THE MESSIANIC PILGRIMAGE

There is a story that Christ told about a Wedding Feast that is recorded in the New Testament. (Luke 14: 15-24 and Matthew 22:1-14)

The story starts with the king’s choice of guests for the banquet. He sent out invitations to the guests. The choice of guests would (we assume) be based on relationships to those guests and the guests being VIPs in some way.

Christ explains that the story is really about the Kingdom of Heaven: “The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come!”

We then see the choices of the guests. The story records that the guests make various excuses for failing to show up. Those excuses indicate choices of business life and of another human relationship taking precedence. Whatever their reason, they imply by their actions that their relationship with the King was not a priority for them.

The King considers himself insulted but is faced with a choice: He has prepared a great wedding feast for his son but… he has nobody with whom to share it. He could cancel the feast, but it’s too late for that!

Christ continues with the story “His master was furious and said, ‘Go quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ 22 After the servant had done this, he reported, ‘There is still room for more.’ 23 So his master said, ‘Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full.”

However, the new invitees also have a choice: they can choose to accept or not to accept the invitation. It is recorded in the story that both ‘good and bad’ people attend and the banquet is filled with guests, demonstrating that this banquet is related to the priority that people give to their King, not the quality of the life lived prior to that.

Then the story takes a puzzling twist.‘But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the proper clothes for a wedding.  ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how is it that you are here without wedding clothes?’ But the man had no reply. Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

A man, drawn from the streets to attend a wedding that he had neither anticipated nor had appropriate clothing? And the King chastises him? Surely that is unjust? But is it? The reason, of course, is that the King has provided new clothes for all the guests so that whether they are poor or not they could have elected to be dressed by the King in a manner fit for a wedding feast.