Rented Vineyard
Parable describing His death
In Matthew 21:33-46, Jesus shares the Parable of the Tenants to vividly illustrate the rejection and mistreatment of God’s messengers, culminating in the rejection and crucifixion of His own Son. In the story, a landowner carefully plants a vineyard and leases it to tenants, expecting them to care for it and give him his rightful share of the harvest. However, when the landowner sends servants to collect his due, the tenants respond with hostility, mistreating and even killing the servants. Finally, the landowner sends his beloved son, believing they will respect him, but the tenants kill the son as well, hoping to seize his inheritance for themselves. Jesus then explains that because of their unfaithfulness, the kingdom of God will be taken away from those tenants and entrusted to others who will genuinely produce its fruits. This powerful passage reveals God’s righteous judgment against those who reject His prophets and ultimately His Son. It also affirms Jesus as the indispensable cornerstone of God’s kingdom. Above all, this parable highlights the serious consequences of rejecting God’s authority, while extending a clear invitation to embrace His kingdom through sincere faith and obedient living.
(ai summarized)
“ “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. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 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.”
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’?
Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.”