PARABLE

PARABLE.

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. 4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’ 5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless. 13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:1-14)

This parable was spoken in the Temple, just 2 or 3 days before Jesus was crucified. Jesus had been rejected by the Jews, in particular, the religious leaders. Because of their disobedience to God, being too enamored with traditional religious form rather than the present substance of Jesus, they would miss out on the kingdom. As we have seen elsewhere, they would have understood, but again ignored the message.

Surely this contains a warning to us today as well? Are we letting our precious denominational beliefs and paradigms get in the way of entering the kingdom?

Jesus started His ministry with a wedding, at Cana in Galilee, (see http://www.wwj.org.nz/pdf/wwj17p56.pdf) and the final act of the age will also be a wedding, between Jesus and His church.

Unfortunately, within the church, there are those who are not clothed in the wedding dress of righteousness. Sadly, there are many in this situation who will be thrown out to live in eternal darkness at judgment time. Jesus made the point here that there will be many who reject His saving grace, both outside and within the church.

This truth is taught in other parables also, such as the tares and the wheat and the wide and narrow roads.

...... back to two parables!

The New Year is a great time to contemplate and decide what road we are going to take this year.

The temptations of the wide road are getting greater as the years go by, but the narrow road of Jesus remains the only way to eternal life.

An old lesson for a new year!

IMAGES AND ART: Jerusalem

Jewish Quarter

Jewish Ritual Bath

Numerous mikvot were discovered in the excavations of the Jewish Quarter, attesting to the importance of ritual purity for Jews in the first century A.D. Larger mikvot were often divided by a low wall or column to separate those entering the bath from those exiting. Construction and use of these baths was governed by strict Jewish laws.