Read Matthew 21:33-46
Don’t Reject The Stone.
Jesus tells another parable to the chief priests and Pharisees as a way of confronting them for not recognizing himself as being the Son Of God, the Chosen One.
The parable is about a landowner who had started a wine press business. He rented it out to some vine growers and then went on a journey. At harvest time, the landowner sent three slaves to collect his produce. But the vine growers beat one of the slaves and killed the other two. So the landowner sent a larger group of slaves and they did the same to them. The landowner then sent his son thinking, surely they will respect him. But when the vine growers saw the son, they killed him in order to receive his inheritance. Jesus asked the chief priests and Pharisees, when the landowner comes to the vine growers what will he do to them? They replied, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end….”
Jesus then spoke to them on how there has been generations of Chief priests and Pharisees who have mistreated and killed the prophets who prophesied of the coming Savior. Even they themselves have rejected the stone mentioned in Psalms 118:22. Meaning they actually have rejected the Messiah himself, meaning Jesus. Jesus tells them they will not enter the kingdom of heaven because of their wretched behavior.
The chief priests and Pharisees became furious of Jesus and his words, and wanted to seize him but feared the crowd who saw Jesus as a prophet.
To the chief priests and Pharisees, Jesus “interfered” with their plans. They wanted control! They wanted to be seen as the leaders that influenced people. They wanted the power and attention. As a result they rejected Jesus, the cornerstone, and wanted to get rid of him / kill him.
As cruel as that may sound, today we aren’t much different. Sometimes we want to be in control of OUR lives. We have PLANS for our own lives. We see the Lord as “interfering” with our plans and desires. Like the chief priests and Pharisees we want to get rid of Jesus by pushing him aside from our hearts so we can make our own decisions for our lives. In front of others, we may come across as being very religious individuals, but in our hearts we have rejected Jesus and are living our lives how we want to and not as God wants us to. Lord help us not reject you in our hearts and minds!
