right-click to save, or push Play
Sermon for Trinity 20
Isaiah 65:1-2 + Ephesians 5:15-21 + Matthew 22:1-14
There’s an awful lot of darkness in this world. The days are evil, St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians almost 2,000 years ago. And they haven’t gotten any less evil. If anything, the darkness around us is growing, thriving, consuming everything. There is violence in our world like there has never been, violence in general, violence toward Christians, violence toward innocent children in their mothers’ wombs, and so many people defending the violence. Wickedness in all its forms is praised and promoted, and truth and righteousness are rejected and attacked on all sides. Such darkness all around.
But you have been called out of darkness into the wonderful light of Christ. Not that you have been brought out of the world yet, but you have been made citizens of God’s nation, which is not America, but the Holy Christian/Catholic Church. You are now in the world, but not of the world. The darkness that is around you cannot touch you, cannot consume you, because God has called you into the well-lit wedding feast of His Son.
Many are called, of course. But few are chosen. What does that mean? What’s the difference between the called and the chosen? Between the called and the elect? You’ve heard of the doctrine of election. Elect and chosen are the same word in Greek. The doctrine of election is the Biblical teaching that God has chosen beforehand those who will finally spend eternity with Him in His kingdom of light. It’s a doctrine that can be confusing, but not if we stick with the simple explanation that Jesus gives us in today’s Gospel.
This parable of the wedding feast isn’t hard to understand at all. A King arranges a marriage for His Son. God the Father, in eternity, before the world’s foundation is laid, decrees that He will send His Son into the world and shed His blood to redeem fallen mankind from sin, death and the devil, and will unite His Son to a Bride, to the Holy Christian Church that He will purify by the washing with water through the Word, through Holy Baptism, as Paul writes to the Ephesians. Already in eternity, God the Father chose those who would be incorporated into the Bride of His Son.
Throughout the Old Testament, God spoke to people about this wedding and specifically invited the Jews, the people of Israel, to be ready for the coming of the Christ, so that, when He arrived, they could be the first to come and meet Him, to come to the wedding feast and be saved.
Then Christ came. The wedding was ready. And the word went out, from John the Baptist, from the apostles, from Jesus Himself. Word would keep going out after Jesus’ death and resurrection. All things are ready. Come to the feast! Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins! But those who were invited, the Jews especially, mostly refused to come, refused to be baptized and come to God through the reconciliation made by Christ. The King sent out other messengers, but still, the people mostly refused to come. Some were too busy or too uninterested to worry about the Word of Christ, while others got so angry at the messengers that they mistreated them and put them to death.
This is still the reaction most people have to the true Gospel. Either they’re uninterested in it, or they persecute it, because it calls their deeds evil and insists that they repent of their sins, acknowledge the God of the Bible as the only true God, and turn to Christ in humility, for forgiveness. It’s no secret how unbelievers have persecuted the Church, from the Old Testament Prophets to John the Baptist, to Jesus Himself, to His apostles, and down through the ages to the present time, as we continue to hear in the news. So it does us no good to worry about people rejecting the Gospel. It does us no good to wring our hands when the Gospel of Christ goes out and not many come into the Church. And it certainly does us no good to whine or complain or get angry when Christians are persecuted or killed. That’s the way it is in this dark world. That’s why we were called out of it in the first place to the wedding feast of Christ, that we may not perish with the unbelieving world. Let God get angry about it. He does, as Jesus says in the parable that the king was furious. Let God do something about it, as Jesus says in the parable that the king sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. But those armies are not Christians. They are the angel armies who will gather the wicked on the Last Day and throw them into the fires of hell. As for us, let us continue to simply be messengers of the truth.
Through the Gospel that has gone out into the world, through God’s servants who proclaim it, the King invites many more people. Go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding. Come to the feast! Come and dine with the King in His house! Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins! And many have come, including many of the least important people in the world. Weak, sick, poor, sinful, of every nation, tribe, language and people, the good and the bad. Whoever hears this Gospel of Christ is being called by the Holy Spirit to come into God’s kingdom. Because the worthiness for attendance at this feast does not come from the invited guests, but from the Bridegroom Himself. He offers His worthiness in the baptismal waters, to cover the guests with it as with a garment, so that they may attend the feast in the house of God. As St. Paul says to the Galatians, You who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
But there is a guest in the house when the king comes who is not dressed with the wedding garment. He has entered the house. He has entered the Church. He has been baptized. He calls himself a Christian. But he is not dressed with the garment of faith. He calls himself a Christian, but has no trust in Christ alone as the only God and Savior. He doesn’t believe what the Holy Spirit teaches about Christ in the Word of God. He may be able to hide that lack of faith from his fellow guests, but he can’t hide it from God, the King. God knows those who are His. And so, when God comes on the Last Day, that Christian-in-name-only is bound and cast outside into outer darkness together with all those who were once invited and refused to come.
