Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Luke 5:27-32 | Date: December 7, 2014 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

It is so good to be back with you all. I was checking on it yesterday, and I think it’s been, if I’m right, it’s been four years since I was here, and it’s hard to believe it’s been that long. But we have certainly appreciated your fellowship. This church has been very generous to us. Your support, your prayers for us, your concern, your cards, keeping up on Facebook, various things—we’ve appreciated it so much.

Our fellowship with Pastor Tom has just been blessed. We were reminiscing this morning just before the service that I think we met in 2007. I had a Sunday off and I’d heard about you guys up here, and so I wandered up here one Sunday morning to hear him preach and began a wonderful friendship. I think very highly of him and his ministry. You folks are blessed with a wonderful fellowship here and it’s great to be back with you. Thanks a lot.

If you will take your Bibles and turn to the Gospel of Luke. If we give a title to the message this morning, we’ll call it, “Jesus with Sinners at the Table.” Jesus with Sinners at the Table. And what I’m going to do is remind you of several passages in the Gospel of Luke where we find this theme: Jesus eating at the dinner table with known sinners. We’ll read some related passages; we’ll read a couple in particular that we will be pulling from through the message, but we’ll make reference to the others and try to bring together this theme that we find in the Gospel of Luke.

And we’ll begin with Luke chapter 5, a very familiar passage. Luke chapter 5, beginning with verse 27:

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth and he said to him, “Follow me,” and leaving everything he rose and followed him. Levi made him a great feast in his house and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them. And Pharisees and their scribes grumbled against his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

And if you will look at chapter 7, Luke chapter 7, and I’ll begin reading with verse 36:

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisees’ house and took his place at the table. And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisees’ house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisees who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

Jesus answering, said to Simon, “I have something to say to you.” He answered, “Say it, teacher.” “A certain money lender had two debtors, one owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with oil. Therefore, I tell you, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Then again, chapter 14. We have another scene at the table. Actually, it begins in verse 7, but for the sake of time, I will pick it up with verse 12. Chapter 14, verse 12:

He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or at a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

When one of those who reclined at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.” But he said to him, “A man once gave a banquet and invited many, and at the time for the banquet he sent his servants to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field and must go out to see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I’ve bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I’ve married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.'”

I’ve never really understood that one—what wife didn’t like to be taken out to dinner? I don’t understand that excuse. Verse 21:

So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, “Go out quickly to the streets in the lanes of the city and bring in the poor and the crippled and the blind in the lane.” The servant said, “Sir, what you have commanded has been done, and still there is room.” The master said to the servant, “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel people to come in that my house may be filled, for I tell you none of those men who were invited shall taste of my banquet.”

And then chapter 15, we have just a brief notice of it. We won’t read the entire passage, but we should notice verses one and two: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.'” And then in response to that, Jesus tells this extended parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, culminating in the story of the lost son and the rejoicing in heaven at his return.

Chapter 19, finally. Chapter 19, verse 1:

He entered Jericho and was passing through, and there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry, come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. When they saw it, they all grumbled. “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”

And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are for your Word, and what a blessed thing it is to come to share the Word with your people who love the Gospel. I pray that you will meet with us, and I pray that your Spirit will go ahead and own your Word to our hearts and give us, through these passages today, a greater appreciation, a greater love for the Lord Jesus Christ, a clearer, more focused faith in him. Lift our hearts to heaven through this reminder of the gospel, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

All these passages, as you can tell, have a common theme running through them. Actually, there are a couple of themes that I want to point out that run through them that we’ll spend most of our time talking about, and that is number one: Jesus is eating at the table with known sinners, tax collectors, and sinners. And then number two, closely related to that: Jesus is criticized for it. “Who is this? Doesn’t he know who these people are sitting with him? Eating with sinners.”

