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Dressed for a Wedding
Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The worst way to think about today’s Gospel is to get all wrapped up in whether or not you are chosen. When you look at yourself, you will see only your sins and unbelief. Are you chosen? Do you live as one who is chosen? Your sins say that you don’t live as if God has chosen you. You don’t even deserve the invitation to His Feast! I can understand if this identification hurts your pride a little bit. No one wants to take an invitation out of charity. If you weren’t first on the list, then it’s a slap in the face, even if there’s free food. At first glance, it looks from this story like you were God’s second-thought guests, as if it was all by chance that you ever came to faith and received the forgiveness of all your sins.
When those who had been invited rejected the King’s invitation, He sent His servants out to the street to invite everyone to the Feast, both the good and the bad. The problem with the man who got tossed out of the Feast wasn’t that he was a sinner, but that he didn’t have the wedding garment on! He came into the Feast invited, but He wasn’t properly dressed. What mattered was the invitation and the King’s wedding garment.
So who is chosen? Instead of looking inside, look outside. The answer is outside of you. The answer is wrapped around you. How are you dressed? In and of yourself, that’s as uncertain as whether you are chosen or not. Just as there is no certainty in your own merit that you are chosen, there is no certainty in your own clothes. Your garments aren’t acceptable to God. Your clothes are stained by your sins. They are filthy rags before God.
Does that mean that we get tossed out of the wedding Feast too? We certainly deserve that. But the good news of today is that the King clothes you with His own wedding garment. He gives you His clothing! He clothed you with the righteousness won by Jesus on the cross and wrapped around you in Holy Baptism. His righteousness covers your unrighteousness. His garment covers your filthy rags. His garment is the answer to all the questions of today. Are you called? Yes, He called you and invited you to His feast. How do you know? You wear the King’s garment, which was put on you in Baptism. Those guests who were last invited relied totally on the generosity of the Host. That is what pure grace is. In the exact same way, you had nothing about you that made you worthy to receive the Gospel invitation; it was all by grace that you got in to the banquet of the Lord’s salvation.
And yet, for the rest of your life, you will face the constant temptation to throw this all away. You remain a sinner, and sinners reject the Lord and insist on their own way. They want to be independent from God. Sinners often fall for the alluring but empty promises of the devil. Like others before you who rejected the Master’s invitation—one preferred to tend to his farm, another to his business—the pattern continues today: one believes it’s more important to go to the football game; one takes the weekend off to relax; others will have their excuses. All sinners face these opportunities to gratify their sinful flesh. It makes sense to a sinner to be spiritual, but it’s just too confining to one’s style to be religious. But for you, your Lord offers to strengthen you to face these temptations. He takes away your sin, clothing you in the perfect wedding garment you inherited when you were baptized.
The heavenly banquet, the Body and Blood of Christ, is laid before you here on the Altar, though for right now it is hidden under bread and wine. You are worthy of this feast because Christ your Savior bestowed His perfect worthiness upon You by faith. Be assured that your heavenly Father loves to put on His wedding feast to end all wedding feasts, sparing no expense. And He has even dressed you for the feast in the finest garment ever: the spotless robe of His Son’s perfect righteousness, made white in the blood of the Lamb. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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