Today's Devotion

Monday, November 3, 2025 - Matt 22:1-22

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Once again, Jesus is speaking parables that enrage His detractors. There are two reasons for this: first, He is openly criticizing their malice and hypocrisy, second, He is making it clear that the kingdom He is bringing into the world will include the hated Gentiles.

In the Parable of the Wedding Feast, Jesus reminds His listeners of their own history from the Old Testament: how God was inviting their ancestors to the feast, that is, the kingdom being foretold by the prophets. But what did they do to those very prophets? “They paid no attention.” Many simply refused to listen to the prophetic voice, ignoring the Word of God – even when that Word was a merciful warning to repent and avoid trouble down the road. Others “seized His servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.” This is part of the ignoble history of Israel, as well as their continual worship of false gods and their refusal to separate from the idolaters of other nations.

Jesus explains by means of His parable that God will simply conclude that “those invited were not worthy,” and He will send preachers into the streets to invite others. The “wedding hall” will be “filled with guests,” and they will not all be Israelites. As our Lord said when He encountered a godly Gentile centurion: “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 8:10-12).

Those who try to enter the wedding feast without the invitation garment, those who “crash the party” seeking to enter based on ethnicity or works of the Law will be “cast… into the outer darkness.”

Our Lord’s enemies are so angry that instead of repenting, they continue to try to “entangle Him in His Words.” They try to trip Him up with a trick question about taxes. But using the coin with the image of Caesar, Jesus once again turns the tables on them: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” They marvel. They go away. But they go away to plot and scheme to silence Jesus by diabolical cunning.

And the devil is eager to participate. But what Satan and all of the devils don’t know, what the Pharisees and scribes and Sadducees and Herodians do not understand, is that this was the plan all along. They will all be defeated at the cross and at the tomb. The wedding feast will be filled with invitees from “all the world” and the “whole creation” by virtue of the preaching of the “Gospel” (Mark 16:15). Those without the wedding garment will be cast out. Those who rendered their King to Caesar will serve Caesar, while those who serve the King will “recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” in the kingdom, in the words of the hymnist: “to sit at the feast of salvation… have mercy upon us, O Jesus” (LSB 510:1).

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.