As snooker player Ding Junhui has discovered, wearing the wrong clothes can be costly. He turned up for his opening match at the England Open Snooker tournament in brown trousers. But the dress code explicitly states that players must be dressed in black. Realising his mistake Ding sent a friend to buy the correct colour trousers from a nearby shop. But the delay meant he started the game late and had to forfeit the opening frame and then fell 3-1 behind. On this occasion, however, he was lucky and eventually won the game 4-3.
Not so lucky was the subject of a story Jesus once told about guests invited to a wedding banquet. The servants spotted someone who wasn’t wearing the right clothes and, sadly, he was ejected from the party with no hope of return.
The point of the story was to tell us that heaven is real and that Jesus issues an open invitation for us to join him there. But we must be wearing the right clothes – clothes that only he can provide. On the cross Jesus took our sin and wrongdoing and exchanged them for his holiness and righteousness. These new clothes are freely available. The only question is whether we will choose to wear them.