Posted on 08/19/2016 8:02:44 AM PDT by Salvation
The Gospel from Thursday’s Mass (Thursday of the 20th Week of the Year) contains one of the most shocking parables Jesus ever told. It is the Parable of the Wedding Feast from the Gospel of Matthew, and it tells the story of a king who gives a wedding banquet for his son. Most know it well, but in case you want to review it, the full text is available here: Parable of the Wedding Feast.
It does not take a degree in biblical theology to understand that this parable is an allegory. The “king” is God the Father, the “son” is Jesus, and the wedding feast is the great wedding feast of the Lamb described in the Book of Revelation:
Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteousness of God’s holy people.) Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God” (Revelation 19:6-9).
The invited guests are the Jewish people of that time who, when the feast is ready, ignore or reject it for various reasons. Some guests express concerns for land (I just bought a farm) or profit (I own a business). And a group of them (for unknown reasons) lay hold of the king’s servants (who represent the prophets and, later, the Apostles), beating and even killing them.
This rejection represents not just the rejection by the Jews of history, but also the long human history of ignoring or rejecting God in favor of worldliness (land), profit (business), and hostility to the truth (the beating and killing of the king’s servants (the prophets and Apostles)).
And yet the focus is on the rejection by the Jews of the time, for the parable calls them the “invited guests.”
The reaction to their rejection, related by Jesus Himself, is that the king (God the Father) was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city (Matt 22:6).
This detail is especially shocking to many modern readers, because we have bought into a watered down notion of the holiness of God and the significance of human choice for or against Him. The common modern vision of the Father is that of a doting older man (like George Burns or Morgan Freeman) who exists more to get us out of trouble and offer friendly advice than to summon us to holiness, obedience, and a critical choice.
But take note: this detail of the king burning their city is told by Jesus Himself. And as we shall see in this coming Sunday’s Gospel about the wide and narrow roads, He is not playing around! However we want to “rework” God and render Him harmless, however we want to try to oppose God’s love and justice, however we want to render human choice insignificant, the biblical text will have none of it. The bottom line is that no one loves you more than does Jesus Christ, yet no one warned of judgment and Hell more than He did.
Don’t be surprised if this parable shocks you; it is meant to do so. It is a call to sobriety in the face of the four most critical truths of our life: death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell. This parable teaches that we will either enter the wedding feast and celebrate with the Father or we will be caught up in the conflagration when the Lord comes to judge this world by fire (e.g., 2 Pet 3:7; Malachi 4:1; 2 Thess 1:7).
Add to this shock the fact that the parable was actually fulfilled in 70 A.D. (as a kind of precursor to the final end of the age) when, after forty years of pleading with the Jewish people to come to Christ, a fiery destruction came upon Jerusalem. After rejecting the Lord’s warnings (cf Matthew 24, 25; Mark 13; Luke 21), rejecting the call of the early Apostles and Church, and picking a pointless war with the Romans, the Jewish nation was utterly defeated. Jerusalem was sacked and burned and more than a million Jews were killed.
The choice is ours, but the judgment is certain to come: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water but the fire next time!” (Negro spiritual)
The only safe place to be is at the wedding feast of the Jesus the Lamb, who saves us from the wrath to come (1 Thess 1:10).
Jesus, with weeping, had warned,
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate (Matt 23:37).
The next shocking part of the parable comes in the second half. The enraged king (God the Father) orders his servants to go into the streets and gather everyone they can. This detail represents going out to the Gentiles and the Great Commission.
Thanks be to God that the response is good and the banquet is filled. But then comes yet another shock:
When the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ Many are invited, but few are chosen.
This makes us moderns wince. Perhaps part of our trouble with these verses is that we may think that the newly invited guests were dragged in right off the street with no chance to change clothes. But there is nothing in the text to suggest that they were not given time to don their wedding clothes. The other guests all seem to be clothed properly and the focus shifts to one man who is not properly dressed.
Whatever the debated cultural parameters of the story, the theological parameters are more clear. The wedding garment is provided by the king (God the Father), who clothes us in righteousness at our baptism.
For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteousness of God’s holy people.) (Rev 19:8)
Yes, this is the baptismal gown, the robe of righteousness, which God gives to the baptized, who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb! In the Baptismal Rite, the celebrant points to the white garment of the newly baptized and says,
You have clothed yourself in Christ. Receive this baptismal garment and bring it unstained to the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that you may have everlasting life (# 578).
