Mark 11:27-12:12
I heard that Ronny brought a great message last week, beautifully tying together the cursing of the fig tree and the overturning of the tables in the temple. It is Tuesday of Holy Week, and Jesus is back in Jerusalem, and right back in the same location that He was flipping the tables. The religious leaders are waiting for Him this time, and we see a confrontation that leads to more desire on their part to be rid of Jesus.
Read Mark 11:27-33
1.. The Authority of Jesus Comes from God
I’m just imagining the anger coming through these questions. It’s almost as if they are saying, “who do you think you are?!” “By what authority are you doing these things?!”
“These things” can be any of the miracles that have been witnessed up to this point, the eating with sinners, the association with Samaritans and tax collectors, but more specifically and immediately, “these things” could very well have been Jesus allowing the crowds to yell, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” These things could have been the scene that Jesus caused just the day before. Either way, the leaders were so frustrated that they just had to know. And I don’t think it was a genuine desire for knowledge. I think they were challenging Jesus and trying to back Him into a corner somehow. By the way, these religious leaders are better known as the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was made up of the high priest and chief priests, scribes, and some elders. This is how I will refer to the religious leaders for the rest of the morning.
And in the perfect wisdom of God, Jesus throws this loaded question back at them. And while at first glance it may seem like a diversionary tactic, the very question that Jesus asks contains the answer. And here’s the question in essence:
Was John the Baptist baptizing by the authority of God, or by his own authority? Had he been sent and commissioned by God to do these things? Or had he gained popularity by putting on a show, using his own abilities to inspire change in people?
And here’s the ironic thing. The baptism of John was the very thing that demonstrated who gave him the authority! Remember when Jesus was baptized? What happened? The heavens opened up, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, and God the Father spoke. It is here that God confirms Jesus as His Son, and affirms the ministry of John the Baptist. So the question that Jesus asks contains the very answer that He is looking for!
But this question also creates quite the conundrum for the Sanhedrin. It’s a lose-lose situation for them. And it’s explained right here in our text.
If they say that John got his authority from God, then that would validate the message of repentance and the kingdom of God that John was preaching. It would also validate Jesus as the Messiah, because John recognized Jesus as the Messiah. But, there was a huge following of John the Baptist. Many believed him to be a prophet, so if they said that John got his authority from his own power, they would be denying his message, and therefore creating an issue with the crowds who were there. And what is the best way forward when there is no “right” answer? Just keep your mouth shut. And this is exactly what they do.
And so Jesus is like, “if you don’t answer me, then I won’t answer you!” In other words,” if you won’t recognize my authority, then I have nothing to offer you!”
Application
And again, we must be confronted with the same thoughts. By what authority does Jesus perform miracles? By what authority does Jesus teach? Is He simply a great teacher, a great orator, but fully man? If so, then he speaks on the same authority as every other great person who has ever lived. But, if He is in fact God in flesh, then the authority by which He lived is divine in nature, meaning, every word that came out of His mouth is true and trustworthy. Every way that He interacted with people was pure and perfect. And every letter in the words that are written about Him should drive us to emulate Him in our lives. His perfect God-given authority is the authority that we submit our lives under. But, the Sanhedrin were not willing to submit.
So, Jesus refuses to answer their question and backs them into a corner, turning to a story that would further alienate them, and fuel the flame of hatred that had been growing in them.
Jesus is about to use a parable to place further emphasis on the point he is making. A parable is a story that Jesus would use to illustrate truth. Quite literally, if you break up the word you have the prefix “para” which means “alongside of,” and you have the verb “bole” which means “to throw.” So a parable was “thrown alongside of” a truth that Jesus was trying to communicate.
Read Mark 12:1-12
2.. Unbelief Leads to Rejection
For the Sanhedrin, and others who were present, their minds would have immediately gone to Isaiah 5 in which God compares the nation of Israel to a vineyard. “I have made a vineyard for my beloved. I have cleared the stones from the earth. I have planted, pruned, and nurtured, but my people allowed this vineyard to grow wild grapes, to go unattended and become desolate.” Jesus uses this passage from Isaiah and builds on it.
