Honor to the King

I hope everyone enjoy their Thanksgiving. Whether it was with family or friends, whoever was with you I hope God’s blessings were evident.

I have noticed recently that people have started to have more diverging opinions on Thanksgiving. It used to be Thanksgiving was pretty much the same in every household. Oven-roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, green been casserole, cranberry sauce from the can. All of us may have a few variations from that but most of the elements there are the same. But have you noticed now people are doing all these weird things? They will do steak, or fajitas, and then they will say “it is so much better than turkey.” And if you do that…look…we live in a free country where you can enjoy it however you’d like. But part of the joy in Thanksgiving is these traditions that connect us to our family, we invited to enjoy something together that we have seen passed down. Changing that feels like this rejection of that tradition, we want it our own way. Now I’m taking it way too seriously, but we see today group of people that reject Jesus. And Jesus will give us a parable at the beginning that summarizes the rest of our passage. In this parable Jesus will tell us that...

The Father invites us to enjoy the celebration of the Son with Him.

This idea is what will glue the rest of the chapter together. It is the commentary that helps us to understand the comments Jesus will make to these three sets of religious leaders.

The parable Jesus starts with a wedding banquet thrown for the king’s son, and he invites many held in high regard to join Him in this feast.

Now, we should very clearly see this as an allusion to the Father and to Jesus, the Son. In fact, Revelation will give us this exact metaphor.

Revelation 19:9 “Then he said to me, “Write: Blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb!” He also said to me, “These words of God are true.””

The invitation is offered to all people

-This is the Gospel coming to not just Jews, but to Gentiles and to all people.

-And the evil show that some who are invited, as we see in v. 14, will not be those chosen. Jesus used the example of the wheat and the tares before.

-He invites them because the 1st group was “unworthy”, but their unworthiness is based on their response to the invitation.

-We see this group does respond, the lowly, the poor, the humble, are the ones who accept the invitation. As Jesus has emphasized throughout this book. The blessed are the poor, and those who mourn, and those who are humble, not the self-righteous, and the arrogant, and the rich.

-This shows us that the king can enjoy this banquet with whoever shows up. He isn’t desperate, rather it is a generous invitation.

-This would be a rude-awakening for the Jews. That God’s salvation was being offered to the whole world. But as we see it is because of their rejection of Him.

Romans 11:13–16 “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Insofar as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if I might somehow make my own people jealous and save some of them. For if their rejection brings reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? Now if the firstfruits are holy, so is the whole batch. And if the root is holy, so are the branches.”

-Why does the second group respond with such excitement? Because God’s grace has been revealed to them, reconciliation has been offered.

Rejecting God’s invitation means accepting another

They aren’t just showing they didn’t want to come, but they were showing dishonor to the king but ignoring his request. They showed a desire to give attention to their possessions rather than the banquet they have been invited to.

-We can do the same thing, serving things rather than God. Having our excuses lined up for why we can’t make it to church or why we just don’t have time for God in our lives. He becomes a footnote in our lives. We allow other things to sound more appealing to us to the banquet God has invited us to.

God is righteous in His judgment towards those who reject His invitation

But then we see what the consequence is of rejecting this invitation.

-Even more then just the confusion of their rejection, we also know that to reject a king’s invitation is dangerous because now his righteous judgment may come against you. But they didn’t believe there would be any consequence of their rejection.

-They were too proud, too confident of their own ability to come before the king and pay homage to Him.

-The king finds a man who isn’t wearing the proper clothes for the banquet.

-But the king comes very personally to the man, he asks if there is any reason for his lack of proper attire. Yet when it became clear that he didn’t have a proper answer nor did he repent, or fall to his knees in humility, but rather just stood silent, the king brought his judgment upon him.

The man thought that he could come “just as he was” he wanted to be free here on earth, but in doing so he bound himself for eternity. He wanted to dress in his own robes but the only robes that would cover him are the robes of royalty, the robes of Jesus that cover him from his his own robes.

-To “put on Christ” means that as we stand before the king he see’s us in the Son’s wisdom and righteousness where our wouldn’t do.

-This both looks backwards and forwards for Israel. In the past the Israelites have rejected God and a in the future they will kill both the servants and the son of the king.

-We will see the disciples going to all the earth sharing the Gospel but the Jews would be the ones who would violently oppose them.

Therefore, this parable shows Israel’s rejection of Jesus as God and God’s judgment against them. We will see this story unfold as different Jewish leaders reject Him for various reasons.