And so we have Jesus eating with sinners, Jesus being criticized for it, and in fact, Jesus evidently developed a kind of reputation for doing this. We saw a reflection of it in Luke 15 verse 2: “this man receives sinners.” It’s kind of an off-handed remark that seems to be a reputation that he had. And in fact, in Luke chapter 7, a passage that we did not read, Jesus refers to the crowd and their response to John the Baptist and their response to him. And he says, “John came, neither eating nor drinking, and you said, ‘He’s crazy.’ And the Son of Man comes, both eating and drinking, and you said, ‘He’s a drunk and a glutton.'” Either way, you’re going to find an excuse to reject the prophet of God.

And so Jesus has this reputation of being what we would call today a “party animal.” He’s hanging out with known drunks, tax collectors, and prostitutes at the table. And in fact, it becomes something that’s characteristic of Jesus, and he becomes known for it. Now there are other passages in the Gospels—in Luke in particular, but Matthew and Mark somewhat as well—where Jesus sits at the table with sinners, and other passages where it just speaks of Jesus banqueting, or Jesus eating with others, or it speaks in terms of the coming kingdom in terms of a banquet, and we may make some reference to those as well.

But particularly in Luke, this is a major theme, and we’re going to try to understand why it is that Jesus is turning these conventions on their head. They think that he is transgressing the bounds of propriety. Not only is he eating with people who are outside of the bounds of proper society, he’s eating with people who are the lowest of the low and they are known sinners.

That’s fascinating, I think, not least because this is not the typical image that comes to our mind when we think of Jesus in the years of his earthly ministry. I doubt that any of us, when someone says, “Try to imagine Jesus in the years of his earthly ministry,” I doubt that any of us thinks first, “Oh yeah, he’s a party animal.” And yet this is the reputation that he was getting: eating with known sinners of the worst sort. Something we certainly would not expect to hear about Jesus.

So we have to ask the question first, what’s the problem? What is so wrong with this? Why is it such a scandal? And I think actually there are several layers to the answer to that question. One is just the fact of who they were that he was eating with. Tax collectors and sinners. If you were to eat with an IRS agent, I doubt it would raise too many eyebrows, although you might get some jokes about it. But in that day, the tax collector was a traitor. He was someone who was Jewish and yet worked for the Roman government, collecting taxes from the Jewish people for these overlords who had no right to it. And of course, with that came all kinds of room for abuse. Well, if you’re going to be that person in that community, you’re not going to have any friends. And if you’re going to be friendly with anyone, it’s going to be the other outcasts. And in the common parlance of the day, a tax collector is just the lowest of the low. And very clearly in these passages, when it speaks of tax collectors and sinners, very clearly in at least some of those passages, the sinners in view are specifically prostitutes. So Jesus is eating with what we would call, in our slang, the scum of society. Here’s this holy man, supposedly. A prophet, supposedly. And he’s hanging out with that kind of crowd.

More than just that, there were some connotations of dining together in that world, some of which we still have in ours, but even more so in that world. Particularly, there were Jewish food laws, of course. Certain foods that could be eaten, certain foods that should not be eaten, and these became markers of Jewish society. It became marks of cleanness and uncleanness. And of course, you hang out with people who are clean, and by extension, those who do eat these forbidden foods are unclean, and you certainly wouldn’t eat at the table with these kinds of people. It became something of a mark of holiness to hang with the right kind of people and to avoid the other kind.

More than that, eating with people in that world—and we have this somewhat in our world as well—was understood to create a kind of social bond, a kind of intimacy. You don’t eat at the table with strangers. When you invite someone to your house to eat, you’re going to invite your friends. And there’s a certain kind of intimacy, a social bond, that is created in that kind of an environment. And so they hear Jesus creating or involving himself in this kind of a social atmosphere, this kind of intimacy with the worst kind of sinners. That makes it even worse.

Beyond that, there are the sometimes religious connotations of many religious feasts in the Jewish world and so on. But the point of all of it is that the meals were not something to be taken for granted or something to be regarded lightly. And it was in this kind of atmosphere that Jesus just did not fit. His eating habits were not regulated enough. He was not nearly careful enough. His decisions to eat with people were way too spontaneous. And in fact, it seemed that sometimes even it was his own initiative. And then, when he’s criticized for it, he defends himself. It seems that this man is just open to eating with anyone. Not simply those beyond the borders of respectability, but beyond the borders of what is religiously upright, what is religiously holy. This man is open to eating with anyone. And worse than that, he seems to enjoy it. And he defends himself.

