Who Jesus is demands a decision. Either we believe Him and follow Him, or we choose to go our own way. The decision is ours, but it IS a decision.

4 Remove the dross from the silver, and a silversmith can produce a vessel; remove wicked officials from the king’s presence, and his throne will be established through righteousness.

Jesus had some wicked officials working in the temple system. His procedure for “cleansing His house” was involved and personal. Let’s look:

The Parable of the Tenants

³³ “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. ³⁴ When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
³⁵ “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. ³⁶ Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. ³⁷ Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
³⁸ “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ ³⁹ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

Jesus isn’t telling a random story. It’s one that the people of Israel knew well. We can read the entire story in Isaiah 5:1-7, but here are some keys verses from that passage:

¹ I will sing for the one I love
    a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
    on a fertile hillside.
² He dug it up and cleared it of stones
    and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
    and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
    but it yielded only bad fruit.

⁷ The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
    is the nation of Israel,
and the people of Judah
    are the vines he delighted in.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
    for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

As we can see, Jesus is calling them into judgement simply by choosing that story from Isaiah. His version of the story includes the sending of the son, which represents Himself. Notice, also, the conclusion that the listeners come to when He asks them what the owner will do:

⁴⁰ “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
⁴¹ “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

Then, Jesus lowers the boom:

⁴² Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’ [Psalm 118:22-24 a Messianic psalm]?

⁴³ “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. ⁴⁴ Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”

Jesus was declaring that He is the Cornerstone. We know that the taking away of the kingdom is Him inviting the Gentile nations to become “true Israelites” (Romans 2:28-29), which He implemented at Pentecost (Acts 2). Then He tells them, in true Messiah form, that anyone who falls on Him will be broken to pieces, but anyone on whom He falls will be crushed. I would rather be broken than crushed, how about you?

⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. ⁴⁶ They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. Matthew 21:33-4

Again, the leaders wanted to arrest Him, but it wasn’t time, yet. That time would come. For us, we will observe the Holy Week beginning this Sunday with Palm Sunday. We will “watch” it all happen through the lens of Scripture and get a sense of the purpose of God. Tomorrow, we look at the Parable of the Wedding Banquet. It’s quite revealing!

Abba, thank You for calling me to fall on You. Break me and then put me back together with Your Holy Spirit so that I look just like Jesus. May I think like Jesus, feel like Jesus, and respond to You just like Jesus. That is my goal for today, Lord. Tomorrow, too. Amen.