The Invitation of a Lifetime

The Invitation of a Lifetime
Author: Andrew Archer, Student Ministry Director
The Parables of Jesus – Part 3
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- Matthew 22:2

Sending out wedding invitations to guests you want to celebrate with you is something that must be done as you prepare your wedding day. The guest list is serious business. For many couples, space is limited, and you sometimes have to make hard decisions on who you can and cannot invite. Sometimes, couples even have tiers of guests. If enough people from the first tier say no, they can begin to ask those in the second tier, and so on. 

Towards the end of college, many of my friends began to get engaged and married, and that has yet to stop. It’s just the stage of life my friends and I are in. Something I was terrible at when I was younger, but have thankfully gotten better at over time, was responding to wedding invitations. I’d open up the fancy letter, see the formal invitation, get excited that I was invited, only to put it on the counter, and not think about it again until days before the wedding. 

It never occurred to me what my response, or lack thereof, communicated in those moments when I failed to RSVP. No response is the worst response. Responding with “yes” is obviously ideal because the couple wants you to celebrate with them, and it reciprocates the love. However, sometimes you’re already committed, and you must say “no.” Even if you respond that you won't be able to come, your response still displays a level of care and thoughtfulness that the couple will appreciate. Not responding? That is a no and a disrespectful one at that. It lacks consideration of those who chose to invite you— something I was unfortunately guilty of multiple times.

The same is true for the Kingdom of Heaven. God has invited all of us to the wedding banquet of His Son, Jesus. While it’s an honor and privilege to be invited to any wedding, there is no event that you could be invited to that compares to the God of the universe choosing to celebrate with you. And not only that, the imagery Jesus gives shows that we, the church, are to be Christ’s bride. It is not only an invitation to celebrate alongside of but a proposal to be united in a relationship with our Creator!

I asked Delaney to be my wife on November 7th, 2015. If Delaney didn’t respond when I got down on my knee and asked her to marry me, what would she have been communicating? “No!” No response is a no. Thankfully, she did say “yes,” and we were married six months later. The even better news is she has woken up each and every morning and said yes over and over again.

God is inviting you to the wedding feast of all wedding feasts–to be in a relationship with Him for all eternity. What is your response? Will you continue to offer no response? Will you continue to say “no?” Or will you say “yes” today and every day moving forward, forsaking all others, to finally find the One you have been looking for this whole time?