SERMON “Come to the Banquet” audio link http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23575548/111009Isaiah25.mp3
Lord, let us feast on your word and drink deeply of your spirit as we receive your gracious command. Amen.
I know what some of you have started thinking. At least I know what some of you will be thinking about in a few minutes. You saw the sermon title. It’s November. There’s a banquet coming, a dinner. And you have started to think about it. Tender, succulent turkey, roasted to perfection. Dressing. Mashed potatoes. Carrots. Rivers of butter. Gravy, steaming and creamy. And even though you’ve eaten more than any normal human being could eat in one week, when you push back your plate you are ready for pie. There’s a banquet to be eaten. Are you heroic enough to rise to the task? It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. The banquet may not just be a banquet of food, either. There may be friends and relatives you haven’t seen for a while. There may be delightful conversation, laughter until your sides are about to split, then you think of the way people were acting and laughing and you start all over again. Come to the banquet! It’s a merry feast!
But this jollity, this merely human rejoicing, this banquet of mortals will pale before the one our Lord is spreading for us. What is the banquet of our Lord? In Isaiah 25 we saw a feast. Rich food, aged wine, the best meats. And unlike the feasts we have, where some people are now missing around the table, those who have died before us, our Lord is going to destroy death itself. He is going to remove the burial shroud from all nations. He himself is the destruction of death. Like you can swallow a pickle slice, our Lord can swallow up death. At that time he will take away tears. In the presence of our Lord and Savior there is no hunger, no thirst, no sickness, no pain, no death, no shame. Everything is made right in the presence of God in that last day.
Whis is this Lord who invites us to an immortal banquet, one which we can barely imagine? This is the Lord Jehovah. This is the Lord who saves. This is Jesus Christ, true God and true man, God the Son. He has called us. We must come to his banquet.
What will we do with the summons our Lord has issued? He has called us to his wedding banquet. Will we, like those in Matthew 22, refuse to come? When our Lord calls us again and again, are we going to reject him? Do we so despise our God’s mercy? Do we reject the fact that we, the Church, those who believe, are the bride of Christ? How often we do reject our Lord. We busy ourselves about our little things. We are consumed with our field and our business. We think the messengers of God are to be despised. We are the very kind of people who killed the prophets. We are just the kind of people who want to go our own way, do our own thing, anything but come to Jesus’ wedding feast.
Did you see our Lord’s persistence in today’s readings? Is God going to put up with our rejection? Is our Lord going to spread a banquet and not bless anyone with it? No, not at all! Rather, he sends his servants out to gather all the people they can find. God calls us, the wanderers, the good, the bad, even the ugly, to come to his feast. He has the best wine, the best meat, all delights. He promises eternal life, joy and peace to us as we come to his banquet. Jesus is just the kind of Lord who brings us, the evil people, people who are yet sinners, to be at his banquet. And he fills up his hall.
Now let me ask you one question. Just one little question. How are you supposed to dress to go to a special occasion? Do you just throw on whatever clothes jump out at you? I’m afraid some people do. I notice that in our society today some people need a little education on how appropriate clothing for the occasion does make a difference. If I go to a job interview to be the chief financial officer of a huge corporation and I show up in a ragged, oil-stained t-shirt, torn shorts, and flip-flops, looking like I haven’t washed myself for a week, well, I might as well not try. There’s appropriate dress for appropriate occasions. And this feast our Lord calls us to is a special occasion. Jesus calls us to come to him, dressed for his wedding feast. How do we dress for him? Look at our passage from Philippians. We rejoice. We are gentle. We approach him in confidence, with his peace, the peace he places upon us. We think about all the good which he has done and will continue doing. We trust that our Lord is going to take away that shroud of death, and that he has already done all that is necessary. We rejoice that Jesus has conquered death by his resurrection. We trust confidently that we are also partakers of the resurrection. We exhort others to receive these gifts our Lord has been offering us. And we are steadfast, knowing that Jesus has called us to a banquet. It is his good pleasure to call everyone and to keep calling them.
Come to the banquet! Look to our Lord’s provsion! Rejoice in the Lord! There is a time coming, a time when sorrow will pass away, a time when we will see death swallowed up in victory, a time when we will be present at the immortal feast of our Lord, celebrating that he has come and won the Church, his bride, to present her as a pure and perfect inhabitant in the heavenly realms forever and ever. Come and dine!
Lord, grant us this joy and confidence, knowing that you have redeemed us from the curse of sin and are presenting us to the Father purified, dressed in your radiant white garments of righteousness. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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