[Machine transcription]
From our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. What kind of a father, what kind of a father would send his only son into a situation knowing what had been done to those whom he had previously sent? What kind of a father, knowing full well that his son would meet with the same kind of vengeance and anger and convoluted thoughts of ownership… That these tenants did to his servants, wouldn’t they also do to his son? And yet he sent him. Either that father is completely a fool, or that father abounds in steadfast love. That father is full of mercy and grace and gives it to the undeserved like these. One or the two is true about that father.
It’s important to know when this parable was told, and it’s important to know to whom the parable was told. This parable was told in between two important events in history. It was told between when Jesus came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and Jesus’ betrayal into the hands of sinful men and his death on Good Friday. Somewhere in between those two dates did Jesus tell this parable. His last and parting shot, as it were.
Secondly, the to whom he spoke these words. Two groups of people. One, he spoke it to all the crowd who had gathered around, who had ushered him into Jerusalem, shouting and singing, “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” And it was also reported, every word of this parable to those who were not there, the chief priests and the Pharisees. So in essence, almost everyone in Jerusalem heard this parable that Jesus spoke. Almost everyone in Jerusalem knew the events that were taking place right there before him. In fact, if you remember, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, that’s what they said to Jesus. “Are you the only one in Jerusalem that does not know what’s happened there?” Everybody heard this parable.
Now this is interesting. Why? This parable, that is. Because when the audience ushered him into Jerusalem, they quoted a wonderful saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Now that was not a jingle written by an advertising firm. That was a direct quote from Psalm 118. And it’s a direct quote from Psalm 118 because these people were trying to say to one another and to him who was coming in, the name of the Lord, Jesus, that he is the one about whom this psalm spoke. He’s the one who’s going to change things, fix things, and finally bring about the kingdom of God among them.
Now look at this parable. Jesus begins, and you can see the connection between this and the Old Testament reading. They’re one and the same, aren’t they? Very important in Jesus’ parable, he brings up the master and he lays it out very clearly. The master was the one who planted the vineyard, not the tenants. The master was the one who built the fence around the vineyard, not the tenants. The master was the one who dug a wine press within the vineyard, not the tenants. The master was the one who built a tower to watch over the vineyard, not the tenants.
Everything that the tenants were given was given to them by the master who had done everything for them. Everything. Everything. Everything. So when the master entrusts this vineyard to the servants, did he not set them up for success? Did he not give them everything that they needed to do that which he asked them to do? Did he ask them the impossible? No. No. Did he ask them something they couldn’t do? No. He gave them everything to do it with. All they had to do was do it. Just do it. Just do it.
So when Jesus asks them, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? They know exactly what he’s going to do to those tenants. Same thing you and I would do to those tenants. Because that’s worldly justice, isn’t it? If you’ve been given this as a trust… and you have abused that trust, you then should have that removed from you, thrown out, and killed. That’s worldly justice.
You want to know the frightening thing? These chief priests and Pharisees understood it, but they didn’t believe it meant anything or was to be accounted to them or applied to them. So… warped in their idea of righteousness, they thought, this could not apply to me because I’m above this. We’ve never done this. Remember the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple or the synagogue? Jesus told that story or parable. The Pharisee was in the middle saying, “Lord, I thank you that I’m not like other people, like this tax collector. I give you all this of my money. I do all this for you. I fast all for you.” That’s how these Pharisees looked at themselves. Better than.
Jesus, remember, said it was the tax collector who left that temple justified because he stood on, trusted in, and believed in Christ’s righteousness for him, not himself. When they say, “Throw those tenants out, put those wretches to a miserable death, and give it to someone else who will produce fruit,” little did they realize that the fingers that they were pointing were pointing to them.
In our Wednesday night Bible class, we’ve been talking about the kings and Samuel, and we’re at David now, and David had just sinned with Bathsheba. And remember David’s great sin? A confession of sins after God’s great love through the prophet Nathan told David a parable as well. And after the parable, David was incensed. He wanted to fix that problem too. And David was told by Nathan, “You’re the man. You’re the problem. You need to repent.” It is the same here. Yes. Jesus is giving these Pharisees and chief priests the same proclamation. This applies to you. You need to repent.
