Wedding Clothes

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

WEDDING CLOTHES

Matt 22:1-14

22:1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. 4 "Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.' 5 "But they paid no attention and went off — one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8 "Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 "But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless. 13 "Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 14 "For many are invited, but few are chosen." 

NIV

Certainly we would have to belief the original guests were the Jewish people. The first servants sent out were the prophets proclaiming the coming Messiah. The second servants were the Apostles proclaiming the gospel. The other guests are the Gentiles whom we are included in. There is some reason to believe the army which burned their city was the Roman army that burned Jerusalem to the ground about forty years after these words of our Lord. We also have reason enough to believe the world, earth as we know it will be burned up and destroyed at some time in the future. The wedding feast or banquet could certainly mean the invitation to the grace and mercy of God, salvation. The Jews rejected the invitation and so he invited us. Although this parable is about the rejection by the Jews and the invitation to the Gentiles, there is even more regarding being ready for the wedding feast. It was the custom in those days for guests of the wedding feast to be given white robes to wear into the banquet area. To refuse such a garment would have been an affront to the father of the bridegroom. This makes us think of the marriage feast of the Lamb. We who overcome……

Rev 3:4-6

4 Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. 5 He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

NIV

We will be dressed in white robes as we enter the wedding feast of the Son of God. We are the bride of Christ and as such we should be ready, we are the honored guests and need to accept the wedding clothes. This could well speak to the visible church today. It might be possible some in the church, hopefully not us, that have become so distracted by the ways of the world, we are not really ready for the banquet. We have too many ties to this world, too many accumulations of either things, or simply money that we have so much we want to do in life we are not ready to leave it all. There could be those who are members of the church, but are not worthy to enter the banquet because they are not willing to accept the wedding clothes. What does this look like? Is it possible we might just be going through the motions of being religious? Surely Christ died for the needed sacrifice, the ministers have invited us to partake in the Gospel. The Holy Spirit has worked with us to bring us to salvation. But is it possible we once accepted, but have been so distracted by the world that we have forsaken that pure faith in Christ, the pure belief in the gospel message and have begun to strive for holiness by our own efforts? Have we been deceived to believe any of our good deeds make us worthy to wear that white robe? The fact remains we are unworthy to wear the wedding garments. There is absolutely nothing we can do to earn the right to wear them. There is not a single reason other than the invitation which gives us the ability to wear them. It is only by the invitation of the Father to the wedding feast of his Son, that we are then clothed in our white robes and suitably dressed. We only need to accept the invitation and the wedding clothes, then we will rejoice with the Son. Those who either reject the invitation or refuse the wedding clothes will have their city, the world, burned up by the armies of God. So let us rejoice with the Son. Let us accept that invitation simply by coming to the wedding, allowing him to dress us in the white robe, the wedding clothes.