Mark 12:1-12

Notes
Transcript

Verses 1-8

The Vineyard is a picture of Israel (God’s people) many times in the OT, Deuteronomy 32, Psalm 80, Jeremiah 2, and the most widely acknowledged passage from Isaiah 5
Isaiah 5:1–7 ESV
1 Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? 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. 7 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!
Leasing to other vinedressers - This speaks of the way that God turned the Spiritual leadership over from the corrupt chief priests, scribes and elders who had misrepresented God and refused the prophets and worse their promised Messiah over first to the Apostles and then the church made up of both Jew and Gentile.
The children of Israel had as you know from our Wednesday night study through the OT a reputation for disregarding and killing the prophets that God had graciously sent to them.
Jeremiah 7:25–26 ESV
25 From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. 26 Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.
Jeremiah 25:4 ESV
4 You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the Lord persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets,

Verses 9-11

Jesus gives them a sincere and straightforward warning of what will be the result of their rejection of Him.
Have you not read?
This statement would have infuriated the chief priests, scribes and elders because thats all they did. They read the scriptures and argued or debated them all day.
So when Jesus says “have you not read” they would think of course we have read, and not only that we have already determined the meaning of that passage and we do not want to listen to some itinerant (traveling) Rabbi (teacher) who has a bunch of rag tag disciples around Him. We especially do not want to hear from the guy who keeps challenging our authority and making us look bad and lose our grip on the people.
Notice what Jesus is quoting from when He asks them “Have you not read this Scripture”
It is a quote from Psalm 118 which should be familiar to you from 3 weeks ago when we covered Jesus triumphal entry on the colt of a donkey in the first part of chapter 11 on the day the church traditionally calls Palm Sunday.
If you remember this is a Psalm known as one of the songs of ascent that the people would sing on their way up to Jerusalem. The people had actually already sung part of this to or about Jesus when He came riding in on the donkey on Palm Sunday. Only then they sang verses 25-26, and here Jesus takes these priests, scribes and elders back a couple more verses…
Psalm 118:22–29 ESV
22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 23 This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. 24 This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. 25 Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! 26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord. 27 The Lord is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar! 28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you. 29 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!
Who were the builders referred to here?
Peter has the answer - After Peter and John were arrested for the healing of the lame beggar at the gate beautiful in Acts 3 they are questioned about the authority they had to do such a thing by the religious leaders. His answer…
Acts 4:8–12 ESV
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. 11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Since we know the builders are the very guys that Jesus is speaking to (chief priests, scribes, elders) We now need to look at why Jesus called Himself the cornerstone. What was the significance of that statement especially to that particular group of religious leaders and experts in the scriptures?
A cornerstone is the rock that the whole building is built around. It’s the very stone that sets the direction for the entire building project. It is the 1st stone that is set in place. The placement of the cornerstone dictates where every other stone in the construction of a building would be placed.
Notice also how it continues - “this was the Lord’s doing, and it was marvelous in our eyes’?”
This prophetic Psalm that spoke about the person and work of Jesus the Messiah was the Lord’s doing, not man’s. And since it was the Lord’s doing it was not going to be undone by the work or opinions of man.
We have a person right now in this community that we have always been very gracious to try and help answer every question they’ve asked us about Jesus or the Scriptures. They have bounced around to many different beliefs over the time that we have known them, and most recently have decided that they do not believe the clear teaching even from Jesus Himself that He is the Messiah (the cornerstone that was rejected). So much so that they have begun to send messages to us with video links trying to show us that Jews today still don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
Does their unbelief and rejection undo what God has already declared and accomplished regarding Jesus the only begotten Son of God being the cornerstone?
NO! Of course not. - We will always encounter people that do not believe, but their unbelief does not and cannot undo what God has so graciously done for us through His only begotten Son Jesus Christ our Savior and the promised Messiah for the world.
Well, it was the same way then as Jesus spoke these words to the chief priests, scribes, and elders. Their rejection could never undo what God did. In fact it seems the only correct response for us to have is that we marvel at God’s plan of redemption and salvation.
Think about this. Jesus has told His disciples 3 times already how He was going to Jerusalem and be rejected and die and rise again on the 3rd day. The rejection of the Jewish religious leaders will lead to them paying Judas Iscariot 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus into their hands. Those same Jewish religious leaders will send temple guards to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and lead Jesus to those same religious leaders, where they will hold 2 separate illegal trials by night in which they will show their ultimate rejection of Jesus. They will then turn Jesus over to Pontius Pilate for him to exercise the death penalty upon Jesus that the Jews had lost the legal right to exercise. Jesus would then be tried by both Pilate and Herod and eventually would be given the death penalty by Pilate as Pilate caves to the shouting mobs of religious Jews you screamed out “Crucify Him”.
So that is the rejection of the stone (Jesus)
The very fact that Jesus rose again on the 3rd day just as He promised multiple times was the proof that He was the cornerstone.
Do you see it?
This was the Lords doing all along...
Genesis 3:14–15 ESV
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
From the time Adam and Eve brought sin into this world that God created by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there was already a plan in place from before the very foundations of the world were laid and before Adam was created to bring redemption and salvation to sinful humanity.
This is why it is marvelous in our eyes. It is far too wonderful for us not to marvel at.
The Apostle Paul told us that we are to measure our lives off of Jesus Christ the cornerstone that was rejected.
Ephesians 2:13–22 ESV
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
Likewise Peter also wrote.
1 Peter 2:4–10 ESV
4 As you come to him, 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 honor 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 marvelous 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.
God’s great plan for redemption and salvation through Christ was dependent upon Him being rejected all along.

Verses 12

They were seeking to arrest Him … and prove the parable to be true.
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