Mark 12:1-12 So That We Might Live and Be Sent By Him

The Text

Mark 12:1-12 (CSB)
¹ He began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug out a pit for a winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and went away.

² At harvest time he sent a servant to the farmers to collect some of the fruit of the vineyard from them.

³ But they took him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed.

⁴ Again he sent another servant to them, and they hit him on the head and treated him shamefully.

⁵ Then he sent another, and they killed that one. He also sent many others; some they beat, and others they killed.

⁶ He still had one to send, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

⁷ But those tenant farmers said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’

⁸ So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

⁹ What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill the farmers and give the vineyard to others.

¹⁰ Haven’t you read this Scripture: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

¹¹ This came about from the Lord and is wonderful in our eyes?”

¹² They were looking for a way to arrest him but feared the crowd because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. So they left him and went away.

The Devotion

The people of Jesus' time loved it when Christ did something that would benefit them.

But if he did something that would hurt their wallets, livelihood, power, status, appearance, or their stony hearts, they wanted to kill him.

People have no issues with the prophet's God. That is until God commands his prophets to preach the good news to his people. His people, far from God and disobeying God, will hear the gospel and it would smell like death.

So much so that they will kill and destroy the prophets.

Luke 11:48-51 (CSB) Therefore, you are witnesses that you approve the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their monuments. Because of this, the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ so that this generation may be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world — from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. “Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible.

Christ is the Prophet. By his teaching, preaching, and his actions of love, healing, and deliverance, he would be murdered just because his very presence challenged and confronted and condemned are little mud-slum kingdoms of little power and little appearance and little wealth.

There are two ways to respond to Christ: trust and be saved. The other is reject him and be condemned. Ignorance is not a third way--ignoring is rejecting.

Do not reject Christ. Christ gives the gospel commands: repent of your little slum kingdom and your false god worship and your identity in something not Christ.