We continue in our Daily Lessons from the last week of Jesus' life. Today's lesson comes from Mark 12 verse 7:
7 But those tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’
As Jesus taught in the Temple in that last week of his life, he told a parable to those around the courtyard, including the chief priests and Pharisees in charge of the Temple. It was a thinly disguised story designed to highlight the greed of the ruling class in Jerusalem, and God's patience in sending the prophets to try get them to change, culminating, finally, in the sending of His own Son.
There was a rich man, Jesus began, who planted a vineyard and built a fence around it to protect it. He leased the vineyard out to tenants and then went away to a distant land. When the time was right he sent back a servant to collect some of the fruits from he vineyard. But they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. So the owner of the vineyard sent another servant whom the tenants struck and abused. Then the owner sent another whom they killed. He sent many others, whom the tenants either beat or killed. Finally the vineyard owner decided to send his own son. "They will respect him," he thought. When the tenants saw that the master was sending his own son they decided to kill him also saying, "Come, let's kill the son so the inheritance will be ours." And so they did. They killed him, Jesus said.
"Now," Jesus asked his listeners, "when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" "He will put those wretches to a miserable death," they said.
My interpretation: Their conclusion to the story showed just how little they knew about the heart of God.
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