Alright, that’s the scandal. Now we have to ask the next question: what’s the point? Why would Jesus do this? And for that matter, why would Luke—and Matthew and Mark to some degree as well, but Luke in particular—why would he publish it? If it’s such an embarrassing scandal, why would Luke make so much of it? Include story after story of how Jesus was criticized for keeping the wrong kind of company and then showing Jesus defending his actions and so on. Well, obviously there’s something symbolic to all of this. There’s something that Jesus, some point that Jesus is trying to make. And my point of the outline at this point is particularly poor. It’s not very profound. I don’t know a better way to say it, but we’ll start with this.

A Little Picture Of The Big Picture

Jesus and Luke are trying to tell us that in this scene—Jesus eating with sinners—we have a little picture of the big picture. Alright, what’s the big picture? Well, let’s go back to the beginning. God creates humanity in his own image. Man is responsible to God. He’s given the great privilege of fellowship with God, created in uprightness and in fellowship with God. And yet man rebels. And in response to his rebellion, God comes in judgment and in curse. And all of the created order is thrown into disarray as a result of human sin.

And in the midst of God’s pronouncing judgment, here mankind now is alienated from God, alienated from one another, alienated from the world around him and the created order. There’s chaos on every level. And in the midst of this judgment, God makes a promise. And he promises that a champion will come and destroy the tempter. Now, not a lot of information is given to us at this point. “I’ll put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed, and he will bruise your heel, and you will bruise his head.” Who is this “he” that he’s talking about? We’re not given a lot of information at this point, but what we do have is a promise of a champion who will come to destroy the tempter.

And with that, a hope is born that grows and grows throughout the Old Testament. And more promises are added to it, and more promises are added to that, until this promise grows to this great prospect of this wonderful champion who will come to destroy the tempter. The point, of course, of it is he’ll come and deal with the sin problem. The implication of the promises is this mess will be fixed. And so God makes promise after promise. He promises to Abraham, “In your seed all of the families of the world will be blessed.” We can’t track through all of them now, of course; the next major promise, we might say, is God’s promise to David: “Your son will sit on the throne forever.” He makes a major promise through the prophet Jeremiah that God will enact a new covenant and he’ll forgive sin.

But he promises this champion who will come, and throughout the centuries of the Old Testament, we’re reminded of the promise both with repeated promises and with champions who arise here and there. And we might expect: Is he the one he promised? Many theologians have argued that at the birth of Seth, Eve and Adam expected that he was the one—there’s maybe hints of that, I’m not sure. Is he the one? No, he’s not the one. If they thought so, they were mistaken. Moses? Nope, not him either. Samuel? Nope, not him either. You’ve got some great judges popping up—is this the one? No, he’s not it either. And you’ve got the king, you’ve got David, you’ve got his son Solomon—is he? No, he’s not the one either. And you’ve got king after king after king, champion after champion arriving. Nope, not him, not him, not him, not him, not him either.

And you get to the end of the Old Testament, and the whole point of it now, if you’re reading the story, is: “God, we need a king! We still don’t have him.” God has promised that there would be one who would come. And then we turn the page and we come to the Gospels, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. And the whole point of it all, of course, is that here is this champion who was promised. He has come and he’s come to deal with sin. “He will call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin.”

Now, of course, the story takes an unexpected turn. It was prophesied, but an unexpected turn. He’s the one. He’s the one. He’s the one. No way—he’s crucified. But then what? He’s raised from the dead. And now after the fact, it all becomes clear. He is the one who was to come. He has dealt with sin. And in his death on the cross, he has borne the sin of his people. He’s exhausted the curse entirely. And so God has raised him from the dead. And now the news goes out to the world: “Proclaim the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus.” That’s the big picture. Now, of course, it’s not over yet. He’ll come again and he’ll bring to consummation his redeeming work. That’s the big picture.

