LANGUAGE:
The Spiritual Cornerstone Israel Rejected
(Mark 12:1-12; Matthew 21:33-46; Luke 20:9-18)
Our study today comes from Mark’s Gospel, chap 12, vs 1-12. We are in the last week of Jesus’s life on earth. His crucifixion is just two days’ way.
At the end of chap 11 Jesus was teaching in the temple court yard. We are told in v27 that the temple leadership composed of chief priests, scribes, and leading elders challenged Him as to what authority He had in doing these things, and who gave Him this authority to do these things? (emphasis added)
Presumably ‘these things’ take us back to v15ff where we are told that Jesus disrupted the temple economics by dumping money tables and setting sacrificial doves free. The court yard was in total confusion—feathers flying, turned over tables, broken crates, scattered money, yelling merchants, and a crowd transfixed by it all.
It is Passover time, and thousands were packed in the city streets. Presumably the temple court yard is packed. It was a mess, and the temple leadership seething in anger. When we come to chap 12, Jesus is in a heated discussion with the temple leadership. He tells them a story in which He makes it very clear to the Jewish leaders—because of their unbelief, they would be destroyed.
If you haven’t done so, open your Bibles, paper or electronic, to Mark 12, vs 1-12(GW). We’re going to read from the God’s Word translation.
1Using this story, Jesus spoke to them. He said, “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, made a vat for the winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to vineyard workers and went on a trip. 2“At the right time he sent a servant to the workers to collect from them a share of the grapes from the vineyard. 3The workers took the servant, beat him, and sent him back with nothing.
4So the man sent another servant to them. They hit the servant on the head and treated him shamefully. 5The man sent another, and they killed that servant. Then he sent many other servants. Some of these they beat, and others they killed. 6“He had one more person to send. That person was his son, whom he loved. Finally, he sent his son to them. He thought, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7“But those workers said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8So they took him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
9“What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the workers and give the vineyard to others. 10Have you never read the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 11The Lord has done this, and it is amazing for us to see’?” 12They wanted to seize Him but were afraid of the crowd, for they knew that He spoke the story against them. So they left Him alone and went away.
Understand, this is a really dramatic story. In it Jesus captures the evil murderous intentions of the spiritual leadership of Israel of that day, and, I might add, in a manner of speaking, the spiritual callousness of the people of our day, 2,000 plus years removed.
Let’s pause here for a brief moment and ask God for understanding. Heavenly Father, I ask that you help us to understand the pointedness of the story, and that we might hear from you, the living God, and not respond as the leadership of that day did. We ask this in Jesus’ great name. Amen.
As Jesus tells this story, He was surrounded by three growing emotional tornados—His popularity by the masses, the attacks of the demonic world, and the emotional jealous anger of the spiritual leadership.[i] As the final days of Jesus’ life unfold, the emotional jealous anger of the leadership outstrips His popularity and attacks from the demonic world. Because He was messing with their world, they wanted Him dead.
Now to the study . . . in the midst of the tensions, Jesus tells a very pointed story. What I want to do this morning is take a look at the story, then get a grip on Jesus’ wrap-up zinger, and then highlight a truth that is meant to shape our lives.
For most of us this story may seem somewhat out of place. As city dwellers we are far removed from an agricultural mindset. But like today, history tells us that much of the large farms in Jesus’ day were held by foreign investors and absentee landowners who leased out their property.[ii] As a side note, this kind of power and wealth continues today. For example, it’s common knowledge that Bill Gates is a mega-farm-land owner. He owns roughly 242,000 acres of farmland, yet he himself does not farm a stitch of it. All of it is managed and farmed by tenets. The point is, owning land is both power and wealth.
Now to Jesus’ story . . .
To put a perspective for us . . . According to VanArnam Vineyards, Wineries general don’t harvest grapes until after the 5th year of planting. Some wineries won’t use grapes from vines that are less than 10 years. [iii] So in our story the man in question has a substantial investment. He cleared the land, prepared the soil, built walls, and made a wine press. We’re talking years in the making.
Finally, appearing that everything was in good order and on the way to a good return, the landowner rented out his winery to people who presumably knew something about growing grapes, and then went on a journey[iv]
A considerable amount of time has passed. Perhaps five additional years pass, giving time for the grapes to mature. The owner sends to collect according to the contract.
And so it continues. The owner repeatedly sends for what is owed. The vine dressers wantonly beat and/or kill the messengers . . . presumably because the owner was far away, and they thought he was a weak and an out of touch landowner.
The application, as will be seen, captured the actions of Israel over the years. This wanton refusal of Israel to accept God’s message is steeped deep in history. For example Nehemiah 9:26 (NASB95) captures this wanton rebellion with these words: “’The people’ were disobedient and rebelled against God, casting God’s law behind their backs. They killed God’s prophets who had admonished them so that they might return, ‘and committed great blasphemies.[v] This wantonness is captured also in 2 Chronicles 36.
