This is a sequel to yesterday’s post on the “Royal Wedding,” focusing on a parable Jesus told during his last week of life. Read it in Matthew 22:1-14.
The second part of the wedding feast parable also requires an understanding of Ancient Near Eastern wedding culture. . Just as the groomsmen and bridesmaids today wear special clothing to mark them as part of the wedding party, in that day, guests wore garments marking them as partakers in the feast. The garments would even be provided by the host if necessary.
I guess in some ways it would be like a guy showing up in dirty jeans for the royal wedding. Is it rude for the host to kick him out? In this story, a parable, remember, the garment represents something about the heart of the man there. It suggests at least two things about him: 1 – he didn’t take the feast seriously enough to respect its tradition and honor the bride and groom, and 2 – he wanted to wear his own clothes and refused the gracious gift of garment.
The connection really isn’t hard then for us to make. I am like the guy at the feast when I try to wear my own righteousness rather than the righteousness Jesus died and rose to earn me. I am also like that guy when I disdain God’s gracious and costly gift of salvation by doing things my way instead of honoring God with a life of obedience. Grace is a free gift, and it would be as preposterous as a wedding guest wearing dirty garments not to take it and treasure it.
Charles Spurgeon preached an excellent sermon on the meaning of the parable
Here was a man then who came into the gospel feast, and yet refused to comply with the command which related to that feast. He willfully preferred self to God, his heart was full of enmity and pride, he despised the gifts of grace, he scorned the rule of love, he stood a defiant rebel even at the banquet of mercy which his king had spread.
http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0976.htm
Dear God, my King and my Host,
Thank you for inviting me to the gospel feast. Thank you for giving me the garments of righteousness, entirely undeserved, even unsuiting a woman of sinful heart like my own. Forgive me for preferring self to you, and draw my heart toward you so that I may never despise the gifts of grace. Help me wear with honor the grace-garment you have bought for me with the price of your own beloved, sinless Son’s blood. May I honor you as an invited daughter of the King, inviting other outcasts to the Feast. In the name of the Son you cast on the cross for us. Amen
On a side note, I discovered this article about what the prime minister will wear to the royal wedding: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8463248/David-Cameron-will-wear-tails-to-royal-wedding-after-all.html
