Are You Serious?

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Is the Lord's invitation to the marriage feast of His Son serious? In today's Gospel lesson, you have heard how our Lord Christ compares the kingdom of God to a king who gives a marriage feast for His Son, to which He invites guests. However, the invited guests disdain the King's invitation, stay away, and even deal scornfully with His servants, who were merely sent to call the invited to the feast.

What is this kingdom? The kingdom of heaven is not an earthly kingdom. There are no governors, no presidents, no Congress, no elections. In the kingdom of heaven God alone is King. What is this kingdom? None other than the one holy catholic and apostolic Church. And this kingdom, as our Lord describes, exists here on earth, in your midst. The Kingdom is compared to a royal marriage because the crown prince, the Son of the King, chooses His bride, and the Father gives Him to her. The Father invites many guests to the marriage feast of His Son.

This marriage happens here on earth, among the faithful people of God, who gather in the royal hall to eat the marriage feast. But this kingdom is the kingdom of heaven, not a kingdom of this world. We Christians live half in this world, half out of it. We are in the body and walk among this earth. We function under the governance of the world. And yet, we are not dominated by the world and its prince. We are citizens of the kingdom of heaven by the gracious invitation of the King, and we are subject to His joyous calling.

That means that whenever you hear talk of the kingdom of heaven, do not gape up at the heavens or fathom the stars above. Rather, keep your eyes fixed on the earth and look for the kingdom of heaven among men. For the kingdom of heaven is wherever the Gospel is preached for the salvation of man, wherever the Holy Sacraments are administered to offer the forgiveness of sins, and wherever the joy of man is set securely upon the grace, mercy, and blessings of God. The kingdom of heaven is the reign of Christ, the dominion of the Gospel, received by faith.

Where the Gospel is preached and the Visible Gospel administered, there is Christ. Where Christ is, there are the Holy Spirit and the kingdom of heaven. All that yet remains is for the Lord to remove the wall that still separates us, that is, for us to die in the body, whereupon we enter heaven and the fullness of our salvation.

But you have not died in the flesh yet, and so the old sinful flesh still plagues you. The temptations of the devil still assail you, the corruption of creation drags you down, the raging of the world oppresses you.

To this great marriage feast the King, the Father of the favored Son, invited His people. Our Lord in ages past invited His people Israel through the preaching of the Prophets. He sent them faithful men who preached the Word of the Lord to them, to comfort those who sat in darkness with the promise of the coming Messiah, the Savior who would conquer sin, death, and hell. The prophets directed the people of God to wait for their salvation in the Lord, to find consolation in the hope of everlasting life through the gracious forgiveness of sins.

But, as Christ says, they refused to come to the marriage feast. They stayed away, preferring to remain wanderers in the wilderness rather than entering into the Promised Land. So the Lord sent more servants, more messengers to call them to the feast, to point the way to salvation. Everything was prepared for them, all they had to do was come as called.

But the preaching was in vain. Those who were invited would not come as called. The wedding guests would not drop everything, dress up, and prepare to celebrate the marriage feast. They went their own ways: one to his farm, one to his business, another to his bride. Greed, money, possessions, position, power, and friends meant more to them than the gracious gifts of the Lord which were offered to them.

So it is today. Many are invited, but they will not come. The love of money prompts some to attend to their businesses and farms and houses, rather than enter the marriage feast in the King's House. They will not come to the royal hall, and thus will not come to receive the gifts Christ gives.

In every generation of man, there arise religious fanatics of all sorts. The religion of man is idolatry, regardless of how it is outwardly packaged. The original sin, the default position of all mankind is to seek the throne of God for yourself, rather than submit to the rightful King. The Jews, who were very religious people and zealous for the Law, seized the prophets, treated them scornfully, and killed them. And they did not stop with the prophets; they killed even the royal Son Himself, and His blessed apostles after Him.

The Word is scorned in every generation. Because the Word of the Lord was scorned, the Jews were delivered into the hands of their enemies and their land and Temple were destroyed by the Babylonians, who functioned as the instruments of God for the judgment of His people. A great many of the people of Israel perished and died miserably, not as martyrs but as those condemned, because they scorned the prophets who warned them to flee from the wrath to come.

The Jews had their day of judgment, and the promised was then given not only to the people of Israel, but to the Gentiles. The Gospel was to be preached to all nations, to every land and people. The Gifts of God are given to all.

Those who were invited rejected the call, and they were cast out, forgotten, and devoted to destruction. Then the servants of the King went out into the highway and byways and gathered the greatest and the least of the world. Without discrimination, the King called those who would come to enter into the marriage feast and sit at the banquet of His Son. The Father of all mercy extended the gracious promise of the Gospel to all sinners in every land and nation. The Gospel is for all; Christ has died once for all.

