Mark 12:1-8 -- “Then Jesus began to speak to them in parables. ‘A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But those tenants said to one another, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.” So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.’ ”
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As we come into the middle of Holy Week, nearing the end of our journey through Lent, we are faced with the sobering fact that in spite of all the joy, miracles and wonders we have seen from Jesus, He will be crucified and die. Why did it have to come to this?
Up to this point, God has tried everything. He is like a master tinkerer, throwing everything He’s got, every tool in his kit has been working at the problem of our sin and reconciliation of our relationship with Him.
God established us as His perfect creation in Eden, giving us all that we would need. Yet, the one fruit has asked us not to
eat, we lusted after, consumed and thereby brought sin into the world.
When we had fallen into sin, he wiped the earth clean with The Flood, starting anew with a righteous family.
He created a mighty people through the lines of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and saved us from famine by raising up the son,
Joseph.
When oppressed by Pharaoh, He showed His power through Moses and brought us out of Egypt into the Promised Land,
even though along the way we complained, worshipped idols and questioned His ability to bring us to deliverance.
Although He told us that His lordship over us was sufficient, we begged to be lead by men. He raised up Judges and Kings
over us, He sent us mighty prophets with His Word, but we continually rejected them and Him, returning to our evil ways.
Again He sought to break us from our sin and sent the hoards of Babylon to bring us into captivity. We were given a “time
out”, but then brought again into freedom as he crushed our captors.
When we once again returned to our ways, caught up in rite and ritual, focusing on what was on the outside of us and not on
the inside, He sent us His Son. Instead of continuing to punish and redeem us, He offered up the most precious Gift as a
sacrifice, once and for all. His death for our life.
Why did He do it this way?
Wouldn’t it have been easier for God to send Jesus to Adam and Eve, right at the beginning of our Sin? Might not He have saved Himself centuries...millennia...of rejection and frustration by jumping to the end of the story? The Gift was always there, from the beginning of time, available to be given to us. Why do it the hard way?
As we have often learned, if we are paying attention, it’s not always about the destination itself, but the journey we take along the way to get there.
So, have you taken the time during this season of Lent to experience all that the journey of faith has to offer? Will you choose to be a part of these final days by celebrating with fellow believers the Last Supper of Maundy Thursday and the Passion of Good Friday? Or, will you just skip to the end...the celebration of Easter? Will you enjoy the Gift of the Journey? The good news is that regardless of whether we take the shortcut or the longer winding path with its abundance of mystery and challenge, we all gloriously end up in the same place, saved by the Blood of Christ.
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