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“Blessèd is everyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God!”

᛭ INI ᛭

“Wisdom hosts a banquet.” Jesus echoes that Old Testament parable from Proverbs to tell His parable about the Great Banquet. His Parable is about Himself. He’s the one putting on the great banquet. He is also the subject of the Parable in Proverbs. Jesus is the “Wisdom of God.” “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work.” (Prov 8) “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (Jn 1)

Jesus is the eternal Wisdom of God, but He’s God’s Wisdom especially at His death. For Paul says, “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and [foolishness] to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Cor 1) Christ who is crucified, and that for you, is the Wisdom of God.

This Christ hosts His banquet. He says “Come, eat My bread and drink the wine I’ve mixed.” It is unwise to ignore such a command and to skip such a meal for “Blessèd is everyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God!” Or, in terms of both Proverbs and Matthew today:

BLESSÈD ARE THE FOOLS WHO EAT WISDOM’S BREAD AND DRINK HIS WINE.

((I. Who are the fools at the banquet?))

Now, I’m saying “fools” are those eating the bread and drinking the wine at wisdom’s banquet, because that’s what Proverbs says. Wisdom says, “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” So, who’s invited? The simple, the foolish, “him who lacks sense.” Jesus’ parable bears this out: “Bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame,” He says. “Compel” whomever you find to come in—the riffraff, the Gentile, the tax collector, the sinner! (“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them,” they bad-mouthed Him.)

Now, fools are sinners. There are many sinful fools who are wise in their own eyes! That was the religious leaders who bad-mouthed Jesus. (The reason for this Parable.) They bad-mouthed good works, righteousness, and virtue. They thought they were wise, righteous, and could see, and needed no forgiveness.

**“Some of the Pharisees near [Jesus heard what He said and asked], “Are we blind?” Jesus said, “If you were blind, you’d have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains. (Jn 9)**

The unbelievers of the world bad-mouth sin, unrighteousness, guilt by relabeling it with virtue, justice, and pride. There is no need of Jesus and His death, if everything He labels as sin and hell-worthy are “transitioned” into righteousness and praiseworthy. They too need no forgiveness.

But who are the fools at the banquet? Not fools living in the way of sin, but fools walking the way of righteousness! “If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.” (1 Cor 3) Fools listen to the Word: “Hey, idiot, there’s salvation in here!” “There is?” “Yeah, Christ, the Son of God was crucified for all your sins. Come on in and eat His banquet!” “Where do I sit?” “Anywhere, but there’s always room up front.” (All who enter to eat, no matter their seat, are foolish to the world.)

But even our own flesh thinks it’s foolish to eat and sometimes prudent to excuse oneself. After all, there can be other things more important. “I don’t need such a Savior or Meal to be satisfied with my life. I’ve got my farm, my job, my wife and kids.” Others will say, “I know it’s important, and I know I swore I’d come faithfully at my confirmation, but life is just too much.” Still others express apathy, laziness, and lack of life, “Yeah, I know.” But nothing ever comes of that.

How easy it is to make excuses for not attending the Lord’s banquet! We’ve all used them from time to time. And so, it’s really only “the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame,” the “simple,” “whoever lacks sense” who actually come. And really, who’d want to come with a guest list like? That’s an excuse too: “He or she will be there. That servant, that pastor is there…”

(Transition.)

The “religious” and self-righteous maintain their excuses for not coming to the Church to be part of the body of Christ by receiving the Body of Christ. “I can worship at home or in the forest, at the lake, on vacation.” Sure, but is Christ there for you for the forgiveness of sins? The Banquet is where the One crucified for you for the forgiveness of your sins is. It’s where Christ crucified for the forgiveness of your sins is preached. It’s where Christ crucified for the forgiveness of your sins is delivered into your mouth in the Supper of His body and blood.

The fools come. They come for Christ crucified for the forgiveness of their sins. They come to eat! They know the Lord’s promises. They know what He’s done for them. They know how He’s saved them. They know what He’s preaching to them. They want to hear it again. (It’s the best news ever!) They know what He’s giving them to eat and to drink and why. They want to eat and drink again. (It’s the best meal ever!) After all, “Blessèd is everyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God!”

BLESSÈD ARE THE FOOLS WHO EAT WISDOM’S BREAD AND DRINK HIS WINE.

((II. What’s the bread and wine?))

The banquet where the fools eat in Jesus’ Parable is a picture of eternal life. In Isaiah 25 the eternal banquet is promised. At that banquet the LORD of Hosts, Jesus Christ, will host a feast where His people will eat and drink in His Father’s Kingdom forever because the LORD of hosts will gobble up death forever. (In his dying and rising for you He already has!)

The bread and wine that Jesus provides at His banquet give wisdom. The Lord’s Supper does! For Jesus’ bread and the wine He has mixed is His body given into death for you and His blood shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins! So, His Supper isn’t a foretaste, but rather the preparation for that banquet and guarantee that you’ve got a reservation.

Jesus calls everyone, Jew and Gentile, “simple,” “without sense,” “the poor, crippled, blind, and lame”, “tax collectors and sinners”, even you and me to His Supper so that we would be at His eternal one, too. This Supper gives us true spiritual wisdom, which is actually foolishness to the world. The Lord’s Supper gives us the forgiveness of sins through the oral eating of Jesus’ actual body and blood; from this Sacrament you also “learn to believe that Christ, out of great love, died for [your] sin, and also learn from Him to love God and [your] neighbor.” (Christian Questions) “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of Wisdom.” (Prov 9)

The Sacrament unites all diners together. (This, again, is why some refuse to come. “I won’t be one with him or her or that family over there.”) The true Church is full of miscreants who know that’s their standing before God. But when we are united in forgiveness by Jesus’ body and blood eaten and drunk together, well, then you get what Ephesians 2 talks about today. For He “reconciled us both,” that is Jew and Gentile (all sinners!), “to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” “For we who are many are one body for we all eat of the one body.” (1 Cor 11)

(Conclusion.)

BLESSÈD ARE THE FOOLS WHO EAT WISDOM’S BREAD AND DRINK HIS WINE.

Fools because they are sinners who actually believe they are but want rescue and deliverance from them. This is the very thing Jesus has done for us all. “For he himself is our peace, … [breaking] down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility … [reconciling] us to God … through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” “Making peace by the blood of His cross.” (Col 3)

He brings us to His Supper, to which He only invites fools, for it’s the fools who, against all human “reason and strength,” actually come! They hear His Word—“My body given and My blood shed for you”—and say, “Amen!” They rejoice to hear “For you for the forgiveness of your sins” and say, “Amen!”

Those who refuse miss out not only on this miraculous Supper, but the eternal one: “I tell you none of those invited shall taste My banquet.” But to those who come not in power and prestige, but in sin and weakness, throwing all their chips in with Jesus: “Come, you blest of My Father. Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” These shall “recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 8) For

“Blessèd is everyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God!”

Even you.

᛭ INI ᛭