And what Jesus and what Luke are wanting to tell us here is in these scenes, we have a little picture of the big picture. This is Jesus’ own interpretation of it. I think I’m imagining it—this is Jesus’ own interpretation of it. He talks about the surprising guest list at the feast. Invite the crippled, the poor, the lame, the blind—they certainly are to be understood in metaphorical terms of the undeserving.

In Luke chapter 19, we read here of his dinner with Zacchaeus, a known sinner. And they’re complaining and grumbling about Jesus eating with sinners and Jesus says, “Today, salvation has come to this house.” And then verse 10: “the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” This is why I’ve come. Do you see me eating with a sinner? This is why I’ve come, Jesus says.

We have the same thing in Luke chapter 15 and verse 2. “This man receives sinners.” And they say it in criticism. And in response to that criticism, Jesus tells this long story of this lost sheep, lost coin, lost son, culminating in this great time of rejoicing. There’s rejoicing in heaven over every sinner that repents.

We find the same in Luke chapter 5, where we’ve read the story of Levi, another tax collector. The language there I think is so fascinating. If you want to glance back at Luke chapter 5, what we’ve read, where Jesus answers the accusations in exactly these terms of a “this is a little picture of the big picture.” He answers in verse 31: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” You don’t go to the doctor when you’re all feeling well. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” That is to say, why am I here? Because these people are sick with sin and the doctor is in. I have come to heal. This is a little picture of the big picture.

And if we think in terms of the big picture, the question is not “Why would Jesus be here eating with these people?” The question here now is “Why would Jesus not be here eating with these people?” This is why He’s come. The whole reason for His coming is to reconcile sinners to God and to bring them to fellowship at the table of grace. Jesus is not ashamed of this. Luke is not ashamed. Indeed, he wants to publish this—that this man receives sinners. They may say that in derision, but this is our gospel. This man receives sinners. He is the promised champion who would deal with sin. And sinners the world over now may be saved because of Him. Who else then would Jesus come to see but sinners?

It would have been unthinkable in that society. It would have been unthinkable. It’s just about unthinkable in our own society that holiness could be contagious. It works the other way. We have little proverbs about that. “One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel.” That’s the way it is, and in fact the Apostle Paul gives us commands in that regard. “Evil companions corrupt good manners.” Careful the company you keep. But Jesus in one sense—in one sense—Jesus turns all that on its head.

For example, the woman with the issue of blood who came to Jesus for healing. Because of her condition, she was an outcast. She was ceremonially unclean. And she comes and touches the hem of Jesus’ garment. But it was not Jesus who contracted the defilement. But rather, healing was communicated to her.

Another wonderful example of this is when we have the leper who’s desperate to see Jesus. And Jesus is passing by and the leper cries out. Again, a man who’s ceremonially unclean and outcast from society. You are not to have contact with him, particularly physical contact. And he stands on the edge of the crowd. “Jesus, son of David, if you will, make me clean.” And what we read is fascinating. What we read is not that Jesus says, “Yeah, OK, be clean. You’re healed.” Jesus, moved with compassion, reached out and touched him, and I think the sense of that verb is not just, you know, this kind of a touch, but he clutched him. It might even mean an embrace. Moved with compassion, he clutches him. “I will be clean.” And then again, we don’t find the uncleanness communicated to Jesus, that Jesus is somehow defiled by the contact. But rather, the leper is made clean and healed.

And so also, Jesus sits at the table with Levi, the tax collector. “Why would you eat with him?” And Jesus is not dirtied by it. Jesus sits at the table of Zacchaeus. He’s not contaminated by it. A prostitute comes, weeps, washes his feet, anoints them with oil. Jesus is not contaminated by it. Rather, he brings grace and pronounces forgiveness of sin.

Brothers and sisters, isn’t that something what this church is? Aren’t we just a bunch of sinners redeemed by the grace of God, brought together by Christ? And I’ve often thought it would be good for us to think of these scenes when we come together to take the Lord’s Table. It ought to strike us: What a surprising thing that I should be dining with this King.

Of course, of course our Lord took time to socialize with sinners. He came preaching a message of grace and forgiveness—grace and forgiveness in a work that He would do Himself. What value would there be in such a message as that if He had been an exclusive snob? Of course, he socialized with sinners.

