Magazine for May 2011
I dreamt I was invited to the Royal Wedding. I wore a brown jacket and a brown polyester shirt and then my mobile began to ring. Everything about me seemed inappropriate for the occasion – and then I woke up. But imagine if you actually had received an invitation to the Royal Wedding, would you have turned it down? Such an invitation is recognition that you are valued and that you are held in high esteem.
Such celebrations aren’t new. When we read the Bible we find Jesus speaking of a king who invited people to the wedding of his son. The guest list would have been the usual ‘A’-listers, the rich and powerful, but perversely none of them chose to go. So, ordinary people were invited instead and they enjoyed the wedding banquet.
But what Jesus was talking about was God’s relationship with us. Often we either fail to see God and ignore the invitation He offers, or we do not expect to receive an invitation – but it is there nevertheless. And the cost of the invitation is something we need to consider, as it shows the enormity of God’s love for us.
Jesus’ death on the cross was the price that God was prepared to pay to invite us into His family. In Jesus’ resurrection on Easter day we see that, despite all that we do, God’s invitation to us is still open. There was an appropriateness that the Royal Wedding and Easter were so close. Both are events that deal with joy but there is only one to which we are guaranteed an invitation. And, as with my dream, accepting the invitation will involve change, so that we can become what we were always meant to be.
David Bradshaw