Jesus, the rejected stone (Mark 12:1-12)

[Stephan Choe]

June 23, 2025

Key verse 10: “Have you not read this scripture: <The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone>?”

In the Bible, we find many fascinating love stories about God. They are so touching that our hearts are filled with unspeakable joy. The parable of the husbandmen is one of them.

May God help us through this story to fill our hearts with joy and gratitude for God's love. Let us learn why Jesus can bring us such joy.

This story begins like this: “And he, that is, Jesus, began to speak to them in parables: A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a wine press and built a tower and leased it to vine dressers and went out of the country.”

The vines planted by the vineyard owner were of the best quality. The wine press is used to extract the juice from the grapes to make wine. The fence around the vineyard served as protection against thieves and wild animals. He also erected a watchtower against grape thieves at a suitable spot.

The vineyard owner symbolizes God.

The vine dressers in the narrower sense mean the Israelites, represented by the spiritual leaders of the Jews. God had chosen Israel as his people and entrusted them with the Bible and the Gospel. They were to bear much fruit of the Spirit, thank God for it and share the Good News with other peoples so that other nations could also enjoy the fruit of the Gospel.

In a broader sense, the vine-growers refer to all the people of this world. For God has entrusted each person with life and various gifts so that they may bear abundant fruit and glorify God.

Jesus continues his parable: “And when the time came, he sent a servant to the vine dressers to get his share of the fruit of the vineyard from the vine dressers” (verse 2).

A vineyard begins to bear fruit in about the third year. According to the law in Leviticus 19:23, 25, a vineyard owner can demand his share of the harvest from his tenants from the fifth year onwards.

When the time came, the owner of the vineyard sent one of his servants to the vine dressers to collect his share of the fruit.

Did they give him his share? And did they send their thanks and greetings to the owner of the vineyard through him?

Verse 3 tells us about their reaction: “But they took him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed.”

What ungrateful, wicked people!

Did the owner get angry with them?

Verse 4a tells us: “Again he sent another servant to them.”

The owner was a gracious and patient man, so he neither dismissed them nor punished them. Rather, he sent another servant to them to get his share of the fruit.

How did the vine dressers react to the owner's second servant?

Verse 4b tells us that they “struck him on the head and insulted him.”

The vine dressers mistreated him again and sent him back empty-handed.

The vineyard owner could now have punished the vine dressers, taken the vineyard away from them and given it to others who would surely give him his share of the fruit.

How did the owner react?

To our surprise, despite their ingratitude and wickedness, he did not become angry with them, but was kind to them and sent another servant to them (5a).

But the wickedness of the vine dressers only increased: they killed his servants or beat them (5b).

But the vineyard owner was so gracious and patient. Despite their repeated mistreatment and killing of his emissaries, he really wanted them to keep his vineyard and only give him his share of the fruit.

Despite their repeated wickedness, he thought that if he sent his beloved son to them, they would be ashamed of his son and would certainly give him his share of the fruit.

So it says in verse 6: "Then he had one more, his beloved Son, whom he sent to them last of all, saying to himself, 'They will be ashamed of my Son.

The fact that he sent his beloved son to them meant that he went to them himself. He wanted to appeal to their conscience.

What father would send his beloved Son to those who repeatedly mistreated and killed his messengers? Certainly no one.

But our God did. He sent his beloved Son Jesus Christ to sinful, rebellious people. That is why God's word in John 3:16 reads: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

How did the vine dressers behave when they saw the son of the vineyard owner coming? Did they repent and welcome him warmly?

Verses 7-8 describe their attitude towards him: "And the vine dressers said among themselves, 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours. And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard."

The vine dressers were not at all grateful to the owner of the vineyard, even though he had tolerated their previous mistreatment and killing of his servants and sent them his beloved son. Instead, they wanted to kill the son and seize the vineyard.

This means that people mistreated God's servants and killed them because they consider their lives to be their property and do not recognize God as the owner of their lives and do not want to give him the fruits of life. This applies first to the Israelites, God's chosen people. But it also applies to all people of the world who do not recognize Jesus Christ as the Son of God and reject him.

People want to see their lives as their own and live as they please. For them, the truth is that Jesus is the Son of God. That is why they do not want to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God and give him the fruit of their lives. Instead, they persecute God's messenger and Jesus Christ and kill some Christians.

But when we thank God for his gift of life and show him honor and gratitude, he blesses us abundantly. We should always thank God, even when we are in need. When we thank God for the life entrusted to us and for his love, our spiritual eyes are opened so that we can recognize the wonderful grace of God.