Now, this raises another curious question, and I don’t have time to go on this long, but I do want to mention it, and it’s something I really would recommend you take some time to unpack together in discussion. Let’s just start it with this: Who would you invite to your house if Jesus were going to be there? Now, I know how it goes. You’d invite, I’m sure out of courtesy, you’d invite the pastors, anyone you thought to be a respectable Christian—you’d want them to be there. Would it enter your mind to invite the worst sinner you know?

And in fact, I think this is something of a subset to this whole point that we must see Jesus here as a role model in some respect, and I think we have to see Luke as commending this role to us as well. Jesus socialized as a means to reach the lost. Now, be careful with that. Jesus would still tell us, “Be careful the company you keep. Bad company corrupts good manners. Be careful the company you keep.” And we must notice that when Jesus went to these places, he didn’t just fit in. He wasn’t one of the crowd. He went there and he rebuked sin, and in some ways, he even seemed what we would call rude, because he’s rebuking the sin of the host and so on. But the point of it is, Jesus did not, in order to fellowship with these people, to socialize with them, Jesus did not demand repentance in advance. And He used these social occasions as a means to reach the lost.

And surely, He and surely Luke intend for us to see in that something of a model. And I think we ought to work on this and think creatively: How can we follow this model in order to reach the lost? We are not intended to be a holy huddle. Some kind of dinner evangelism ought to arise out of this. What can we do to bring sinners into contact with the gospel? Like Jesus, we are on mission. Again, I think this deserves some creative thinking on our part. Why then would Jesus do this? Number one, this is a little picture of the big picture. That’s what Jesus tells us. Number two, these scenes are a little picture of an even bigger picture.

An Anticipation And A Foretaste Of A Heavenly Banquet To Come

And my point here is that in these scenes, we have an anticipation and a foretaste of a heavenly banquet to come. In the Old Testament prophets—we have it some in the New Testament as well; it culminates actually in the book of Revelation—but particularly in the Old Testament prophets, we have the kingdom, the coming kingdom in its consummated form in the age to come, described to us in terms of a messianic banquet, a messianic feast.

We don’t have time to look through the Old Testament in this. Let me just mention a few verses. You can jot them down if you would like. Joel chapter 3 and verse 18 prophesies that the mountains will drip with new wine, hills will flow with milk, and all the ravines of Judah will run with water, speaking of a lavish outpouring of grace. Isaiah 25, verses 6 through 9—I’ll just mention verse 6: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, a rich food full of marrow and aged wine, well-refined.” I wonder if that’s the background, intended background, to Jesus’ miracle of feeding the 5,000. It may well be.

Isaiah 35 verses 6 and 7 speaks of waters breaking forth in the wilderness and there will be streams in the desert. Often these portrayals in the prophets speak of the gathering of all people in a universal call of salvation. There’s the famous gospel offer of Isaiah 55 verses 1 and 2: “Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come and buy and eat. Come and buy milk and wine without money and without price.” And then he goes on to exhort them, “Why will you spend your money on that which is not bread?” You spend your money, your efforts, and all your attention on that which cannot satisfy and fix this problem you’re trying to solve. And here it is offered to you freely. Come and take this grace.

That seems to be the background of Jesus’ parables of the great supper and the wedding feast. The point here is that we have this common anticipation of the kingdom as a time of banqueting. Isaiah 25, Isaiah 32, Isaiah 55, Isaiah 65—and it all comes to a culmination, as I mentioned, in Revelation chapter 19, when we have the great marriage supper of the Lamb. So dominant is this imagery of the coming kingdom in terms of a feast and a banquet, particularly in the early centuries of the church, that it was interpreted in a very literal way and almost a carnal understanding of the coming kingdom.

Well, we have that reflected in some of these scenes as well. For example, in Luke 14, which we read, a guest stands at the meal and says, “Blessed is he who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.” They saw the time of banqueting as symbolic of a time of banqueting that would come in fullness later on. And this is the background to several of Jesus’ parables as well. And all of this then helps us to understand this emphasis that we find in these passages regarding the surprising guest list at the banquet.

