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.)
We return to Jesus’ parable about God the Father and His “vineyard” Israel (Mark 12:1-5). In verses 6-8, He speaks of Himself: “Having yet therefore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also unto them, saying, ‘They will reverence my son! But those husbandmen said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.’ And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.” Remember, these leaders (the “husbandmen”) knew that the Old Testament promised a Messiah (“the heir”). In fact, the passage that we referenced last week, Isaiah 5:1-7, even uses the term “wellbeloved” twice in verse 1. No one standing there could miss Jesus’ point: He was the prophesied Messiah. How would the religious leaders deal with Him, the fulfillment of God’s promises? They would treat Him as they had dealt with the prophets before Him. Specifically, they would “kill” Him. The fact that Jesus knew of their evil desires and wicked plans should have brought immediate conviction upon them. However, their hearts had been hardened through their many years of the exercise of abusive authority, and they refused God’s gift. Their refusal was as absolute as possible, for they killed the Promised One – the One for Whom they said they were looking. Less than a week after this encounter with Jesus, they would crucify Him. Even as they were carrying out the details of Jesus’ parable, they would not see that their actions were an abuse of authority, and they would not see that His authority was completely different from theirs. Their response to Jesus remains one of the sorriest examples of man’s sin nature possible.