In the parable, the man is without a wedding garment not because he is poor or was pulled in off the street, but because he cast aside the garment he was given. Remember that the garment is no mere piece of cloth; it represents righteousness. And this righteousness is received and must be cherished. Without it, we cannot endure or remain at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, which is Heaven.
Thus ends one of the most shocking parables Jesus ever told. (We will examine the “many are called but few are chosen” aspect of the text this coming Sunday.) And though the parameters of this parable do shock, Jesus speaks them with an urgent love to bring forth godly repentance from us and to stir an evangelical urgency in us to reach others before “Great and Terrible Day of the Lord” comes (cf Joel 2:31; Mal 4:5 inter al). On that day there will be only two places: safe at the wedding feast with the Lord or outside in the fiery judgment that is coming on this world.
An old spiritual says,
“God’s gonna set this world on Fire one of these days.”
Another old spiritual goes like this:
“I got a robe, you got a robe, all God’s children got a robe. When I get to heaven gonna put on my robe and go wear it all over God’s heaven! Everybody talkin’ bout heaven ain’t a goin’ there!”
Make sure you’ve got your robe and keep it washed in the blood of the Lamb.
Monsignor Pope Ping!
The Bride is The real Ekklesia JESUS is creating through saving souls during the Church Age. The invited guests are those who come to the wedding via the Tribulation conversion AFTER they miss the Rapture of The Bride, The Ekklesia, The true Church of Jesus. A wedding guest garment can ONLY come by GOD's Spirit, administered by The Holy Spirit. During the Church Age, The Holy Spirit comes to indwell believers and raise them up in the way that they should go. During the Tribulation, The Holy Spirit will transform a believers at death, to have a clean garment/ Robe for the wedding event IN HEAVEN. The Bride was already transformed at the Rapture when JESUS came back to take The Bride to the Father's House where Jesus has been preparing a place.
Can’t we just enjoy a real sermon for once? Can’t we just take the man’s words as they are written and not introduce some supposed Catholic doctrine?
Msgr. Pope wrote: “The only safe place to be is at the wedding feast of the Jesus the Lamb, who saves us from the wrath to come (1 Thess 1:10).”
That sure sounds like a pre-tribulation rapture to me. Maybe Pope is not Catholic, but he sure sounds like a true Believer and Teacher to me.
I can hardly wait to hear the “the “many are called but few are chosen” aspect of the text this coming Sunday.”
He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it
that you came in here without a wedding garment?’
But he was reduced to silence.
Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet,and cast him into the darkness outside,
where there will be wailing and grind
ing of teeth.’
Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
Make sure you’ve got your robe and keep it washed in the blood of the Lamb.
&&
Great advice, for sure!
Never saw it explained so well.
Thanks for the ping.
Rapture is a fantasy conjured up in the 19th century. Sorry, we are not subject to Assumption into Heaven, you have to work through life the old-fashioned way, and die in pain and suffering.
Yes, this is the baptismal gown, the robe of righteousness, which God gives to the baptized,
who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb! In the Baptismal Rite, the celebrant points to the white garment of the
newly baptized
(God gives the baptized babe salvation, of which the christening gown figuratively represents)
and says,
You have clothed yourself in Christ. Receive this baptismal garment and bring it unstained to the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that you may have everlasting life (# 578).
(Or else. The CCC trumps the Bible promise of eternal life.) In the parable, the man is without a wedding garment not because he is poor or was pulled in off the street,
but because he cast aside the garment he was given.
(You can lose your salvation)
Remember that the garment is no mere piece of cloth; it represents righteousness.
And this righteousness is received and must be cherished.
(You have to go to confession every week, and tithe your income, and obey the ten commandments, to keep your 'garment.')
Without it, we cannot endure or remain at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb,
which is Heaven.
(You can be thrown out of heaven if you fail to have the last rites at the last breath, or shortly thereafter.)
And if you lose your salvation, you can't ever get it back:
"For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated,
have tasted also the heavenly gift and were made partakers
of the Holy Ghost,
Have moreover tasted the good word of God and the powers of
the world to come,
And are fallen away: to be renewed again to penance,
crucifying again to themselves the Son of God and making
him a mockery" (Heb. 6:4-6 DRB).
========
Oh, my! Pope's prophesies always start out so good, but always turn out so bad! No wonder they often accrue hundreds of wrangling sarcastic comments!
