Matthew 21:42

“Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’”?

The Cornerstone that Jesus is referring to is, of course, himself.

I pick up the story where the evil tenants kept killing the people sent by the landowner because the wicked tenants did not want to part with the harvest that was legally the landowner’s. Instead of doing the right thing the tenants who had charge of the harvest killed or mistreated everyone the owner sent to collect his rightful due.

The landowner was desperate so instead of sending yet another servant to collect what was his legal due, he decided to do an unexpected thing – send not another servant but his own son, the heir to all he had. When the son of the landowner appeared they did to him what they did to all whom the landowner sent, they killed him on the spot.

At this point in the story Jesus stopped and asked his hearers what the owner should do with these evil tenants.  With one voice they said, “He will bring these wretches to a wretched end.”  v 41 Ouch!  They just condemned themselves because this is exactly the way they treated Jesus, God’s Son, the One who told the story.  What in a few days will they do with Jesus?  As in Jesus’ story about the way the landowner treated those who murdered his son they themselves did.  “They  took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.” v 39  In this story Jesus announcing his death on the cross outside Jerusalem. His condemners are there before him. But the story of the landowners son goes on.   Unexpectedly the landowner himself comes to his farm. When he arrived and saw the situation he was irate, of course.  He did what Jesus’ hearers felt was just – he had the tenants arrested and put into prison.

I think the way the tenants treated the son is the heart of the parable. The son was killed simply because he was sent by his father to receive his father’s legal portion of the proceeds.

They did not believe, for a moment, that Jesus is God’s Son. Jesus saw this clearly and so told another story – it had to do with constructing an arch that was ready for the capstone to tie it all together. The builders had thrown aside a rather strange shaped stone. To their amazement, they found that the stone they laid aside was actually the only one so shaped that it fit as the corner stone!

At this point Jesus said, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.” v 43

The chief priests and Pharisees knew one thing, Jesus was describing them!  They felt compelled to kill him as was the fate of the son in the story.  They would manage to do it.  The cross loomed closer and closer.