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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
The last report that I saw said that the Israel Defense Force was preparing a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza, in the wake of Hamas’s assault on Israel last week, which, with the fighting since, has resulted in a combined death toll of more than 35-hundred people, including non-combatant victims on both sides. The conflict goes back, some might say, to the United Nations’ 19-47 vote that divided the land of the British “mandate” of Palestine into both an Arab state and a Jewish state. Others might go further back to the Romans, and still others might go even further back to the births of Ishmael and Isaac as recorded in the book of Genesis. In today’s Gospel Reading, in the so-called “Parable of the Wedding Feast”, Jesus tells of a king who sends his troops to destroy murderers and burn their city, which angry action is usually taken as a reference to the Romans’ decades later killing Jews and destroying Jerusalem. “War and the Wedding Feast” hardly seem to belong together! Yet, “War and the Wedding Feast” fit together in the Parable, even as God used the Romans to serve His purpose with the Jews and Jerusalem, and even as, no doubt, God ultimately will work His purpose with the Israel Defense Force and Hamas.
In the context of the Parable of today’s Gospel Reading, the purpose of the king’s angry action is to punish those who not only had paid no attention to his gracious invitation to come to the wedding feast for his son, to which feast they probably had previously committed to come, but who also had seized the king’s servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them, as the Jews both had done with God’s Old Testament prophets and would do with His New Testament apostles. The king’s angry action against those murderers and their city was justified, as God’s using the Romans against the Jews and Jerusalem was justified. Depending on our political views, we might think that either Hamas or the Israel Defense Force is justified in its actions, but problematic is our putting on the side of God either Hamas—which officially is called the “Islamic Resistance Movement”—or the modern secular nation called the “State of Israel”.
More importantly for us, the Parable of the Gospel Reading makes clear that there are consequences—consequences for paying no attention to God’s repeated invitations to the Wedding Feast for His Son and consequences for trying to stay in the Wedding Feast without being clothed in the provided garment. Our being destroyed and our city’s being burned is not completely out of the realm of possibilities, but more-likely seems our having our sins bound and our being castout of the Church and ultimately ending up in the outer darkness of hell, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth—“all imaginable torments”, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther once expanded, preaching, “You will suffer more than words can tell and thoughts can grasp” (Luther, cited by Plass, #1920, p.627). If you are present in-person or on-line this morning, you have not completely neglected God’s invitation, at least not today, though maybe you have neglected His invitations in the past or will neglect His invitations in the future. Maybe you are here, but in some way you reject the righteousness offered to you. Too easily we could concentrate on criticizing those not present and miss our Lord’s point of our examining ourselves. Because of our sinful nature and all of our actual sins, we deserve to die now and be tormented for eternity, unless we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake. Through the Parable of the Gospel Reading, with “War and the Wedding Feast”, God calls and so enables us to repent, and actions such as the Roman’s destruction of Jerusalem and the war between Hamas and the Israel Defense Force arguably also serve God’s call for us to repent. When we repent, then God forgives us: God forgives our sinful nature and all of our actual sin—our sins of neglecting His invitations, or whatever our actual sin might be.
As the king in the Parable of today’s Gospel Reading repeatedly invited guests to the wedding feast for his son, so God repeatedly invites us to the Wedding Feast for His Son, all out of God’s great love, mercy, and grace—grace for the sake of that Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is true God in human flesh, and He lived the perfect life that we fail to live, and He died the death that we deserve to die because we fail to live that perfect life. On the cross, Jesus died for us, in our place, and then He rose from the dead. To us who by nature are unrighteous, God graciously gives the righteousness of Jesus’s life and death. To paraphrase today’s Collect, God deals with us not in the severity of judgment but by the greatness of His mercy. And, God does so, forgiving us through His Means of Grace.
In Holy Baptism, the Divinely-inspired St. Paul writes to the Galatians, we put on Christ (Galatians 3:27). As today’s Introit quoted Isaiah (Isaiah 61:10; antiphon: Psalm 146:2), the Lord has clothed us with the garments of salvation; He has covered us with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress—at least in Isaiah’s time—and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. Our Lutheran Confessions point especially to individual Absolution as a way that we who are pressed by our sins know and not doubt God’s will to save us and the peace and comfort that His salvation brings (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, X:36-38). And, today’s Old Testament Reading’s mentioning a feast of rich food full of marrow and of aged wine well refined (Isaiah 25:6-9) and the Parable of the Wedding Feast in today’s Gospel Reading may make us think especially of the Sacrament of the Altar, where we eat bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and drink wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so we receive forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation. As in the Parable, servants keep the unrepentant, who refuse to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness, from partaking, but we who repent are worthy and wellprepared and so partake of this Wedding Feast, what is often called a foretaste of the feast to come in the eternity of heaven (Revelation 19:7, 9).
The present and future division between those who reject and pervert God’s Means of Grace (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, XI:41) and those who repent and faithfully make use of God’s Means of Grace can be difficult for us to understand and accept. God allows Himself to be resisted as He works through His Means of Grace! In the Parable of today’s Gospel Reading, those invited reject the invitation, and at least one of even those who did not reject the invitation rejected the wedding garment. So, Jesus says “many are called, but few are chosen”, which we should understand as meaning, as the Parable makes clear, that “all” are invited but only “some” of those end up coming and staying. Still, the Wedding Feast ultimately is filled with the full number of those who are to be saved. There are presently wars and rumors of wars, as there have been since the time of our Lord’s prophecy (Matthew 24:6). The general warning signs of the Lord’s final coming arguably have been fulfilled since His crucifixion and resurrection! Despite false teaching all around us in the world, nothing else “needs” to happen in order for Him to come that final time—nothing that we do, and nothing involving the secular “State of Israel”.
“War and the Wedding Feast” hardly seem to belong together, but “War and the Wedding Feast” fit together both in the Parable and in the real world. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Philippians 4:4-13), we do not need to be anxious about anything, and through Christ we can be content in whatever situation we are in. And, as described in the Old Testament Reading, on the Last Day, when we are in the light and joy of the Lord’s eternal presence and so in glorified bodies, He will wipe away tears from our faces. So, already now let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +