Wedding Observations #1 // Who’s Invited?
“So they settled for champagne tubas instead of flutes…”
It’s that time of year. A brief, breathless few weeks of British warmth and sunshine into which everyone tries to cram their special day before the summer fizzles out. Especially in Christian circles, there are a lot of these things. Your Facebook feed is flooded with photos of ceremonies and receptions and people excitedly liking the “Life Events” and changed surnames.
Yes, it’s Wedding Season.
I’ve been a guest at a few weddings this summer and I’ve immensely enjoyed them all. Marriage is a beautiful gift from God, for everyone to enjoy; but knowing the true, Biblical meaning of marriage, opens up a whole new dimension of joy in the proceedings.
The Bible teaches that marriage is a picture of Jesus’ relationship with the church (Ephesians 5, Revelation 21). The climax of history is going to be Jesus being wed to his bride, and then the greatest wedding reception of all time will stretch on into eternity. Every wedding should make us look forward to that day – and even little details of these earthly celebrations tell us more about the heavenly reality behind them.
I don’t choose the guests.
The build-up to a wedding is full of speculation about the invitations. Once you actually arrive at the church, you have a good gander around the place to take stack. Odds are, you don’t know most people. Amusing family resemblances present themselves. At the reception, different circles of friends mingle for the first time. Those odd dancefloor pairings pop up – the mother of the bride dances with an usher, the groom lets the bride’s little cousin stand on his feet.
It struck me at one of the weddings I’ve recently attended: “I didn’t write the guest list here”. When you’re a guest, the other guests are a pretty random mix of people, over whose invitations I had no control!
This made me think of the parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22. Jesus says “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son” (v2). The king sends out invitations, but many refuse his extravagant celebration. He then sends his armies and destroys them. The story continues with the king saying “‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find’. So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests” (v9-10).
You’d have been astounded at the seating plan for that reception. Princes beside beggars. Politicians eating with criminals. No guest at that party would have drawn up a guest list quite like that. They’d have filled it with people like themselves – as would we all! If I was in charge of arranging my friends’ weddings, it would be a disaster. The DJ would be playing The Smiths and jazz all evening. Major mood kill.
The eclectic mix of guests at a wedding gives us a foretaste of the New Creation. The Wedding Supper of the Lamb will be attended by the bizarre mix of people whom God has chosen to save, based on no criteria other than his grace. I have no idea who those people will be – and so I cannot afford to discriminate now! I cannot pass up sharing the Gospel with someone, just because they’re different to me. I cannot avoid fellowship with certain Christians just because we’re of different persuasions. I’m carrying invites, not writing them. I’m just one of the servants, searching the street corners for anyone who will come and celebrate the King’s Son, Jesus Christ.
An Unshakable Kingdom 