Mark 11:27-12:17
This is the part where I’m supposed to have some amazing introduction which will grab your attention and make you want to hear more. Well I don’t because actually I just want to get straight to what Jesus is saying tonight!
Tonight’s passage is thrilling because once again we’re reminded that we’re set free from the tyranny of being good enough. No, says Jesus, good works won’t save you, religion won’t save you, outward holiness won’t save you – but I can save you. I am the cornerstone, the foundation of the ultimate rescue plan.
The Lord has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes.
Great news! Let’s get stuck in to the passage!
1. Whose authority?
Jesus has been creating quite a stir – and this outside the “official” channels. It started off with his baptism at the hands of John the Baptist, who himself had created quite a stir outside the official channels, and continued with Jesus teaching with authority, forgiving sins, healing sickness, and casting out demons. In short, doing everything the promised Christ (rescuer, King, servant) would do.
Jesus was becoming a real headache to the leaders of Israel, both religious and civil. And now Jesus had come to their turf, to the heart of government, to the heart of their religious power: Jerusalem. And showed them up! Clearing the Temple, turfing out the money-changers and the merchants. How dare he! They earned a good living out of charging them rent in the Temple areas... never mind that that was forbidden by God....
They would dearly love to get rid of him – but Jesus was undeniably popular. A huge crowd had just welcomed him in, shouting praise, declaring him the Saviour King 11:9 “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”
King Herod had taken care of John the Baptist, but how to dispose of Jesus….
So they slither up to him to challenge him 11:27 And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him.
Did you notice who it is that’s coming to challenge him? the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.
The last time we saw all these together was in 8:31, the first time Jesus tells the disciples he is going to die, just after they have declared him as the Christ: And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.
And here they are, slithering in for the kill, like oily snakes. “Where’s your authority?” they demand. After all, he was a backwater prophet, from Nazareth no less, and they were the legitimate, God-ordained leaders of Israel.
But they had forgotten that they were leaders UNDER God. They were not a law unto themselves – they had to give an account to the owner (God) of the vineyard (Israel). They had forgotten where their own authority had come from. What right had they to turn the Temple into a den of thieves? What right had they to plot murder against the beloved son? What right had they to reject the word of the Lord, spoken through the mouth of the King, and try to take the vineyard for themselves?
Jesus’ question in verse 30 “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” is brilliant, because John’s authority and Jesus’ authority come from the same source: God Almighty. It is the owner of the vineyard who demands a return from the tenants. And so the “tenants” (elders, chief priests, and scribes) are now stuck – if they acknowledge John’s authority, they acknowledge God’s authority, and therefore Jesus’ authority over them.
Jesus exposes their heart problem – they do not want to listen to God. They do not want to obey him. Surrounded by the trappings of religion, being good Jews, the best of Jews, even; sacrificing daily, following the law slavishly – yet hating God.
They want to be God over God.
Oh, religious people are very good at this. It is so easy to fall into the trap of doing things for God so that God will owe you. We obey, not because we want to please God, not because we are saved by grace and rejoice in knowing our Heavenly Father – no, we obey because we want to earn a bank of credit with God, so that we can make him do things for us because now he owes us.
If you’re asking God for things and he’s GOT to do it – well, who’s really God?
That’s our problem of sin – we want to be God instead of letting God be God. We have swapped him out with us.
If we fall into that trap we, like the religious people in this story here, have forgotten the depth of our sin. We have forgotten that we are rebels against God, we are adulterers who have left our true spouse and gone running after other gods, a shameful state. We can never pay back the debt that we owe God, never mind him owing us.
We must not fool ourselves.
And if we are Christians, trusting in Christ alone and his grace alone for our salvation, well, we are double debtors – we are made by God and owe him everything, and rescued by God and owe him everything. What fools we are when we demand our “rights” from God. Have we forgotten that we already have been given every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph 1)? We have everything that could ever matter! What we moan and groan about are unimportant things, garbage that will be thrown on the fire.
And don’t be fooled by others, no matter how good or religious they may seem. There are plenty of “Christians”, even ministers, even in our little town, whose hearts are far from God while they pretend to serve in his name. Test everything against the words of the Bible. Do not be fooled.
And fear God rather than man. How often are we, as Christians, more like the Pharisees than Jesus! Look at verse 32 – they were “afraid of the people”. No fear of God, but fear of man. Proverbs tells us that fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Fear of man, by contrast, is foolishness.
So we are forced to ask: Do I trust God enough to fear him, to obey him? Do I trust him to carry me through, no matter the consequences of standing for him?
A couple of weeks ago I told you about Asif, a Pakistani Muslim who became a Christian, and laid everything on the line for Jesus. He lost his home, he was poisoned, he was beaten and left for dead. Yet he does not fear man, and keeps holding out the message of life and forgiveness even to those who are beating him. What a crown of glory awaits Asif! What an example for us.