“Many will come from the east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into outer darkness.” Clearly there is a pronouncement of judgment on Israel who had seen its Messiah and rejected Him. The sons of the kingdom won’t be there, but men will come from the east and west and dine with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. “Bring the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame”—that is, those who are least deserving—from within the city, and Gentiles as well, those who are in the highways and hedges, those with no previous knowledge of the Messiah at all. Bring them in. And then Jesus will say things really surprising and offensive, speaking to the religious leaders of Israel: “Tax collectors and sinners will come in before you.”

Not only then are these scenes symbolic of a kingdom, but it’s a surprising concept of the kingdom as well. And in the end, in that great day of joy and festivities in the presence of the king, the guest list will not be what you might have expected. We might have expected society’s proper, society’s nobility, those most deserving. What Jesus is emphasizing is that He’s come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Those who are well, they don’t need a doctor. He’s come to save sinners. And all who will hear His message of grace may freely come.

There’s an old story, actually, it’s made into a song. You may have heard it. It’s an imaginary thing, but it makes this point so well. It’s called Te Deum in Latin. It’s a dream of this man who’s standing outside the gates of heaven, wanting to get in, and he sees heaven’s gates open up and the trumpets sound, and there’s singing and there’s choirs and there’s rejoicing, and a small band of men entering in. And he asks the attendant, “Who are these people entering into the kingdom?” “Oh, these are the patriarchs.” The man says, “I can’t enter with them.”

A little while later, the gates open and there’s the trumpet sounding and there’s the choir singing and there’s a celebration and another band of men going in. And he says, “Who are these who are entering now?” “Oh, these are the prophets.” “I can’t enter with them.” Again, the gates open and there’s the trumpets and there’s the celebration and there’s the singing. “Who are these entering?” “These are the apostles of the Lamb.” “I can’t enter with them.”

And after some time, there’s this great multitude which no one can number. And the gates open, and the trumpets sound, and they’re singing in their celebration. This multitude going in, and he asks, “Who are these that are entering?” “These are those who have been saved by the blood of the Lamb out of every kindred and nation and tribe and tongue under heaven. Look over there is Rahab the harlot. Over here is Mary Magdalene, out of whom Jesus cast seven devils. Here are those who were liars, murderers, thieves, homosexuals, adulterers, and all kinds of sinners, but they have been sanctified.” And he says, “Here’s a crowd I can enter with.”

And the point of all of that is to say what Jesus is saying here. Among all of those that day who attend that banquet, in all of the joy, you won’t find one—you won’t find one—who reaches back to pat himself on the back and say, “I’m glad I had the sense to be here.” Every one of us—every one of us—will confess, “I’m here because of Him. He’s done the work that saves. He’s brought me here.” It’s an amazing, surprising thing. I was pursuing my own way. Like sheep, I’d gone astray. But God laid on Him my iniquity. And He’s brought me in.

In these scenes, then, we are being shown that in Jesus, this great eschatological feast, this great end-time feast, is anticipated. And in fact, in Jesus, it has already begun. This small setting is just a picture of a larger reality of the free offer of grace to sinners and what will one day come to culmination: a great gathering of the redeemed rejoicing in the presence of Christ.

The point, in short, is simply to say that in Jesus, the joys of God’s salvation may be had here and now. Whoever you are, whatever your background, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, here is a Savior who is perfectly suited for you. And in the end, it will be a surprising gathering of people who sit to eat with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven. Our Lord’s actions did not measure up to the expected norm, and so they criticized Him. “This man eats with sinners.” Brothers and sisters, in that criticism we find our only hope. Thank God that Jesus eats with sinners. Amen.

Let’s pray. Our Father, what a good God You are. What a wonderful Savior we have in Jesus. We thank You for the fullness of His work. We thank You that we can rejoice in the fact that He is for us all that You require of us. And we’re thankful that sinners though we are, we may come into Your presence boldly and with thanksgiving and with assurance that You have received us in Your Son. In His name we pray, Amen.