Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
In Mark 12:1, Jesus begins to teach the religious leaders about the use and abuse of authority: “And He began to speak unto them by parables: ‘A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat [winepress], and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.’” Anyone familiar with the Old Testament would have understood that the “certain man” was God and that the “vineyard” was the nation of Israel. Isaiah 5:1-7 uses the same imagery: verse 7a says specifically, “For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel.” Jesus is thus providing an incisive answer to the challenge of the leaders regarding His authority (Mark 11:27-33). For all their failings, the religious establishment did know the Old Testament in detail. Thus, they would have known that Jesus was appealing to Scripture for His authority. This was a much more powerful source than that of the religious elites, who used manmade traditions and interpretations. Furthermore, Jesus was pointing them to the absolute authority of God the Father, a point that He will build on throughout the parable. The contrast between His appropriate use of authority and their misuse of it becomes increasingly obvious as He fills out the story.