Do not fear, but pick up your cross and follow Jesus, into your workplace, into your family, into your friendships, wherever you may be. For we are under authority, and it is not our own, but it is the Lord Jesus. We belong to him.
“By whose authority do you do this?”
The authority of the King, the Lord of all, Jesus, the Christ.
2. The vineyard (a.k.a. the history of Israel)
12:1 [Then Jesus] began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed.
The history of Israel, the vineyard in this parable, reads like a tragedy of the worst kind. They had everything, given everything by a kind and generous ruler – yet they threw it all away, rebelling against the ruler and murdering his servants, his messengers bringing messages of peace.
The parable of the vineyard is based on Isaiah 5:1-7 and Isaiah 5:7 puts it like this: For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!
he tenants (Israel’s leaders) rejected the warnings of the servants (the prophets) treating them shamefully, even murdering them.
John the Baptist, the greatest and last of the Old Testament prophets, was murdered by the king of Israel, King Herod.
6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.
8:31 And [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.
As Jesus tells the parable, you really feel the incredible stupidity of the tenants – do they really think they’ll get away with this? And why doesn’t the owner do anything?
It reflects so well the tension in the prophets between God’s extraordinary patience and the breathtaking stupidity of Israel’s persistently rebellious leaders who seek to take advantage of it. But remember Mark 1:2, quoting Malachi 3? Behold, I send my messenger before your face and it continues in Malachi - and the Lord whom you seek will come suddenly to his Temple. Be warned, the long-threatened judgment that marked the end of God’s patience has arrived: he will accomplish his purposes! The Lord has arrived at his Temple, and judgement will fall.
They want to kill the “beloved Son”. We’ve seen that phrase twice before in Mark’s gospel: “beloved Son” was used at his baptism, and his transfiguration. His baptism revealed him to be the King of God’s Kingdom, the transfiguration revealed him to be almighty God.
There are big echoes here of Psalm 2: the nations plotting against the anointed King, they want to reject him, to throw off his rule. Whose authority do you have, they sneer. They don’t want to obey. Let us kill him, they plot.
But they plot in vain, because the Lord in heaven laughs. What will the King do? He will terrify them in his wrath and curse the fig tree. He will cut them off from the land and destroy them.
9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.
Is 5:5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6 I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
They did not listen to their Elijah (John the Baptist) and the terrifying day of the Lord (as prophesied in Malachi) is at hand. The old order of Israel is about to be swept away, because they refuse to bow to the true King.
3. The new vineyard
9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this Scripture: “ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; 11 this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes’?”
Jesus quotes in v10 from Psalm 118:22-23 the same Psalm the crowd was quoting during the Triumphal entry (when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, being hailed as the King): Psalm118:26 “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”. Jesus is the fulfilment of this Psalm. He is the cornerstone of salvation, the gate of righteousness. In Hebrew the word stone is ʾeben- the word son is bēn. Jesus is the stone, the son of God, the cornerstone of the new people of God. For, unlike in Isaiah, did you notice, the vineyard is not destroyed in this parable, but given to others.
The “others” into whose care it is given are the Twelve, whose servant leadership must reflect the pattern of Jesus’ self-giving (10:42–45). Jesus is the basis of the new vineyard of Israel, the new Temple of God.
1 Pe 2:4–10 (ESV) As you come to [Jesus], a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” 7 So the honour is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
We are the new Israel, Jews and Gentiles together, under the King. We are God’s vineyard, his Temple, a holy nation and royal priesthood. What great news! It is marvellous in our eyes!
The priests and elders and scribes should be rejoicing, not plotting murder! They should repent and as Psalm 2 puts it “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry.”
But they don’t. They try to trap him v13. There is such irony in this interchange – just listen to what they say about Jesus: Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God.
They are being obsequious, flattering to deceive – but it’s true. And they, by contrast v12 “feared the people”.
But Jesus does not fear the people, but loves the people, even those trying to trap him, and tells the truth. We bear the imprint of our Creator, just like a coin bears the imprint of the emperor. The vineyard belongs to God, we belong to God, and therefore as we Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, let us also [render] to God the things that are God’s.
To sum up then,
The old corrupt order is being judged (they kill their own Messiah!). External religion, with its emphasis on outward appearance, doing good in order to win favour, and letting public opinion steer the truth (hmm, sounds like the church in the West today) is once again shown to be bankrupt, ruinous, and utterly opposed to the living God. You cannot be right with God by being good enough.
By contrast, the new order is rising, with Jesus as its cornerstone and foundation, his mercy and grace and self-sacrifice setting the standard for this new order: the church. We are a holy nation, a kingdom of priests – that is who we are, that is our identity- Let us live like it, by the grace of God. Let us remember that we belong to him, he owns us, we are twice bought, we owe Him everything.
Amen.
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