Do you like a party? This parable in Matthew 22:1-14 is a personal invitation to a great wedding feast with Jesus as the host. This parable illustrates how God sent Jesus into our world asking all people to attend His joyful celebration. In this story the people who should have come to the party turned down the invitation and made poor excuses about why they couldn’t come. “Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.” Matthew 22:9 This means that anyone can come if they will only set aside their pride and belief in their own goodness and look to God with humility. You see when we trust in Jesus we trade our shaky virtues and downright offenses for His permanent righteousness. It seems as though we either find man trying to get to God his way or we find the redemptive cross of Jesus. So we exchange something valueless and empty for something of immeasurable worth. “For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then in exchange He poured God’s goodness into us.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 What a deal!
Jesus always takes us to the cross, the beautiful, the ultimate, the undeniable cross. Can we deny its power, the absolute fulfillment and crowning glory of God’s love? There everything bad that has happened to us can be redeemed. All questions are answered at the cross. But the full understanding of the events of our lives won’t be disclosed till heaven. Oh, the powerful wonderful cross. How we thank our God for something big enough to absorb all hurts, personal violations, and sorrows. Because Jesus is the final sacrifice for sin we can now truly forgive others. When we go to the cross and leave our burdens there we can experience resurrection, the new life we need so badly. God’s divine power, the very same power that brought Jesus back from the dead, is now available to help us live life to the fullest. We can conquer the persistent pull toward wrong responses and faulty character. The cross is Gods way to salvation.
Will we as a nation and as individuals respond in humility, truly sorry for thinking we could live without God? The famous hymn by Isaac Watts reminds us, “At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away, it was there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy all the day.” Friends, together let us find our happiness as we look forward to the great wedding feast where Jesus will be the beloved honored guest. Yes, we were born to experience a relationship with the one and only God who is faithful to save.
Click here to read a Dutch carol about the beautiful hope found in Jesus.
Catching a Vision by Viv 