In context, it is believed that Isaiah was sawed in half with a wooden saw (Cf., Hebrews 11:37); Jeremiah was stoned death, Amos fled for his life, Zachariah was stoned (2 Chron 24), Micah was beaten in the face (1 Kings 22).[vi] So there is a rich history of wanton refusal to accept God’s messengers.
Exasperated the owner finally sends his son to collect what is owed. v7“But those vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ 8“They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.
The story takes us back to chap 1:10-11. Following Jesus’ baptism, a voice came out of the heavens—You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.
We can follow it up with John 3:16 (NASB95) “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son . . . 1 John 4:9 (NASB95) By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
Don't miss v8: They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. This was descriptive of what was to come in terms of Jesus’ death. The story is a graphic picture of what was to come, the unthinkable was done . . . God sent His Beloved Son, and they killed Him. After killing him, they throw his body out of the vineyard and left him unburied.
The chief priests, scribes, and elders, realized that they were the bad guys in the story. And so they left Jesus and went away. Not only did they know that they were the bad guys, most assuredly the words of Isaiah 5 were swirling around in their heads. They did know their Bibles. Isaiah points out in v7 that the house of Israel is the vineyard of the Lord of Host. The point is, it became clear to these guys exactly what Jesus was saying in the story. In context of Isaish 5 the vineyard is Israel, the owner is God, the servants are the prophets, and the son is Jesus.
As Alistair Begg so aptly states it: These fellows knew their Bible, and it is because they understood the Scriptures, that they are able to realize very quickly what Jesus is saying. He is not simply telling a story out of the blue, but He is actually employing a story that confronts them directly as to what they are doing.[vii] And they hated Him for it.
That brings us to Jesus’ ‘zinger application’.
You might ask what is a zinger? Zingers are generally pointed statements with a stinging effect, designed to pierce the dullness of the mind. The gospels are full of Jesus’ zingers designed to shock, surprise, implicate. Here Jesus’ zinger comes in v9. In response to the rebellious vine dresser’s actions He begins with a question: What will the owner of the vineyard do?
He doesn’t wait for an answer. He answers the question Himself--He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and give the vineyard to others. Suddenly the owner’s demur changes from apparent weakness and lackadaisicalness to one who exacts revenge.
Follow me closely now.
But there is more to Jesus’ zinger application . . . it’s not just the destruction of the rebellious vine-growers . . . but that the vineyard will be given to other caretakers. What does that mean? The answer comes in Matthew 21:43, “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a people who will bring forth the fruits God desires.” He is saying that God is going to raise up other custodians to shepherd His people, to care for His vineyard. There will come another kind of leadership who will give spiritual oversight to the vineyard of God.
V10 gives us clear insight as to God’s objective. ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone;
Jesus is not saying “I’ve rejected the Jews”. What He is saying, and you don’t want to miss this: God is rejecting all who stumble over His Son, Jesus.
In Peter’s first letter, chap 2, he talks about this— Jesus as a living stone, choice and precious in the sight of God, has been rejected by men . . . has become a stumbling block because the people of the world are disobedient to God’s word.
Alistair Begg sums it up well when he says, They’re offended by Jesus in a way that they’re not offended by Buddha or they’re not offended by Krishna. They’re just offended by Jesus because Jesus towers over the affairs of time. He stands there saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father [but by] me.”[Jn 14:6] He stands there saying, “I am God incarnate.” He stands there saying, “At my name, every knee will bow, and every tongue confess.”[Phil 2:10-11] He is a stone over which men and women stumble. They stumble! They cannot stand such a notion.[viii]
But as Followers of Jesus, we do not stumble. We trust His word. We follow Him. In doing so, we become a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God’s own possession, proclaiming the excellencies of Jesus who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people, once living with no mercy, but now we have receive God’s mercy (1 Peter 2:9-10).
This is where we will pause and see how Jesus story is meant to shape our thoughts, our lives. In this story He captures the sentiments of His times by relating a story about an absentee landlord’s problems with His rebellious tenants. Then He adds a twist to the story, and the leadership of the day realized that they were the evil rebellious tenants who refused and rejected His word because of their traditions, to be in-step with God.
Jesus’ story does more than condemn evil rebellious leaders living two thousand years back; it has relevant application to us today in the 21st century. David Garland writes: The story of God’s relationship with a disobedient and rebellious people has not changed much. The judgment that fell on the people of that day can fall on us if we fail in our stewardship responsibilities. It would do us well to analyze as to what areas we have failed to yield fruit for God, how we may have rejected and mistreated God’s servants (3 John 9–10), and how we continue to reject God’s Son (Heb. 6:6).[ix]
The story captures to a great extent our self-centered cutthroat world with no awareness of offending God. We live in a world where everyone seems to strive to dominate everything around them. They reject the reality that they are creatures of God who live in God’s vineyard,[x] and thereby miss the point that at some point God will do a vineyard call, asking for His due.
That’s the point Peter makes in his second letter where he writes: 3Know this first of all: In the last days people will come with scornfulness, following their own lusts, 4saying, “What’s happened to Jesus’ promise to return? Ever since our ancestors died, everything continues as it did from the beginning of the world.” 5They deliberately ignore this truth: that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and ‘it was’ 6by water the world long ago was destroyed, being flooded with water.
