The Unseen Guest

On the road to Emmaus and in the parable of the wedding feast, Jesus is no silent guest but the King who walks in among us, clothes us in His own righteousness, and calls us to wear it into every ordinary day of the week.

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The Unseen Guest

Good Morning. There’s an amazing story at the end of Luke’s Gospel about two of Jesus’ disciples walking away from Jerusalem to Emmaus on Easter Sunday afternoon. They were just sharing their grief and confusion over all the events which had just happened when a stranger joined them on the road.

And as the stranger walked with them down the road to Emmaus, He opened the Scriptures to them, explaining from Moses and the prophets why the Messiah had to suffer and die. But Luke tells us they did not know it was Jesus. Mile after mile. Hours of conversation. And they didn’t recognize Him.

It wasn’t until they sat down at the table, and He took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, that the disciples’ eyes were opened. And then He vanished from their sight. They had been in the presence of the King for seven miles, and they hadn’t recognized Him.

There is something in this story that we can unfortunately see in our lives. We can be surrounded by the things of God and still fail to see what He’s doing. We can read the Bible, say the prayers, come to the Lord’s Table, and then walk out the door and go about our business as though God has nothing to do with the rest of our lives. It’s easy to go about our lives living as if God lives here in the Sanctuary, and we visit Him on Sundays just to say Hi!

And that’s where Jesus’ parable in our Gospel lesson comes in. He tells the story of a king who prepared a great wedding reception for his son and when everything was ready, he sent messages to everyone who RSVP’d, “It’s time! Everything is ready! Come to the Feast!”

But the guests refused to come. The king sent more servants, reminding the people to come, but they were more interested in their own businesses, and some even seized the servants, mistreated them and killed them.

The king was furious, and he sent his troops to deal with those murderers. Then he sent his servants out again, this time, instead of the ones who had originally been invited, he sent them to everyone his servants could find, both bad and good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Now, Jesus could have ended His parable here. But He doesn’t. Because this isn’t just a story about the invitation going out to all nations. It’s a story about a King who doesn’t just send the invitation, He shows up.

The king comes in to see the guests, and notices one man who isn’t wearing a wedding garment. “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?” And the man has nothing to say. So the king orders that he be bound and thrown into the outer darkness, where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth.

That’s a hard ending to a story that began with a wedding feast. We might expect the king to be happy that the hall is full. Instead, one of the guests is thrown out. So, what’s going on here? Why does the garment matter so much?

Think about a wedding today, and imagine that, as you may have experienced, the bride and groom provided matching dresses for the bridesmaids and tuxedos for the groomsmen, to take care of what everyone needs to wear.

Now if the groom has paid for my tuxedo, but I leave it hanging in my closet because I’d rather go wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers, what kind of statement would I be making? If someone asks why I wasn’t wearing the tuxedo, I couldn’t say I couldn’t afford it. The groom has already taken care of that.

I just decided I wasn’t going to wear it. That’s not simply bad fashion. That’s a direct insult to the host and a disregard for the generosity I was shown.

When the king sees the man without the proper wedding garment, and asks him why, the man has nothing to say. The most natural reading is that he wanted to enjoy the feast without honoring the king who prepared it.

It’s not completely clear whether the king in Jesus’ parable supplied wedding garments for all his guests, but the picture helps us see what is happening in the story. Christians have long seen this wedding garment as a picture of the righteousness God gives us in Jesus Christ. We don’t stand before God on the strength of our good deeds, our religious knowledge, or our ability to make ourselves look respectable. We need a righteousness that isn’t our own. Jesus has done for us what we could never do for ourselves, and He enables us to stand before the King. The King who clothes us is not a distant host. He is here.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a plaque that hangs in a lot of Christian homes: Jesus is the head of this home, the silent listener to every conversation, the unseen guest at every meal.

It’s a lovely thought, but after what we’ve heard this morning, I’d like to change one word of it. Silent. Jesus wasn’t silent on the road to Emmaus, He talked all the way there. He came in as a stranger, became a guest, and by the time the meal began, He was the One breaking the bread.

Fifty days later, He sends the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts and speak to us. And the King in the parable doesn’t sit quietly in the corner. He walks into the hall, looks over His guests, and asks a question. We aren’t hosting a silent Jesus in our homes. He is present every day, and the question is whether we are living as if He is there.

We may not always recognize what God is doing in the middle of an ordinary day. We may not always feel His presence as clearly as we’d like. But He is the One who invites us, the One who clothes us, and the One who calls us to follow Him.

When we leave here, we don’t leave Him behind for the week. He is the unseen guest at every meal, the Lord of every conversation, and He is already there when you walk through your own front door. The garment is yours. He purchased it for you and placed it over your shoulders. You don’t earn it by wearing it. You wear it because it’s already yours.

St. Paul tells us in Galatians 3:27, For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And in Romans 13:14, Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

So don’t leave it hanging in the closet when you walk out those doors today. Wear His righteousness into your home, the grocery store, the doctor’s waiting room, and every conversation this week.