As we get to these three sets of questions I think what this parable shows us is that these questions that they bring to Jesus are full of meaning but not in the way that they believe. They are attempting to find a reason to reject Jesus, they are searching for reasons to reject Him. Some want to reject Him because they don’t believe He is King, others reject Him because they don’t believe in His miraculous powers as the Son of God, and others don’t believe in His teaching. Some are more genuine than others, within our own lives we see different levels of people skeptical to the Gospel and for different reasons. Some are hostile, some are agnostic but inquisitive, others are searching for real answers.

Then we will see others, looking for hope both good and evil. They are scandalously allowed into the kingdom of God, but even then there are those who will hear the call of the Gospel but will still choose to reject it.

They rejected Him as King

This question shows they don’t believe Jesus stands above Caesar or that He can answer as King who they should pay taxes too.

Who is king in your life?

We can live in a way that doesn’t show that Jesus isn’t king in our life, that believes there is one who deserves to be called king before Jesus. Jesus’ answer shows that these other authorities like Caesar can be given their due because they are an authority given by God. We can often be concerned about respecting an authority because we don’t agree with them or because others idolize an authority in a way that makes God less than that authority, that prioritizes their allegience to it rather than to God. Or as we often see an idolatrous mixture of love for nation and love for God. Or we can see in another we, a complete disrespect of authority, sometimes a desire to rebel against an authority. But Jesus pushes back towards both groups, saying that you can give a ruler its due while also recognizing that what God is due is far more important and in actuality it is all His to begin with.

They rejected Him as the Son of God

This second question is about a woman who marries a man who dies, but then is subsequently married to that man’s six other brothers. Their question is who will she be married to in heaven?

The Sadducees were a group of priests who rejected everything but what is found in the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the OT. And so a lot of miraculous events they rejected like resurrection from the dead, angels, and even to some extent the afterlife.

So in Jesus answer to them he tells them they don’t know both the Scriptures or the power of God. He points to those things that they reject and tells them

In asking this question they are showing they don’t believe He understands what will happen in eternity.

Who has eternal power?

They rejected Jesus knowledge of eternal life. We can often become obsess with our own version of eternal life and what we believe about it. We can be convinced about who is getting in or out, what parameters will be used for salvation. There are many like the Sadduccees who question whether there is a resurrection at all. “I don’t believe in an afterlife”.

These Sadduccees came to Jesus believing that He was not the Son of God and therefore would not know what the resurrection would look like. But Jesus does not, so when He talks about the resurrection and the new life for those who are in Him we should believe His words rather than any ideas we come up with on our own or what the world tells us we should believe.

I think this is the perfect example because often the questions people ask about heaven are not about heaven but about getting us to answer incorrectly so that they can continue in their unbelief. They are trying to find the gotcha moment. But we are not the Lord, it is okay for us to say “I’m not sure, but I can tell you what Jesus says because His authority is better than mine.”

They rejected Him as Rabbi

In their last question they don’t believe He could truly tell them what the greatest command is, because only the true High Priest could answer this question.

Jesus command is pushing against two notions they had. First, to emphasize godliness but not love for neighbor, and 2nd is to think to love God means that all that matters is you love your neighbor.

Also, we can apply these commands to all the others, it does not REMOVE the other commands God gives us.

Who is your true teacher?

We can often have our own ideas of “important” commands and unimportant commands. We can make commands of things that God doesn’t make commands and the things God truly cares about we ignore.

If we believe in Jesus’ authority, the one who IS the Word than we accept His Words even when they contradict our own. When Jesus says “this is important” we don’t say “well I don’t think that is what Jesus meant”, we trust Him at His Word even when that forces us to change our own actions.

In rejoicing the Message of the Son we rejoice in the blessings of His Father.

With each trick question, it’s as if they were saying: “prove that you are who you’ve claimed to be in regard to each role.” and yet they choose to reject Him and in doing so they are acting like those who have rejected the king’s invitation to the banquet.

But then Jesus ends with a question of His own. He shows that even though they might not understand it, He is the Messiah, He is the Son they are to enjoy.

If we reject the Message of the Son, we reject God Incarnate who dwelled among us so that we could see God’s glory, then we also miss out on the benefits that come with Him. The banquet feast we are invited to as we enjoy the same spiritual blessings that the Son enjoys. We lose out own the confidence that comes from faith in the Son rather than these factions who are so caught up in trying to disprove one another and disprove Christ that they ignored the truth right in front of them. They missed the joy of the Son. The joy we celebrate each year at Christmas as we celebrate the one who came to graciously save us.

So as we start advent next week, as we begin this Christmas season. Where they are so many invitations, invitations to all different kinds of things. Let us remember the one invitation that matters the most and know that in joining Him we celebrate the blessings that come in the Son who saved us.