Another piece of context that is helpful: owning land and hiring tenants was common practice then. The tenant farmers would be expected to pay anywhere from 25-50% of the profits to the land owner when the season of harvest was complete.
Because of this context, any Jewish listener would have been able to put the pieces together and understand what Jesus was saying. This is why at the end it says that they “perceived that He had told the parable against them.” But, we don’t live in the same context, and I don’t want to assume that we all have Isaiah 5 memorized like they might have, so I want to break it down for us this morning.
We have different characters and parts of the story that equate to a real person or group of people:
Owner of the Vineyard - God the Father
The Vineyard - Israel
Tenants - Jewish Religious Leaders
Landowner’s Servants - Prophets and priests who were faithful to Israel and to God
The Son - Jesus
The Others to Whom the Vineyard was given - The Gentiles
What Jesus is essentially saying is that God made a covenant with a nation, Israel. They are the vineyard that he created and wanted to protect and grow. They were represented by priests and kings, and eventually the Sanhedrin. All along the way, God sent prophets, his messengers. But they were rejected, over and over again. In God’s patience and long-suffering, he continued to send them. Why? Because He loved His people and He is a God who keeps His promises. He made a covenant with them, so He was going to do whatever He could to make sure His people remained in fellowship with Him.
And so He continued to send the prophets. But the leaders of Israel continued to reject the messengers, therefore rejecting the One who sent them. Finally, God sends His heir, Jesus. In hopes that the family name would mean something, would actually provide sufficient credentials…but even the divine family name was rejected. They conspired with one another, and killed Him.
Jesus is calling out the Pharisees for a few different things here:
A.. They rejected God’s appointed messengers
Over and over God sent people to help Israel. In the form of priests, judges and kings. Time after time those people would fail in leading the people in obedience towards God, forsaking true worship for false gods, breaking covenant with God. So God started sending them prophets. Men commissioned by God to bring a specific message to Israel.
Matthew 23:29-31: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.”
But here’s the thing about God. He is long-suffering. He endured rejection and disobedience over and over, and kept sending prophets, kept trying to get His message across. And they rejected them, and beat them, and killed them. But God continued to send them. But then He had had enough. So He decided it was time to send His Son, His only heir. And what did they do?
B.. They rejected Christ
Even the One who bore the name of His Father was not enough for them. Rather than recognizing Him as the rightful heir to the throne, they rejected Him, killed Him, and threw His body out of the vineyard. And this was the biggest tragedy of them all!
And as a result of all of this, they have lost out on the eternal inheritance. Now, what Jesus is not saying is that ALL of the Jewish people will miss out. He does say that salvation will be given to the Gentiles also, but in the context of our passage, remember that the tenants are the religious leaders, not all of Israel.
And in one final emphasis, Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22-23. He starts with what would have been a slap in their faces. “Have you not read?” Of course they had read! They flaunted their knowledge of the Scriptures!
3.. The Rejected One Became the Cornerstone
The practice of a stonemason would have been to take a stone, examine the stone, and determine if it was good enough to be used. If a flaw was found, they would toss the stone aside. What Jesus is saying is that, after careful examination, the religious leaders have determined that Jesus is to be tossed aside. But in fact He would become the cornerstone, the most important stone in any building. It is the stone that supports all the others. Everything is built on it as the foundation. It holds the weight of the entire building.
Application
And this is Jesus! Rejected, tortured, killed, resurrected and seated at the right hand of God. He is the stone on which the global church is built. He is the stone on which our faith stands. He is the foundation of our lives. And my prayer for all of us this morning is that we can confidently say that Yes! Jesus is the foundation on which I build my life. I read His teachings and try to live by them. I read about how he interacted with people, and I try to live in the same way. I read about His supremacy, and I bow before it. I experience His sacrificial love, so I love sacrificially. If we, fellow Christians, if we, church, lived like this, the world would not have an excuse against us, but would instead be captivated by something that is different.
Unfortunately for the Sanhedrin, they saw the truth, and were unwilling to accept it. I pray that we would not do the same.
