Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Reminiscere. Mark 12,1-12

Monday, March 2, 2015

Reminiscere. Mark 12,1-12

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

Mark 12,1-12 1515

Reminiszere (2. Sonntag der Passionszeit) 025 „Remember“

Swidbert, Apostle of Friesen, Frankish Empire (Netherlands, Germany and Denmark), ✠ 713

1. März 2015

1. O God, remember Your Church and inspire her, because she lives through Your Living Word. We bear witness to You in joy and in pain, trusting and hoping in Your Wondrous Works. Remember us and all those entrusted to us, for You transform our petitions into praise. Trusting in Jesus Christ, we call upon You: have mercy upon us. Amen. (VELKD, Prayer for Reminiszere § 5)

2. And Jesus began to speak to the chief priests, the scribes and the elders in parables. „A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, leased it to tenants and went into another country. When the season arrived, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some 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. Arise, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ And they took him, killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will arrive and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this Scripture: »The Stone that the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes« [Psalm 118,22-23]?“ And they were seeking to arrest Him but feared the people, for they perceived that He had told the parable against them. So they left Him and went away.

3. Jesus spoke this parable at some point during Holy Week after He had entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and cleared out the temple. Jesus was teaching in the temple courtyard when He tells this parable. His audience was probably diverse, including, His disciples, some from the crowds who had heard Him teach before, Jewish religious leaders, including Pharisees, scribes and Sadducees, plus any number of Jews who lived outside Judea but were in the courtyard to celebrate the Feast of Passover.

4. Jesus recounts the sad, idolatrous history of Israel in the morning’s parable of he vineyard. Yahweh had chosen Israel, attached the promise the worlds salvation to them and had given them a fruitful land to dwell in. All this arrived from Yahweh’s gracious and merciful Hand. Israel’s response was to persecute and kill the Lord’s prophets. When God the Father sent them His Son, they would take Him outside the city and crucify Him. Their actions would have consequences: they would lose their status as God’s chosen people for that status would be given to the New Israel Jesus had been forming through His disciples that would be called the Church.

5. The Pharisees and other foes of Jesus knew that Jesus had spoken this parable against them. On the outside Israel looked like a faithful nation who truly worshipped Yahweh: the priests and the people were faithful in the temple sacrifices, the scribes, Pharisees and rabbis were teaching the Scriptures and by and large the nation had remained faithful to worshipping Yahweh. But on the inside many Pharisees were a tomb of decay for they did not heed or believe John or Jesus. The religious leaders were constantly at odds with Jesus and His preaching. The temple courtyard had been transformed from a house of prayer into a den of insurrectionists (Mark 11,17). Many in the crowds failed to believe what Jesus taught them as shown by their indifference or open hostility. They had rejected Jesus as their promised Christ, rejected Him as the Cornerstone of their Jewish faith and sought to thwart Him at every opportunity. On the other hand, Jesus had a band of faithful disciples numbering at least 120 who believed Him to be the Cornerstone of their Scriptures as the Law and the Prophets spoke of Him. Only this small band of apostles and disciples could be counted as actual believers of Jesus (Acts 1,15). These faithful Jews and many more Gentiles, as the decades would pass, saw Jesus as the fulfillment of the Holy Scriptures as something marvelous.

6. Remember how Jesus began His public ministry by preaching, »The time has been fulfilled, and the reign of God has arrived; repent and believe in the gospel« (Mark 1,15). Jesus called His chosen people to repent of their wrong and distorted view of Yahweh’s deliverance from sin. Israel was called to repent for attempting to take the vineyard, which was Yahweh’s free gift to them, for themselves and in the process they ignored and murdered the prophets and the very Messiah sent to them. The Church is called to repent for ignoring the plight of Christian men and women who are being martyred by Muslims because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

7. The Holy Scriptures assure us that our God is a merciful God. The Psalmist proclaims: »Remember Your mercy, O Lord, and Your steadfast love, for they have been from of old« (Psalm 25,6). The Apostle Paul testifies that: »God shows His love for us in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners« (Romans 5,8).

8. Jesus judges unrepentance with punishment. Israel rejected their Christ, and Jesus took the vineyard away from them and gave it to the Gentiles. This New Israel is the Church and she is almost predominately Gentile by birth. The Gentiles marveled at the mercy of Jesus and have believed on Him for forgiveness and salvation. Jesus rewards repentance. He blesses His faithful Christians with the promise of His Providence and everlasting life. Jesus is our Cornerstone, and we can never be removed from His foundation unless we willfully chose to stop believing and walk away from Christ our Lord.

9. The Church puts great emphasis on repentance and absolution. We utilize that rite every Sunday, and Lent is a special time of repentant reflection as we journey toward the great events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We have time for public confession as a church. You can partake of private confession with your pastor. We can avail ourselves of mutual conversation with fellow Christians for our edification. The law convicts us of our sin before God, and the gospel promises that through Christ we are completely forgiven and have a righteous standing before God the Father.

10. It is true that the world does not want the Crucified Jesus, because the Crucified Jesus is divisive. Christ crucified is exclusive because Christ declares that only He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. The road to heaven runs through Christ dying on the cross for our sins and rising on the third day from His grave. That cross causes all manner of people to stumble, but Christ crucified is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. Christ crucified is our salvation and eternal life. The vineyard, then, is ours, for it given as a gift by Yahweh, so that we may live long and prosper, and have peace and long life forever and ever. That gift is ours through Christ the Cornerstone. It is Yahweh’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Remember. Amen.

11. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, You showed Your love for us when You died for us while we were still sinners so that we would rest upon the promise of redemption that is a gift of grace received by faith. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Monday, March 2, 2015

Reminiscere. Mark 12,1-12

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