Mark 12:1-12
Jesus called them parables, so what is a parable? It is a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. But often we do not find them to be simple. In fact, we like the leaders of Jesus’ time often missed the message. Do you recall Jesus addressing the killing of the prophets in Matthew 23:29-31, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.”
The Pharisees were excellent examples of religious folks and it is easy to be one. Often, I find my flesh wanting others to believe better of me than both God and I know to be true, and when I was a young follower of Christ, I often found myself acting like a religious person and not a follower of Christ. So that we have no misunderstanding of my definition of a person who is religious, or acting like they are let us look at Matthew 23:2-7. Jesus gives us a clear picture of what religion looks like in the verses below, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.”
If you have not read the account in Matthew 12:1-12, it a must for the chief priest and the leaders had just challenged Jesus on His authority. So He tells them a story of a man who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. He leased it out to tenant farmers and went away. Each time he sent someone to collect the profits they were beaten and sent away or killed. Then he sent his son and was assured they would treat him with respect, but they killed the son and threw his body out of the vineyard.
And Jesus asks this rhetorical question: “What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this Scripture: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;[b]1 this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
Now listen to what Scripture tells us about the chief priest and the religious leaders. “And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.”
Never forget religions end game is death, it does not tolerate anyone who it sees as a threat. It was not Romans that killed Jesus but very religious folks.
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” Blaise Pascal
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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