"Your Blood My Royal Robe Shall Be"

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

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.” Jesus asks us to imagine this situation. A king is preparing to celebrate the marriage feast of his son. He sends out invitations by royal messenger. He orders preparations made, food cooked, the palace made spotless and gleaming, the garments all richly prepared. The best of the best are invited. From far and wide, the richest, most famous, most brilliant, most good-looking people are expected to be in attendance for the royal wedding. One would be a fool to miss such a spectacular affair.

And yet, when the time came, that is exactly what happened. The upper crust decided that they had better things to do. Some merely ignored the messengers and invitations and went about their business. Others laid hands upon the servants of the king and beat, mocked, shamed, and even killed them. The rich and famous had all they needed for themselves; they had no need of the king and his fancy feast and pomp and circumstance. Easier just to buy the commemorative postage stamp than actually get all dressed up and go.

So, what did the king do? He turned to the “everybody else” in the land. The king sent out his servants with instructions to bring in everyone they found. The good and the bad, the middle-class, the working-class, the low-class, the no-class. Pick them up out of the gutter. Haul them in off the streets. Carry them in, if need be, but fill up the banquet hall with wedding guests.

And these people came. The “good and the bad” came in droves to fill up the seats left vacant by the elite. They had no problems taking what the king provided. These people probably would never see the inside of a castle again, and may never eat as well as this, and well they knew it. It is not every day that you get dragged off the street and into the hall of the king, and you are not even in trouble. Worthy or not, you don't bite the hand that feeds you. All they had to do was sit there and eat.

“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?'” The invitation of the king was sufficient to make the guests worthy. It was the custom in ancient times to provide guests with suitable garments for your wedding feast, and so when the king's men brought in the people from the highways and byways, they would have clothed them with suitable attire.

Likewise, we are clothed by our king in suitable attire for the king's feast. Our garments, bloodstained, dirty, and ragged, have been stripped away, and we have been clothed with resplendent robes fit for a royal wedding. We are made worthy by our king to enter the wedding hall because He has given us His robe of righteousness. Our Lord Christ has clothed us in the garments of salvation. Our Lord and King has picked us up out of the gutter, out of the misery of our sinful condition and has washed us with His precious blood shed on the cross for you and me. He has made us clean through the washing of regeneration, and has made us presentable in the hall of the king. He has not simply put on a costume to hide us, but He has clothed us in royal robes, bedecked and bejeweled as to meet our own bridegroom. Therefore, we say with the prophet:

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD;

my soul shall exult in my God,

for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;

he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,

as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,

and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

We exult in the salvation of our God because He has taken away the filthy rags of our sin, and has clothed us with the robe of righteousness that Christ rose from the dead to deliver to each of us. You and I enter the hall of the king more radiant than the stars in the sky, because we shine with the light of Christ.

“For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.” Do not keep silent about the righteousness of Christ given to you. Do not be quiet about the gifts given to you by the King of Kings. For your joy can no more be contained than that of a newlywed at the sight of her bridegroom. You overflow with the joy of heaven because you have been purchased and won by the blood of Christ, and that blood has washed your sins away and turned your rags to riches.

Do not keep silent, but join in the hymn of all creation: “Salvation belongs to our God, and to the Lamb who sits on the throne!” Now, here on earth, in the house of our King, we sing praises to Him who died. Meanwhile, we eagerly wait for the day when our robes will be finally washed in the blood of the Lamb and we will take our places with all the saints in that great multitude clothed in robes of righteousness before the throne of God forever.

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.