What will the owner of the vineyard do if the vine dressers kill his beloved son?

If the owner of the vineyard did not punish the wicked vine dressers this time, there would be no more justice.

Verse 9b answers this: “He will come and kill the vine dressers and give the vineyard to others.”

The vineyard owner was now angry and punished the wicked vine dressers.

We have established in verses 1-8 that the owner of the vineyard is a man of love. Now we learn in verse 9 that the man is also a man of justice.

Jesus wants to tell us here that our God is the God of great love and grace, and at the same time the God of justice. God cannot deny himself; he must be merciful, loving and at the same time just. That is why he must rule mercifully and lovingly and also justly and holily. Because he is merciful and loving, he endures sinful people with all patience so that they recognize their sin and repent. That is why he bears with them and repeatedly appeals to their conscience to repent and sin no more.

But if they stubbornly reject his love and his admonition and continue to sin, he has no choice but to judge and punish them, because he must show that he is a righteous, holy God and that he rules justly. He certainly judges unrepentant people and punishes them.

The vineyard owner had otherwise always been merciful. But he became very angry and punished the vineyard workers when they killed his son. So his son had been the last chance for the vineyard workers. This means that Jesus Christ is the last chance of grace for people. Anyone who rejects Jesus Christ no longer has a chance to experience God's grace and be saved from damnation. This is why Jesus said in MK 16:16: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned.”

Faith in Jesus is salvation and eternal life; unbelief in him, on the other hand, is eternal damnation.

Jesus then says in verse 10: “Have you not read this scripture: <The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.>”

Psalm 118 says that God has made a stone which the builders rejected into a cornerstone. In the past, the Jews understood the rejected cornerstone to be Israel. For Israel was rejected by many nations. But God chose precisely this despised, small people as God's people and proclaimed his name to all nations through Israel.

However, Jesus indicates here that the prophecy of the rejected steep will be fulfilled through his death on the cross and his resurrection. The Jews had been waiting for the Messiah who, through his miraculous power, would free them from foreign rule, i.e., from the Romans, become their king and feed them.

But Jesus did not drive out a single Roman or give them any bread. Instead, he proclaimed eternal life and the kingdom of heaven to them. Then the Jews said: “We don't need such a Messiah!” They rejected him and had him crucified at the hands of the Romans.

But God accepted his death as a sacrificial death for the sin of all people and raised him from the dead. That is why the apostle Peter said in Acts 3:36: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

All who repent and believe in Jesus as Christ receive forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus has thus become the unshakable cornerstone of our lives. Through faith in Jesus Christ we have become children of God and receive the kingdom of heaven. Praise the Lord Jesus Christ!

The first Christians realized that they had also become rejected little stones through their faith in Jesus Christ. They had actually hoped that by believing in Jesus Christ they would be able to enjoy a peaceful life without difficulties. To their surprise, they got into a lot of trouble: They were misunderstood, hated, and persecuted. In the eyes of the Jews, they were traitors to their country because the Christians were not actively committed to Israel's political independence. In the eyes of the Romans, they were troublemakers because they neither worshiped the emperor nor accepted gods other than God and his son Jesus Christ. The Christians were like outsiders because they neither took part in their gods' festivals nor attended plays in the theater.

Everyone considered first Christians to be useless and pests of society. That is why they persecuted the Christians and killed many of them.

But God used these Christians as the salt of the earth and the light of the world. God saved people from sin and condemnation through them. Christians were prepared to be rejected stones because of the grace of Jesus.

We are very grateful to Jesus Christ because he did not become a worldly Messiah, but a rejected stone. If he had become a worldly Messiah, his cross would have remained empty, and we would then have no way of receiving forgiveness and eternal life.

Dying on the cross - that was very terrible and shameful for Jesus. But he endured everything and died for us. And he rose from the dead. That is why we thank him and have made the cross of Jesus our symbol.

Little Timothy once picked up a rough wooden cross, which probably came from a cemetery. He drew a picture of the crucified Jesus on a piece of paper and cut and glued Jesus onto the cross.

The thought that the cross must have come from a cemetery made me a little uncomfortable. But I said to myself: "This is a real cross. Jesus Christ died for my sin on a cross like this." When I looked at the rough wooden cross through the faith in Jesus Christ, the unpleasant feeling disappeared, and I was filled with joy and gratitude. So I hung the cross on the wall. This cross still hangs on the wall of our apartment.

Jesus is the rejected cornerstone that hung on the cross.