In the end, Pope's story here is that one can obtain righteousness without exercising faith, and that eternal life is granted only after this life--and likely a period in Purgatory--has ceased.
The logical non sequitur of Pope's theology is then that eternal life is not free. One has to earn it.
No wonder so many buy the Prod escape hatch story!
(/sarc)
1 Corinthians 15:51: "Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed..."
Wrong! It was put right in the Vulgate by Jerome, when He translated the Greek of 1 Thessalonians 4 into Latin:
"quoniam ipse Dominus in iussu et in voce archangeli et in tuba Dei descendet
de caelo et mortui qui in Christo sunt resurgent primi
deinde nos qui vivimus qui relinquimur simul rapiemur cum illis in nubibus
obviam Domino in aera et sic semper cum Domino erimus" (Vulgate; rapere = to rapture or take away wit sudden force).
"For the Lord himself shall come down from heaven with commandment and with the voice of an archangel
and with the trumpet of God: and the dead who are in Christ shall rise first.
Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be taken up . . ." (snatched away) ". . . together with them
in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air: and so shall we be always with the Lord" (DRB)
Ever hear of the Sacraments instituted by Christ?
Water is not the blood of the Lamb...If it was, John the Baptist would have told someone...
But again we see the ignorance of the Catholic religion...First off this prophecy has yet to be fulfilled...It doesn't happen in Jerusalem and never did...It happens in heaven...And it hasn't happened yet...
And secondly, how many of you have gone to a wedding reception, where the people are fed, and sat at the Bridal Table??? Answer: none of you...
The guests at the wedding are not the bride...They are not the church...They are invited guests and your religion has no idea who these people are...You can find out by believing and studying the scriptures...I recommend you do just that...
Hey Salvation: All this and accompanying music as well!
Great job. I for one appreciate your efforts on this post. Very uplifting.
Hey as a sidenote, I’ve been disappointed by the reviews coming out on Ben Hur BUT Roma Downie (Angel Girl) was on Hannity last night talking about it. Her production company made it.
I went back and looked at the reviews and guess what? They were by the usual lib suspects which in my book is a feather in the hat of the movie.
So that will be the hot ticket this weekend down at IMAX 3D.
Anyhoo, I just thought I’d share that.
Another Good One Msgr. Charles Pope!
“In the parable, the man is without a wedding garment not because he is poor or was pulled in off the street, but because he cast aside the garment he was given. Remember that the garment is no mere piece of cloth; it represents righteousness. And this righteousness is received and must be cherished. Without it, we cannot endure or remain at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, which is Heaven.”
How many of us are the man in the parable? How many have cast aside what was given us from Jesus? His Holy Bride the The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church? Pray for those Lost Souls.
God Bless
Apparently not. Sad.
In any case, I don't know if Charles Pope is preaching a Pre-Trib rapture or not. It almost doesn't matter. Either way, the only safe place to be is with Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (the Wedding Feast), and the only way to get there is by His Grace (the clean robe, washed clean in His Blood). I think Brother Charles has explained it quite well.
More to you concern, especially the lines from Romans 6:3-4:
Baptism in the Church
1226 From the very day of Pentecost the Church has celebrated and administered holy Baptism. Indeed St. Peter declares to the crowd astounded by his preaching: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”26 The apostles and their collaborators offer Baptism to anyone who believed in Jesus: Jews, the God-fearing, pagans.27 Always, Baptism is seen as connected with faith: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household,” St. Paul declared to his jailer in Philippi. And the narrative continues, the jailer “was baptized at once, with all his family.”28
1227 According to the Apostle Paul, the believer enters through Baptism into communion with Christ’s death, is buried with him, and rises with him:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.29 Romans 6:3-4
The baptized have “put on Christ.”30 Through the Holy Spirit, Baptism is a bath that purifies, justifies, and sanctifies.31
1228 Hence Baptism is a bath of water in which the “imperishable seed” of the Word of God produces its life-giving effect.32 St. Augustine says of Baptism: “The word is brought to the material element, and it becomes a sacrament.”33
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a1.htm
God Bless
And the Bride is the Bride of Christ, His body, the true church.
Many preachers try to apply the parable part about the guests to believers today, but it can’t be since we are the bride. The guests are NOT Christians. As Msgr Pope points out, it is the Jews.
What ever happened to *one lord, one faith, one baptism* as we are constantly reminded?
Can y’all make up your minds?
Please show me where the word “rapture” is in the Bible.
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