Holy Week | Tuesday
The Tuesday of Holy Week was a day of rebellion against the King.
33 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. 34 When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35 And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46 And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.
Matthew 21: 33-46 (ESV)
Tuesday of Holy Week is the day Jesus goes to the temple to teach - and the scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees are waiting for him with all their naked hostility.
They challenge him by saying things like “By what authority are you doing these things?” and “Who gave you this authority?” They try to get him into political trouble by asking the question “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar?” And they try to make him look foolish by asking about a hypothetical woman married in succession to several different men: “Whose wife will she be in heaven?” In each case they are befuddled by his wise and measured replies.
Then it’s Jesus’ turn to expose their hostility to him as hostility toward God, and as simply the final culmination of hundreds of years of rebellion against God by his own people. He does this with a story of a wealthy landowner who planted a vineyard and built a winery, and then leased it to others for development into a profitable business. The story takes a bizarre turn, though, when the owner sends his stewards to collect his fees, and they are one by one abused and even murdered by the tenants. The story culminates with the landowner sending his own son to collect what is due him and the tenants then plotting to kill his son in order to lay claim on the land and business for themselves. This rebellion is not only wicked, but it is irrational and delusional - and that is the point.
Of course, Jesus is depicting a long history of Israel’s poor treatment of the prophets that God himself, depicted by the landowner, had sent to call them to the obedience owed to him. And very dramatically, Jesus is putting himself into the story, identifying himself as the son of God and foretelling what the insane rebellion of the Jewish leaders would lead them to do to him in just a few days’ time. The words of verse 39 convey well what is about to happen in our Lord’s arrest and trial and execution, at the instigation of the Jews.
Notice that Jesus doesn’t finish the story: he calls for his hearers to finish it for him. By asking them what they thought the landowner would do to such wicked tenants, and hearing their reply in verse 41, he is indicting the leaders of the Jews for his own murder, in advance of the crime. And he is foretelling what the rest of the New Testament testifies to: that God’s response to the rejection of his Son by the Jewish people would be to turn to the Gentiles with the offer of the gospel and the blessings of Christ’s reign.
For Discussion and Meditation:
When you think of the Tuesday of Holy Week, you should think of the outright rebellion against the King that continues to this day.
Of course, in our land there are many who adopt more of a condescending than hostile posture toward Christ. This is considered a more fitting response to religion by many of the more intellectual versions of unbelief. For many, the kingship of Christ is rather to be smiled at than railed against.
But this would appear to be changing in many quarters of our society. As we see the commandments of Christ’s Word becoming increasingly unpopular, we are also seeing a more unguarded hostility to his followers, and to Christ himself.
It is interesting that the gospel writers make no effort to hide the fact that Jesus was rejected by his own people. Indeed, they seem to want to magnify it. It’s as if they want to hold it up like a mirror for mankind to see itself in. And they want to present a warning to rebels against Christ’s reign: the day is coming when he will return, like the owner of the vineyard, and “put those wretches to a miserable death.” Better, therefore, to do as Psalm 2 bids us to do: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way.”
