“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless.” – Matthew 22:11-12
As I read Your words this morning, Lord, the story seems to come alone before me. I sit at table, robed in Your Grace at Your feast. Beside me sits this dirty old man, looking lost and alone with no robe. the King comes to him, and noticing his dirty rags, calls out the fact that he is not properly garbed for this feast. The man is reduced to speechlessness.
Yet, in that moment, I see the man’s gaze flick toward me. I see for a moment as response twitch on his lips. I can hear his fearful, unspoken response – “my Lord, I was alone under a tree when they pulled me out to come here. No one told me why or prepared me. No one offered me a wedding robe. I didn’t even know what was happening.”
The King – You My Lord – shifts Your holy gaze momentarily from the man to me as he is being dragged from the hall.
I feel the weight of the poor man’s screams as he is bound and thrown from the room into the darkness.
In this moment, I know his response or lack of placed blame upon me. It was my responsibility to go out to the fields and hedges to find the poor and lost sheep of Your flock. It is my task to draw them out, clean them up and give them my robes which You graciously gave to me. It is my duty to prepare them for Your feast. He is held to blame for my failures.
Yes, Lord, I go, I seek, I find and I give the lost all I have in order to prepare them for the wedding feast. All I ask Lord is that You give me the grace to find those You seek that I may fill Your halls with the lost and lonely. That I may help prepare them to celebrate this feast with You, the King.