The Lord sends His messengers into the world to proclaim His gracious invitation: come to the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom. Believe in Christ, be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. Hear the Gospel and love one another as Christ has loved you. Be free from sin, death, and the devil. Christ Jesus our Lord has died your death. He has suffered your punishment. He has made right your wrongs. The servants of God have gone out, and are still going out today, as our Lord calls and ordains men to the preaching Office, whereby He creates faith by the preaching of the same Word He used to call Israel of old.

Now, the people have been gathered from hither and yon, hill and dale, highway and byway, into the royal hall and seated at the marriage feast. The King comes in to see His guests, and He rejoices to see His hall filled. But He cannot but notice that there are among the guests those who do not wear the wedding garments. That is, He finds those who wear the name of Christian because they are baptized, and maybe have even grown up in the courts of the Lord's house, but present no evidence of faith because they are lukewarm in their faith, or even unbelieving altogether.

This will necessarily happen in this world. The preaching goes out like seed scattered in a field, and some takes root and grows, while others simply lie there. All are invited guests, but some show up unprepared and uncaring. This will persist until Judgment Day.

At a marriage feast, one ordinarily dressed up nicely to show honor and regard for the bridegroom and his bride. One might say that it is an insult to them to show up unadorned in appropriate fashion. The citizens of this world put a great deal of stock in one's appearance at such an event.

And yet, how does one adorn oneself for the marriage feast of the Son of God? “Friend, how did you come to be here without a wedding garment?” the king asks. That is, why do you come to His royal hall without the sign of faith, without the garments of salvation?

You come to the wedding feast without the wedding garment when you come under the name of Christian, but without faith in the One who has placed that name upon you. You come unattired when you come without faith in the Son of Man who came to seek and save the lost. You come because your parents came, because you were raised this way, because your friends are here, because it is somehow of temporal advantage to you to be here; but you come without faith in what you hear and receive.

There are even those fanatical souls among the faithful who come not merely without the wedding garments, not even in the nakedness of their poverty, but clothed in the rags of their own efforts. They present themselves before God as rightly as a coal miner, covered in soot and dirt, is properly attired for a wedding feast.

One who wears the name Christian, who takes the name of Christ upon his lips, who drinks the blood of our Lord which was shed for the forgiveness of sins, ought to do these things in faith, trusting in the same Christ to clothe him in the garments of salvation, to cover him in righteousness, and to make him pure and presentable before the Father. But some are those who enter without such faith, without the covering of Christ, instead presenting their own sooty rags as though they were glorious raiment.

To one such as this the King comes and demands an answer for this roguish, rude behavior. And such a man is speechless before the Lord. The mouths of the wicked will be stopped before the judgment throne of God. He has given you His Gospel. He has poured the Holy Spirit into your heart as the water was poured upon your head. He has preached His saving Gospel to you through the mouth of His servants – whom you called to this pulpit for this reason. He has declared to you His gracious absolution, the obliteration of your sin and guilt. He has poured out His blood and sacrificed His body for you, that you might eat of the fruit of His redeeming work. And what have you done with it? “Who has believed our words?” the prophet cries out.

The punishment for such unfaithfulness and impudence, the punishment for such pride and unbelief is to be bound hand and foot and cast out into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. That is, the punishment for sin is eternal death in hell, being deprived of all comfort, all joy, all hope of grace or mercy for all eternity. This is what it means to be cast out of the kingdom of heaven.

The punishment for unbelief is great and terrible. Therefore, repent and believe the Gospel. Repent and listen to the words of the prophets and apostles, the messengers of the King who have been sent to you to invite you to the feast. Repent of your idolatry of self and of your unbelief. Repent of your cold-heartedness. Believe that the Word of the Lord is true. Believe that the Gifts of God are for you.

Despair of the worth of your own works and efforts. Give upon your toils and machinations. Instead, hear the gracious invitation of the servants of the King. Let yourself be clothed in His all-sufficient righteousness. Let His grace be your glorious dress, your fiery jewels, your royal robes.

The King is not kidding when He sends out His messengers to call His people to the marriage feast of His Son. He is deadly serious when He offers to you all the gifts of heaven and earth, if you will simply receive them from His hand. He bids you do no work of your own, but merely be clothed in His garments of salvation, be washed in the blood of the Lamb which makes you pure and holy, presentable in the hall of the eternal King. For those who reject this gracious gift, there is nothing but wrath and punishment, but for those who receive the Gifts Christ gives, there is nothing but forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, crowned with every blessing in heaven and on earth.

The Lord solemnly warns you against unbelief and rejection of His Word. But He gladly and cheerfully invites you to embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of eternal life which His Son has won for you, and which is given you through the Word preached and the Sacraments administered in His Name. The Lord is serious about your salvation.

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.