Holy Week Teaching
Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.
Matthew 21:42
After His Triumphal Entry and before the evening of Holy Thursday when Jesus gathered with the disciples to celebrate the Passover Feast, lots and lots of things happened that are so significant, but we tend to overlook them, at least in the context of Holy Week, because the week is so full.
Please take out your Bible and look at Matthew. At the beginning of chapter 21, Jesus enters Jerusalem on the donkey. In chapter 26 He shares the Passover Feast with the disciples. Matthew dedicates over five chapters to describe the events between the Triumphal Entry and that Passover Feast known as the Last Supper. Five full chapters of Jesus teaching in Jerusalem. I encourage you to read the chapters, picturing Jesus in Jerusalem, teaching the people He knows will soon kill Him.
Shortly after arriving in Jerusalem, Jesus makes His final pleas to the crowd. He explains that He would soon be crucified (see John 12:32-33). And He urges the crowd to believe in Him. He cries out in a loud voice saying,
“Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. John 12:44-46
Jesus explains to the crowd that He is God. “Whoever sees me sees him who sent me.” God the Father sent Jesus. Jesus is God.
Jesus turns His attention to the religious system of the day. He attacks the system and practices of worship, and the businesses that have been established in the name of promoting worship. He forces out of the temple the people who were profiting from people’s desire to offer sacrifices to God. Then, attacking the spiritual condition of Israel, He sees a fig tree covered with leaves but bearing no fruit, and He curses the fig tree for its emptiness. Jesus was saying the religious system of Israel at the time had the appearance of fruitfulness but bore no fruit.
He continued condemning religious leaders through parables. He condemned them for failing to see what was happening around them, failing to listen, failing to believe. After the first parable, the Parable of the Two Sons, Jesus says,
“Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him. Matthew 21:31-32
It is interesting to note that Jesus began His ministry preaching a message of repentance saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). The Greek word translated as “repent” means to change one’s mind or purpose. The Hebrew word translated as “repent” means to turn back or return. Jesus began His ministry encouraging listeners to change their minds and purposes, to return to God, because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And now, during His final barrage of teaching, He points out their unwillingness to change their minds, to repent.
The starting point for repentance is the realization that we need help. We are sinners. In our natural state we are hopelessly separated from God, yet if we are unable to see our separation from Him, if we are unable to see sin for what it is we will easily convince ourselves that we are in a good place, even when we are not. The religious leaders saw themselves as the holiest people around, as holders of God’s law, His representatives, the chosen, the elect, the heirs to the covenant. They simply could not see the truth as He stood in front of them.
I pray we are not following in their footsteps.
Jesus then returns to the concept of the fig tree and its fruitfulness, expressing judgment of the religious leaders for their lack of fruitfulness. He begins by telling another parable, the Parable of the Tenants, which is structured and worded leaning heavily on Isaiah 5. The first century scholars of God’s holy word undoubtedly saw and understood the reference.
Let’s begin by considering Isaiah 5. God expresses love for His vineyard. He carefully tended, maintained, cultivated, and invested in the vineyard, yet the vines produced wild or worthless or bitter or bad fruit. The vines were not barren, but the fruit was of no value. In response to the undesirable harvest, God removed His protection from the vineyard, stopped maintaining it, stopped blessing it with rain, and allowed it to be overgrown with weeds.
This is an image of God’s judgment revealing itself through His letting go. He relinquishes the people to pursue their un-Godly desires, and He removes His blessing from them. Isaiah 5 begins saying,
Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry! Isaiah 5:1-7
The vineyard is Israel and the nation’s people are His planting. The fruit God seeks are justice and righteousness, but He finds bloodshed and cries of anguish.
With this background, let’s consider the Parable of the Tenants. Jesus says,
“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.” Matthew 21:33-41
The master carefully tended and maintained the vineyard, and built a watchtower to protect it, and a winepress make use of the fruit it would produce, and then entrusted others as stewards over it. The imagery and wording are strikingly similar to Isaiah 5, but here the stewards are the people of Israel who killed God’s prophets and His Son.
