Good Gifts, Given and Taken Away: A Meditation on Mathew 21

Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, 

The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: 

this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?

Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, 

and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: 

but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, 

they perceived that he spake of them.

But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, 

because they took him for a prophet.

Matthew 21 records Jesus putting His proverbial finger in the chest of the religious leaders of His day, pointing out not only how they had failed to abide in the Word and grace of God, but the consequences which were coming for remaining in such a state of rebellion and unrepentant sin.  His first parable in this chapter had to do with two sons— one which verbally agreed to do his father’s bidding but refused to live out that promise, and the other which at first refused but later repented and abided in His father’s will.  The second parable discussed vine dressers who were employees of a vineyard owner, who not only refused to give the owner the fruits they were entrusted to produce, but attacked, brutalized, and murdered those whom the owner sent to them... up to and including his own son.  When apprehended in the terms of common stories, the people easily understood the point Jesus was making about the responsibilities of God’s people regarding the good gifts He entrusted to them, and the consequences of abusing those good gifts.  The Pharisees got the point, as well, but their murderous response would have to wait until they could seize Jesus away from the eyes of the multitude, and manipulate the mob to their wicked ends.

Like so much of what Jesus said, it rings throughout history, touching the hearts and minds of every age.  From the beginning of creation, God has always been at work giving good gifts to mankind, which people in turn used badly.  God gave his Gospel Word of promise to His people in the Garden of Eden, together with His warning of Law— but our first parents chose the way of darkness, bringing death on the whole human race, and expulsion from the idyllic perfection of the Garden.  Preserved by God’s grace after the Fall, humanity descended into such evil that the world was destroyed by water, with only Noah and his family left alive.  Preserved after the Flood, mankind again descended into rivalries, tribal warfare, and the worship of bloodthirsty demons rather than the God of Life, until roughly 2000 BC when Abraham was called out of the darkness to be an inheritor and progenitor of God’s eternal people.  Through the times of Moses (about 1500 BC), David (about 1000 BC), and the Prophets (ranging up to around 400 BC), the cycle continued:  God’s Word of grace came to the people, the people abided in it for a while through faith and repentance, then abandoned it through pride or apathy, drew upon themselves the curse of the divine Law, suffered slavery and abuse at the hands of their persecutors, returned to the Lord’s Word of grace through faith and repentance, and were restored once again.  In the times of faith and repentance among the people, the prophetic messengers of God’s Law and Gospel were better received, but in times of pride, apathy, and rebellion— times of unbelief and preference for the wickedness of demons over the holiness of God— such messengers were insulted, ignored, ridiculed, abused, beaten, imprisoned, tortured, and even murdered for the sake of God’s Word.

In Jesus’ time, the religious authorities had struck a deal with the Roman occupiers which profited them well, allowing them to retain their outward image of piety while fleecing the people and keeping them subjected.  They had little love of God or His Word, but as a generational majority, were bound to the love of money, prestige, and authority.  This religious ruling class fought among themselves, but united together against Jesus as one who bore the Word of God which they collectively rejected.  Rather than hearing the Word of Christ and receiving it for the gift it was, responding in faith and repentance that they might be restored and live forever in the grace of God, the Pharisees and Sadducees united with the pagan Romans to seize Jesus in the dead of night, trump up false charges against Him, and then tortuously murder Him in the most brutal and defamatory way they could together imagine.  What they could not perceive, was that while their ancestors had done similar things to the bearers of God’s Word who came before them for thousands of years, they were actually fulfilling their ancestral evil in the most profound of ways by attacking and murdering the very Word of God incarnate, the only Son of the Father.  All of the symbolic types and shadows of God’s Word of Law and Gospel at work in the world since its beginning, were being brought to completion in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  

Of course, history continued after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, as well.  Roughly 40 years after that first Easter and Pentecost, the Jewish nation was utterly destroyed by the Romans, and the people dispersed throughout the empire with a decree that they could never return.  While the political Jewish nation was destroyed for their wickedness and unbelief, the remnant of God’s people (both Jews and Gentiles) were preserved in the ark of the Church by grace through faith in Christ alone, as they have been to this very day.  Vestiges of the Jewish people apart from the Church have also remained, in smaller and larger communities around the world, until their remarkable return to Palestine nearly 1900 years after their expulsion by Rome— like a living sign preserved until the end of the world, a reminder of God’s work and promises across millennia.  But throughout these centuries, the people of God have continued to go through similar rises and falls, with some ages being more welcoming to the bearers of Christ’s Word, and some ages being less so.  In our own time, we find church bodies, fellowships, and congregations of various heritages and traditions, in similar states of either faith and repentance, or rebellion and unbelief.  They partner more or less with pagan governments, to either guard the Word or to repress it, receiving or rejecting those whom God sends to them with His Eternal Word of Law and Gospel.  

As in every age, so too in our own, the consequences of how we either receive or reject the Word of God shall be made manifest.  While the modern mind may not think much of its spiritual and physical standing before God, He has left us nearly 5000 years of recorded history which continues to guide and instruct those who will hear it.  Even if the secular and pagan world has rejected the corner stone of Christ upon which the universe itself was created, and through whom alone it shall be restored and live forever, God still establishes it forever before our marveling eyes.  Those people, communities, congregations, fellowships, churches, cities, states, regions, and nations which hear the Word of the Lord and keep it by grace through faith, will receive the eternal life and blessing of God upon their broken and contrite hearts.  But all those who reject the love of God in His Word, those who individually or collectively prefer darkness and evil, who persecute the Word and its divinely sent bearers, this corner stone of heaven and earth shall inevitably fall upon them, grinding them to powder in eternal judgment and perdition.  Whether we choose to see it or not, to listen intently or to scoff in derision, this Word of Law and Gospel remains, enduring beyond time and space, and yet abiding in the present call to every soul, that everyone may have the opportunity to turn from destruction to life.

To you, this eternal Word of Law and Gospel, of warning and promise, comes today.  See in your present moment the eternal scope of all history and future time, of the love of God which saw you and pursued you from before the foundation of the world was laid, that you might abide in His life and fellowship forever.  Heed the warning which He has given to every soul in every age, and turn from the path which leads to destruction, to the ways of eternal life.  Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you on the lips of those whom He has sent to bear it, through the hands which deliver the Sacramental signs of His grace, blessing, and covenant to you, and the feet which He has made swift to carry His Word to every nation under heaven.  Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you this day, that your heart may be broken in repentance and bound up in grace by faith before His Law and Gospel, that you might never fear to be crushed and condemned beneath its judgment in prideful wickedness.  Hear Him.  Repent, believe, and live.  Amen.