7But ‘know this’: by God’s word the present heaven and earth are designated to be burned. They are being kept ‘as its’ until the day ungodly people will be judged and destroyed.
9The Lord isn’t slow to do what he promised, as some people think. Rather, he is patient for your sake. He doesn’t want to destroy anyone but wants all people to have an opportunity to turn to him and change the way they think and act. 10The day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day heaven will pass away with a roaring sound. Everything that makes up the universe will burn and be destroyed. The earth and everything that people have done on it will be exposed.
11All these things will be destroyed in this way. So think of the kind of holy and godly lives you must live 12as you look forward to the day of God and eagerly wait for it to come. When that day comes, heaven will be on fire and will be destroyed. Everything that makes up the universe will burn and melt.
13But we look forward to what God has promised—a new heaven and a new earth—a place where everything that has God’s approval lives. 14Therefore, dear friends, with this to look forward to, make every effort to have him find you at peace, without ⌊spiritual⌋ stains or blemishes. 15Think of our Lord’s patience as an opportunity ⌊for us⌋ to be saved.
And that my friends is absolutely true.
Let’s close in prayer: Gracious Father, thank you for sending your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, our compassionate Savior, who wept over Jerusalem, who weeps now over all those who resent and reject Him. What kind of God dies in order that we might live? What kind of Savior who heals by taking our sins upon himself? Father, open our eyes, that we might see ourselves in the Bible and then see Jesus as our only Savior. And help us, Lord, not to react as these religious leaders did. From whatever background, whatever gender, whatever culture, whatever ethnicity, in whatever time frame—“whoever acknowledges Jesus as Savior will not perish at the judgment but have eternal life”[John 3:16] now and forever more. Now may the grace, mercy, and peace of our God settle over us, making a way for us this week chaos, and give us the confidence to speak into the lives of the people who live near us.
Amen
Well, as you go this week, remember . . . the issue Jesus had with the spiritual leadership of His day was that they had become so self-centered that the message of God was cast away. Our job is to bring that message back into focus, announcing to everyone everywhere that today is the day of salvation. As the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 95, Today, if only you would hear his voice, Do not harden your hearts (vs7-8).
Let’s proclaim to our chaotic world, that we can have peace with God when we acknowledge the truth about our sins to Him. A s we are told in Romans 10:9, 11 if we confess with our mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved. For the Bible says, whoever believes in Jesus will not be disappointed.
That’s all for today. Don’t forget, In the midst of the swirling difficulties, God is walking with you.
[i] Cf., Mark 1:21-27; 2:5-13; 3:6
[ii] Nick Estes, Bill Gates is the biggest private owner of farmland in the United States. Why?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/05/bill-gates-climate-crisis-farmland The billionaire media mogul Ted Turner epitomizes such disparities. He owns 2m acres and has the world’s largest privately owned buffalo herd. Those animals, which are sacred to my people and were nearly hunted to extinction by settlers, are preserved today on nearly 200,000 acres of Turner’s ranchland within the boundaries of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty territory in the western half of what is now the state of South Dakota, land that was once guaranteed by the US government to be a “permanent home” for Lakota people.
[iii] https://www.vanarnamvineyards.com/Wine-Wednesday-03-06-19 Dr. Vinny, How Long Does It Take A New Vineyard To Yield Grapes? https://www.winespectator.com/articles/how-long-does-it-take-a-new-vineyard-to-yield-grapes
[iv] Cf., Mark 13:34; Matthew 25:14, 15
[v] 2 Chronicles 36:15–16 (NASB95)15The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; 16but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, until there was no remedy.
[vi] John MacArthur, The Rejected Cornerstone (Mark 12:1-12), https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/41-60/the-rejected-cornerstone. What did Israel do with the prophets? Well, they rejected them. They mistreated them. They beat them, wounded them, heaped shame on them, threw them out and murdered them. That’s what they did. That’s their history. The history of Israel is filled with the mistreatment of God’s prophets.
Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho accuses the Jews of sawing Isaiah in half with a wooden saw. There’s a reference to the sawing in half of a faithful man in Hebrews 11:37, very likely Isaiah, faithful prophet, and they sawed him in half. Jeremiah, constantly mistreated, thrown into a pit – you can read that in Jeremiah. And tradition says that in the end Jeremiah was also stoned to death. So when Jesus described them stoning the slaves that came, they might well remember the stoning of Jeremiah.
Ezekiel faced exactly the same hatred. Amos had to flee for his life. Zachariah was rejected and, according to 2 Chronicles 24, he also was stoned. Micah was beaten in the face, according to 1 Kings 22. This is a uniform hostility directed at the prophets. The amount of hostility varied, expressed itself in different ways; but on a whole, it increased, it escalated, it escalated, it escalated all the way down to John the Baptist; and even he had his head chopped off.
[vii] See Alistair Begg, This Is About Us!, (Mark 12:1-12) https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/sermon/about-us/
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] David E. Garland, Mark, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 458.
[x] Ibid., p459.