After telling the parable, Jesus quotes Psalm 118. Matthew writes,
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’? Matthew 21:42
Jesus quotes Psalm 118:21-22. Let’s back up and consider the context of the Psalm by reading a few additional verses surrounding Jesus’ quote. Beginning at verse 17, the psalmist writes,
I shall not die, but I shall live,
and recount the deeds of the Lord.
The Lord has disciplined me severely,
but he has not given me over to death.
Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord;
the righteous shall enter through it.
I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
This is the Lord's doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Save us, we pray, O Lord!
O Lord, we pray, give us success!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
We bless you from the house of the Lord. Psalm 118:17-26
Earlier in His ministry, Jesus described Himself as the gate, saying those who enter through Him will be saved and will go in and out to good pasture (see John 10:9). The psalmist prays for the Lord to open the gates of righteousness so that he might enter to where the Lord is, and then the psalmist thanks God for answering his prayer. The Lord lifts the lowest stones rejected – those rejected by others – transforming them into the loftiest of His workmanship, the cornerstone.
In the context of this psalm of praise and thanksgiving, combined with the context of Holy Week, we see Jesus as the stone rejected by the leaders of His day, and exalted by God the Father to the highest possible glory.
Speaking to the religious leaders, Jesus continues saying,
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. Matthew 21:42-46
The leaders knew Jesus was talking about them. They knew Jesus condemned them, but they did not care because they could not see who He is. God, the Truth, the Author of life stood before them, but they could not see. Jesus condemned them for failing to produce good fruit, for failing to usher in justice and righteousness, and promoting bloodshed and agony. He explains that God the Father will take the kingdom away from people who fail to produce fruit. The message is horrifically frightening.
Jesus then tells the Parable of the Wedding Banquet, and concludes the teaching saying,
“For many are called, but few are chosen.” Matthew 22:14
Jesus distinguishes between the large group of people who are invited and the small group who accept the invitation, describing those who accept as the chosen. Can you imagine how the religious leaders responded to that message? They were confident they were the chosen because they were descendants of Abraham, they were children of the promise, they were the elect by virtue of their ancestry. Jesus says they were invited but not chosen. They were invited. They bore witness to the Son of God in the flesh, they bore witness to the kingdom of God revealing itself on earth, they were invited by their position as bearers of God’s holy word. They were invited, but they were not chosen because they chose not to believe.
God wants everyone to accept His holy invitation. He wants everyone to live, to seize His gift of life through Christ Jesus. God’s holy word says,
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 2 Peter 3:9
And
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Romans 2:4
Many are called, many are invited, but few are among the chosen by accepting His holy gift of grace.
Jesus goes further denouncing religious leaders. Matthew 23 is filled with passages described as the woes. After saying,
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Matthew 23:12
Jesus viciously attacks the religious leaders. He says awful things to them, like:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Matthew 23:25-28
Jesus explains in detail how religious leaders of the day served themselves at the expense of the people they should have been serving. Matthew records two more full chapters of Jesus’ teaching before we make it to Thursday, Holy Thursday, Maundy Thursday, the Passover Feast. Why did Jesus condemn religious leaders over and over in His final days of teaching on earth? Was it simply to anger them? To provoke them to arrest Him? I don’t think so.
Jesus knew they were not beyond redemption. They needed to hear the truth and perhaps, after they saw all the miraculous signs of Good Friday – the darkness at midday, the earthquake, the tombs open – and after they saw His resurrection that would come that Sunday, perhaps they would gain eyes to see. He was planting seeds that would possibly grow, as He does with us.
What are we to do with this?
First, we should each recognize that we are at risk of becoming modern day Pharisees, focused on the appearance of righteousness not true fruitfulness, focused on legalism not justice and righteousness. Second, we should realize that no one is beyond redemption, not even us.
If Jesus spent His final week on earth teaching these lessons, we cannot overstate their importance. I encourage you to study Matthew 21-26, breathing in His words of life. May you know Him intimately, may you serve Him lovingly, may you do His will. Amen.