, all
things were prepared. All things are
ready. Jesus said it. It is finished.
It is the crucified and
risen Christ Jesus who invites us today.
He invites us through the calling of the Gospel, to believe that for His
sake our sins have been atoned for, and that we are righteous in His
sight. But what is it that makes us
worthy to come? It is the invitation itself that makes us worthy to come. The invitation invites us to rejoice and
feast because God has so joined Himself to us in our misery. And so by faith we come to celebrate the
marriage bond of Christ to His Church.
The feast of which we partake when we hear and believe His word consists
of this: that we take part in the mercy of God.
It is as God spoke through His prophet Isaiah:
“Listen
carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And let your soul delight itself in
abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you—The sure mercies of David” (Is.
55:2-3).
It is here where Jesus
clothes us as a bridegroom bedecks his bride and makes her beautiful. It is here where He wraps her in His own
righteousness so that He sees neither spot nor wrinkle, nor any other blemish
that has stained her conscience in her life, but makes her holy and blameless
in His sight. These are the sure mercies
of David. They are the promises that God
has kept.
You cannot see the
Church. You cannot see the bride of
Christ. She is for His eyes only. We know her only by faith in the Son of God. Since we cannot see the Church, of whom we
are members, we cannot see our own righteousness. In the event that we can see our own
righteousness (or think we can) – whether it be really good-looking works that
we are proud of, or a self-satisfied assurance that we don’t really need to
come and hear the word of God so often – in such a case, when the righteousness
of the Christian is no longer an article of faith, but something that you think
you can see, well, it is then that you need to discard all your righteousnesses
as the filthy rags that they are and confess with St. Paul,
“But
what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I
also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as
rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own
righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in
Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith” (Phil.
3:7-11).
What Christ gives His
bride to wear is known and possessed by faith alone. And it is God’s invitation itself that
clothes us with the righteous obedience of Christ. We accept His invitation by faith to come to
Jesus who gives us a righteousness that our best efforts could not earn. Consider again our Lord’s parable. Those who will not wear Christ, but who
insist on wearing their own garment of piety and obedience will be rendered
silent. Those who will not repent will
be called out. “How did you even get in here?” the king said to the man dressed
like a slob. “The invitation itself covered you.
But what did you do with my robe of righteousness? You wanted your own righteousness instead, which
was from the law; and so under the law you shall remain — Bind him,” he
said to his servants, “hand and foot, and
throw him out of here into the outer darkness of unspeakable torments!”
Those who seek their
righteousness and divine approval from the law will be silenced by the law – so
that every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty before God. That’s what the law says. That’s what the law does. But the Gospel tells us something
different. It tells us to rejoice. It gives us reason to. The Gospel tells us to celebrate something by
giving us something to celebrate. The
Gospel makes no demands. It simply tells
us that the bond between Christ and those who hear His word and keep it (the
Church) has been established with an oath, with a marriage, with the seal of
God’s blood which He poured out to satisfy His justice in our place. The Gospel does not bind our hands and feet,
but shows us where the Son of God bound Himself to His fallen creation by
allowing His hands and feet to be nailed to the cross. Here Jesus earned for us
salvation from sin and death, and from all the imperfections and failures of
our so-called Christian life. By
suffering the darkness of God’s wrath for us, Jesus has brought us into the
fellowship of His Light. And so the
Gospel binds our hearts to Christ.
And He continues to
bring us and bind us, because He continues to invite us – as often as we need
an Advocate with the Father – as often as we need to be cleansed, His word
rings true: “Come unto Me, ye who labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
And this is why we come to the Lord's Supper. Look at what is prepared for us here. It is a simple meal: bread and wine. But it comes at no cost to you, and it
satisfies your truest need—because of what Jesus said: “Take; eat; this is My body given into death for
you. Take; drink; this is
my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of Me.” And so we take Jesus, our King, at His word.
We come, often; we eat, and we rejoice as we are invited to do with a good and
free conscience, for all things are ready.
Let us pray:
Jesus, Bread of Life, I pray Thee,
Let me gladly here obey Thee.
By Thy love I am invited,
Be Thy love with love requited;
From this Supper let me measure,
Lord, how vast and deep love’s treasure.
Through the gifts Thou here dost give me
As Thy guest in heaven receive me.
Let me gladly here obey Thee.
By Thy love I am invited,
Be Thy love with love requited;
From this Supper let me measure,
Lord, how vast and deep love’s treasure.
Through the gifts Thou here dost give me
As Thy guest in heaven receive me.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
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