Rsvp

-It is absolutely maddening to young couples

-Maybe y’all had to deal with it too when you got married

-I’m as guilty as anybody

-What I’m talking about it RSVPs

-Today’s sermon is about RSVPs and the people who refuse to return them

-I’ve always wondered what RSVP stood for. I knew it was an acronym from France

-It stands for “Répondez s’il vous plaît” which literally means, “Respond if you please”

-When Linda and I were getting ready to get married, I had to make a bunch of calls to family and friends to find out if they were going to make our wedding and reception

-I didn’t realize what an undertaking putting together a celebration with 300 guests was

-It would have been fine if that was our full-time job but we were trying to take care of details in addition to our jobs

-What would it be like if we had to go see everyone one of those people in person or have to get together a group of friends and have them go visit all of the delinquent RSVPers and get a reply, if you please?

-How time consuming! How labor intensive! How insulting to us to have to hunt down peoples’ responses!

-But we cared about these people enough to hunt down their responses. They are our friends and family and we wanted them to be a part of our celebration. {PAUSE}

-Do you remember the pomp and circumstance that surrounded the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981? I was only twelve at the time but I remember all the horses and carriages. All the gold and precious jewels. All the fancy clothes and all the guests.

-Do you think anyone of them didn’t get their RSVP in on time? You know, as hard as it is to imagine, there probably was a handful of people too flighty to get their dang RSVP back in a timely fashion.

-That’s what Jesus is saying to the chief priests and elders, the religious leaders of the Israelis of His day

-Jesus was saying that His kingdom is like a wedding celebration given by a king for his son.

-The king was pulling out all the stops to make sure that his son’s wedding was a special occasion. That’s what we do. Even more so in the Middle East. {PAUSE}

-Do you remember it?

-Do you remember what Jesus’ first miracle was?

-You remember don’t you?

-What was it?

-That’s right, Jesus turned water into wine.

-What’s the significance of that?

-Wedding celebrations in Israel were big events

-It began with the betrothal which was as binding as being married itself

-There was a pledge of faithfulness to one another that began the engagement

-Some time later the bride would be transferred to the bridegroom’s home

-Following that would be a seven day wedding feast

-Imagine feeding and housing your extended family and friends for a week

-It must have been some kind of party though {PAUSE}

-One of the things that I like to watch when they’re on is Blooper Videos

-I love watching all the wedding bloopers

-It is such a big event with some many moving parts and so many people traveling from different parts of the country and everyone is dressed up so nicely, something is bound to go wrong

-Obviously, I can feel the pain of the pastor’s who mess up

-It’s really easy to do

-I can also feel the pain of the attendants

-I was best man a couple times and so didn’t want to lose the wedding bands

-However, I also feel the pain of the couples

-Our wedding was a glorious event

-However, it was one of the hottest days on record in the end of July.

-It was over 100 degrees. The AC in the church was not cooling adequately for the size of the wedding.

-The AC in our limo broke the day of our wedding

-I was sweating like crazy because of the heat.

-The reception location was nice and cool but we found out the one thing a bride never wants to hear. You are out of cake.

-We had provided more than enough cake to feed all of our guests but the wait staff did not use the template for cutting and some of our guests were without dessert.

-Imagine our embarrassment that we didn’t take proper care of our guests

-Likewise, imagine the embarrassment of the hosts of the wedding at Cana who ran out of wine for there feast

-But Jesus takes care of the situation and provides more than enough wine and the good stuff at that {PAUSE}

-Who doesn’t like a party?

-Who turns down invitations to enjoy good food, good company and enjoy the festivities that a wedding has to offer?