Don’t be thinking, “Boy, that sermon sure got that person. I’m glad you preached that, pastor, because they need to hear that.” They missed it completely because it applied to them. And all they could see was what they had done, how they had lived their life, how they weren’t like that person. It’s interesting. We were talking also in our Wednesday night class about—we take it for granted because so many of us grew up in the church. Our parents, our grandparents, our aunts, and uncles. Few of us, if any, have no church background. We forget that. But that’s how God works. Paul talked about that same aspect. It’s not a matter of my lineage. It’s not a matter of who I was born to, how I was raised. It’s by God’s grace that I am who I am, and for no other reason.
We forget that, we who have grown up in the church. Here’s the great love and marvel that God does through Jesus Christ. Remember the people who ushered Jesus into Jerusalem had been saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Jesus, saying to himself, “I’m going to make sure these people get it.” He quotes to them, two verses prior to this verse from the same exact psalm, Psalm 118, to remind them that he’s the chief cornerstone, the one the builders rejected, just like the vineyard owners killed the son, threw him out.
Trying to make it very clear to him, he’s the one. Don’t look for another. You see, the people at that time, the people who shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” They were sick and tired of being oppressed by the Romans who ran that region. They were tired of not being the all-powerful country of Israel, like the glory days of old with David and Solomon. They wanted to come back to that rise in power. They wanted to see God’s power. They wanted to experience that God is real and not some far-fetched abstraction.
And that’s where you and I come in, because we get weary, don’t we? We get tired. Tired of being misused and abused by this world. Tired of having to forgive when we don’t want to forgive. Tired of loving when we don’t want to love. Tired of serving when we’re tired of serving. And we want God to fix things and right the wrongs and bring justice. You don’t want justice. You don’t want justice at all. Because justice is hell. Justice is being cast out of the vineyard. And justice is being treated as these wretches… Jesus said. We don’t want that.
That’s why it’s marvelous. It’s marvelous that God, in His great love for these people, like His great love for you, continues to bring you back to Himself, the cornerstone. And it looks like any other stone in the quarry. In a matter of days, after He speaks this parable, does He show them His glory. And it doesn’t look like glory, does it? It’s a weak, pierced, dead… Ashen corpse hanging upon a form of punishment reserved only for pedophiles, rapists, and murderers. Not for the Son of God who created the very people whom he came to redeem. Most missed it.
Don’t count yourself among those who missed it, do you? You got it. Marvel at that great gift that the Holy Spirit worked in your heart. Marvel that you see the cornerstone for what it is, the chief cornerstone. Marvel that you don’t reject it like these Pharisees and chief priests. Even though your mouth and my mouth have shouted, “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna! Blessed is he, blessed is he, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” yet out of the same mouth that speaks, “Hosanna,” do we speak ill things of other people, other people whom God has redeemed. Other people whom God loves and forgives as He loves and forgives us.
Marvel that He loves you so much. The word here in the Hebrew about being marveled literally means to be astounded, to think this can’t apply. There is no way that this should be, and yet it is. That’s what the Hebrew word there for marvel means. Amazing, mind-blowing, beyond any comprehension. It’s easy for you and me, because this is so familiar, to forget that by nature we are not a part of this. We were grafted in, like the wild vines, grafted into the chief vine, that we may produce good grapes, not wild ones, by nature. But ones that can only have been done through the one into whom we’ve been grafted, Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone.
Marvel that you and I, in the midst of a dead and damned dying world, have been given this, and we don’t know why. And you don’t have a reason why in your mind or in my mind that we can say, “Here’s why.” We, like the tax collector, can only beat our breast and say, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” How gracious and marvelous it is. That’s what Jesus wanted these chief priests to see, and they missed it. That’s what Jesus wanted these crowds to see. Most missed it. That’s what Jesus wishes you to see. And you get it? That’s amazing. That’s amazing.
And there are people that God has placed in your life who rub you the wrong way. And he wishes you to bring that same mercy to them. And there are people in your life that make it very difficult to forgive and to love, and he brings them into your life to do so. For your sake! And for their sake, if they wish to receive it. But for your sake. Marvel at that kind of love. And just as he used sinful parents to bring you, a sinner, to Christ… and just as he used sinful pastors, and sinful teachers, and sinful Sunday school teachers, and sinful relatives to bring you to Christ, he uses you, a lost and condemned person.
Marvel. Marvel. Marvel indeed, for it is marvelous in your and my eyes of such mercy, such abounding, steadfast love. Our Father is not a crazy fool. Our Father is one who sent his Son for such as we. Wow! In the name of Jesus, whom the Father sent, cast out of the vineyard, and yet crucified for us, bringing us the vineyard indeed. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. To life everlasting. Amen.
