The feast is prepared
The feast is prepared.
The eternal feast of the lamb is ready for us. Are we worthy?
No. We are not worthy. We’ve done nothing to deserve an invitation to this banquet. We have done nothing to deserve to receive the body of Christ in the Eucharist. We’ve done nothing to be invited to the eternal banquet in heaven. Not only that, but there is nothing we could ever do to be worthy.
But… yes. We are worthy. We are worthy because the king has invited us. The king decides who is worthy, and the king has invited us. Not only has the king invited us, but the king has provided us with clothes to wear. The dinner is ready. The clothes are ready. All we have to do is put on the clothes and join the feast.
We know what it is to come to the feast. Through baptism, we enter. In the Eucharist, we participate. In death, we celebrate forever. But what does it mean to put on the wedding garment?
The wedding garment cannot be a sacrament, because not every baptized person comes to God. The garment is not received when we take the Eucharist, because Saint Paul tells us that many receive the Eucharist wrongly, and “eat and drink to their own damnation.” It is not fasting, because the wicked can fast. It is not going to church, because bad people come to church. It is not praying, because many who pray and prophesy in the name of the Lord are told to depart, because he never knew them.
So then, what is the wedding garment?
Love.
Saint Augustine, Saint Gergory the Great, and others tell us that love is the wedding garment. It is the love Saint Paul describes as “love that springs from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and a genuine faith.”
Some of the invited guests were evil. They rejected the invitation with malice. They mistreated the servants of the king, and killed some. Most of the invited guests were simply busy with their lives. They were not evil, but they did not join the feast. They had time for farms and business, but not for the wedding feast.
We always make time for what is really important to us. Indeed, if we look at how we spend our time, we will see what matters to us. Do we say we do not have time to pray, but we binge-watch hours of TV shows? Do we have time for music and sports and video games, but no time to help the poor, the sick, the immigrant, the orphans, the widows, or mothers unprepared to welcome a child? Do we have time to wash our car, water our grass, and get our hair permed, but no time to visit the sick?
“Blessed are the pure in heart”, Jesus said, “for they shall see God.” What does it mean to have a pure heart? I love Kierkegaard’s answer: purity of heart is to will one thing. It is to desire only one thing, above all others, and that is the will of God.
Are our hearts pure? We work. We play. We get our hair permed. Those things are good. But, do we hold in our hearts a desire to do the will of God, which is that nobody should perish, but that all would come to repentance, and eternal life? Do we make it our priority to love God, and love our neighbor?
A clear conscience… how can my conscience be clear? Saint John tells us that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and are liars. I have said and thought and done things that are worthy of hell. How can my conscience be clear? Only because I trust in the blood of the Lamb of God to wash away those sins.
And a genuine faith. What is genuine faith? Genuine faith is alive. It is a faith that shapes our words, our thoughts, and our actions. As Saint James says, we show our faith by our works. We do not work to deserve salvation. As we said at the beginning, we can never deserve this invitation. But we do work because we have faith. We work because we are thankful. We work because we are loved.
We are invited to the feast, and the garment of love has been prepared for us, but it is up to us to choose to put on that garment.
We ask God to give us the gift of a lively faith, and victory over everything that prevents us from living our faith. We confess our sins, so that we may have a clear conscience before God. We pray with David that God will create in us a pure and new and clean heart. From a pure heart, a clean conscience, and a genuine faith, love will spring from our hearts, and we will rejoice now and forever in the heavenly feast.
