The Wedding Garment

The Wedding Garment

By Jen Pettit

Going into a marriage covenant is a fascinating thing to learn about.  So many things have symbolic meaning that we don’t think about today. We look at many symbolic meanings as tradition. Still, surprisingly enough, each one has a covenantal meaning to it that can change your perspective and make a person more reverent when completing them.  Today, we are going to focus on the wedding dress and veil.  The wedding dress has a twofold meaning—the wife’s purity of heart and life and her reverence for God. 

“Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to him. The time has come for the wedding feast of the lamb, and his bride has prepared herself. She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear.” For the fine linen represents the good deed of God’s holy people.” 

Revelation 19:7-8 

I was reading Matthew 22 about the wedding garments one of the guests wore to the king's son’s wedding. I was surprised at the emphasis on what the guests wore.  Usually, the focus is on the bride and groom and their attire, not so much on the guests.  

“Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are called, but few are chosen.” 

Matthew 22:13-14 NLT

I said to God, “I don’t think I understand.  The King invited people from the street.  He knew they may not have good clothes. He invited him just the way he was.  God responded to me, stating, “If you go, but you're not bringing your best, you can’t stay.” 
I began to look up the last verse in different versions to get a different view of what I was reading.   

“For everyone is invited to enter in, but few respond in excellence.” 

Matthew 22:14 TPT

Those wedding garments were significant.  I began researching those garments, and the freedom comes in here.  The excellence doesn’t come from us!  In those days, the people hosting the wedding provided the garments.  In the story Jesus is telling, it was the King providing them.  He didn’t have to do anything to earn the garments.  If the man didn’t have his garments on, he wasn’t willing to put them on. Not because they weren’t available to him.   

Also, how cool is it that during weddings today, the focus is on the bride and her beautiful garments, but here, in this story, it is about the guests' garments? All the guests were supposed to be wearing the same thing.  Jesus didn’t talk about how beautiful the King's new daughter-in-law was.  He didn’t speak about her dress.  His focus was on His bride, their garments, and if they were ready for the wedding so that the big reveal was spotless and without wrinkles. 

“Jesus also told them other parables. He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come! “So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘The feast has been prepared. The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet!’ But the guests he had invited ignored them and went their own way, one to his farm, another to his business. Others seized his messengers and insulted them and killed them. “The king was furious, and he sent out his army to destroy the murderers and burn their town. And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honor. Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’ So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the proper clothes for a wedding. ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how is it that you are here without wedding clothes?’ But the man had no reply. Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are called, but few are chosen.” 

Matthew 22: 1-14 NLT