THE WEEK OF TRINITY II - TUESDAY

LESSON: MATTHEW 22:1-14

“Come; for all is now ready.” Luke 14:17

The message which the servant was to convey to the invited guests to urge them to come to the banquet was: “Come; for all is now ready.” Christ died; He slaughtered sin and death in His death; He rose from the dead; the Holy Spirit was given; in short, everything that belonged to this banquet was prepared. Everything was prepared in such a way that it would cost us nothing. Through Christ, the Father assumed the whole cost so that we might enjoy His blessings without any merit or contribution on our part and become abundantly rich.

First of all, He sent out His servant to the Jews to invite men to this banquet. The Jews had received special promises and undertakings from God about this banquet. The law of Moses and all the prophets were set up and appointed to prepare the people of Israel for God, as the angel Gabriel also stated of John the Baptist to his father Zechariah:

“He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (Luke 1:15-17).

When the Jews had trotted out all their excuses to John the Baptist and the apostles, to a very large extent rejecting Christ, the invitation to come to the banquet was extended to the Gentiles.
SL 11:1211 (5-6)

PRAYER: Lord, You have made it quite plain in Your all-embracing Gospel invitation that all are welcome in Your kingdom. May we at all times receive this invitation whole-heartedly and treat it in all seriousness for ourselves and others, through Christ our Lord and for the glory of His name. Amen.

Editor’s note: No American Edition (AE) equivalent for today’s sermon excerpt exists at the time of this publication. For an alternate English translation of this sermon, see Lenker, Church Postil—Gospels, 4:33-38.