Many are called, but few are chosen. The Jews boasted that they had been called. We are Abraham’s children, they cried. God has called us by name. And to be called by God into His kingdom is, indeed, a very great gift. No one can be saved without being called by the Gospel.
But hearing the Gospel does no one any good if they don’t combine the hearing with faith. The Holy Spirit is working through the Gospel to bring people to faith in Christ whenever the Gospel is preached, but many of those who hear stubbornly resist the Holy Spirit, as the Martyr Stephen accused the Jews of doing as they were about to stone him to death for daring to invite them to receive forgiveness through Christ. Not all who are called are chosen to enter eternal life, but only those who hear the Gospel and believe it and persevere in that faith until the end.
But when does this “choosing,” this “election” take place? We learn from the Scriptures that it took place before the world was made. The chosen, the elect, were chosen in Christ in eternity, chosen by God’s grace; called here in time through the Gospel; justified through faith in Christ; and persevere until the end wearing the garment of Christ’s righteousness by remaining in true faith in Christ until the arrival of the King on the Last Day. Or, if they fall away from faith for a time, which can certainly happen, they are called again by the Gospel, brought to repentance, and justified by faith.
So what do we learn for our correction and edification from this Gospel?
First, we learn that God’s invitation to come into His Church and His eternal kingdom does not depend at all on the worthiness of the guests, but only on God’s grace and the merits of Christ.
Second, we learn that God’s invitation to come into His Church and His eternal kingdom is always sincere. God truly wants all those who are invited to come, to believe in Christ, to receive forgiveness of sins, and to have eternal life. This is where Calvinists and the Reformed get it so terribly wrong. Calvinists teach that God does not truly desire that all people should be saved, and that the Holy Spirit does not intend the Gospel invitation for all those who hear it. But Christ teaches that the King eagerly desired that all the invited guests should come. So you can trust that when you hear the Gospel, when you are told to repent of your sins and flee to Christ for refuge, God intends that message for you to take to heart and believe.
Third, we learn that it’s man’s own fault when he turns down the Gospel invitation. It was entirely the fault of the invited guests when they refused to come or refused to wear the wedding garment. This, too, is against the Calvinists, who teach a “double predestination,” that God, in His sovereign will, made an absolute decree in eternity that some would be saved and some would be damned, that some would be created for heaven, while most people would be created for hell. But Jesus does not teach that anyone was chosen by God to be condemned. He says that “few are chosen,” referring to those who are chosen to eternal life. He doesn’t say that the rest were “chosen” for eternal death.
Fourth, we learn that it’s all God’s doing when people are saved. From the election of grace, to the sending of the Gospel invitation here in time, to the faith that is given as a gift by the Holy Spirit from the hearing of the Gospel, to the justification by faith, to the preservation of our faith through the Means of Grace, to our final glorification in heaven, it’s all from God.
And finally, we learn how urgent it is that we hear and take to heart the Gospel invitation, to make our calling and election sure, as St. Paul says. God doesn’t send us back into eternity to search to see if your name is written in Christ, the Book of Life. He sends you to this ministry of the Word, to Baptism and to the Holy Supper. Listen to His Word now that tells you of the goodness of Christ, His atoning sacrifice, His resurrection, and His will that all men should believe in Him to be saved. Those who are not baptized should not put it off any longer. Those who are baptized should use the means God has provided for our salvation. Hear the Word of God. Receive His Sacrament. Be steadfast in prayer, in godly living, in struggling against the flesh, and in bearing the cross patiently. God has provided and will continue to provide all that is necessary for your salvation. Take it as evidence of your election that God has called you through the Gospel into fellowship with His Son, and be assured that your faith and your salvation is no accident. It was planned by God in eternity. You were chosen in Christ from eternity, and neither Satan nor death nor any of the darkness of this world will be able to snatch you out of Christ’s hand. Amen.
