The Parable Of The Wedding Feast: A Marriage Invite For You

Have you ever been to a very beautiful wedding ceremony? I’ve been to several weddings in my day that were just really something special. I think of my sisters wedding or my moms wedding to my step dad. Hard wood floors, flowers everywhere, beautiful smells, beautiful sights, the taste of sweet drinks and delicious food.

In a wedding that truly honors God, there is something special in the air. In particular, I’ve seen how Jewish-Christian weddings are set together, blowing the shofar, the wife symbolically circling the man like the moon circles the Earth. It’s truly beautiful, it’s rich with symbolism.

Think of your own wedding day. Or if you’re single, think of what you’ve always dreamed it might be. Something special, something that lasts. I would want mine to be rich with the presence of God, and meaningful. Not just words, but real commitment, for life.

Similar to this great dream of romantic marriage between man and woman, we see the parable of the wedding banquet which Jesus taught. In it he describes a grand wedding a king prepared, and those who were invited.

It goes like this, from Matthew chapter 22, “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 So 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, the bad as well as the good, 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 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ 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.”

Alright, so there’s a lot to unpack there. But before we understand how it applies to us today, let’s consider how this spoke to the original audience.

Jesus was speaking to the Jewish people, in particular in Matthew 22 there were many Pharisees in the audience listening to the presentation Jesus was giving. And the Pharisees were the sort of religious leaders of this time. He was also speaking to the people in general.

But the traditional interpretation of this parable is that the king represents God, the son, Jesus Christ, and the kings servants were the old testament prophets. And the people that refused to come to the wedding banquet were the nation of Israel. So then the people who were invited along the streets were the gentiles, that’s us.

Very inflammatory, for the Jews to hear this parable, really saying to them, you refused the son of God, you mistreated the prophets, and now the gentiles, which were considered to be vermin by the Jews, are coming into the feast instead.

And in fact before this parable in Matthew 21 Jesus tells two additional parables that have a very similar theme, of God’s chosen people rejecting and failing to understand the coming of Jesus Christ.

So how does this parable speak to us today? It’s really quite beautiful actually. It pictures a king whose really excited for the wedding of his son. And we understand that our Lord’s son is Jesus Christ, and guess who the bride is? It’s us, we’re the bride. And when Jesus Christ returns to planet Earth and sets up his kingdom, we are going to be “married” to Him, forever. We won’t any longer have a sin nature. We won’t struggle any longer. We will be united with Jesus Christ, and we will be like Him, it says that actually in 1st John 3:2 “2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”