I could probably write about ten pages on this week’s Gospel passage, but then the bulletin would contain nothing else.  Suffice to point out some very obvious elements included in the parable:

Vineyard  → grapes → wine → Blood of Christ!  

Father sent his son → son is killed → Jesus is killed on Calvary!

And this parable is spoken by Jesus before the Last Supper, and before His Passion! Jesus knew what would unfold. One Biblical scholar and researcher, Robert Dunne, places this exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees on Tuesday of Holy Week. In 48 hours He would celebrate the Passover with His Apostles and be arrested. In 72 hours from this Gospel exchange, He would die on the Cross … for those same Pharisees, for His Apostles and disciples, for His Mother, for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob … and for you and I.

If you visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, it contains within the massive site both the Empty Tomb of Jesus, and the hill of Calvary. Down below the elevated viewing shrine for Calvary is a small glass window, looking at the rock that lies below where Jesus was crucified. The window shows that the rock is fractured with fine cracks.

Calvary – Golgotha – was at that time outside the walls of Old Jerusalem. Today it is within the walls of the city expanded by both Crusaders and Muslims over history. In Jesus’ time, they would never kill and bury the dead within the city!

Where Calvary stood was originally a quarry area, where large stone blocks – the size of tractor trailers – were being cut to expand the Temple mount. But those rocks were unacceptable to the Temple builders because of the cracks; Calvary was, literally, the “stone rejected by the builders which became the cornerstone.”

Think about that; think about how much we become aware of hidden within the Scriptures, viewed through the lens of time. Jesus’ listeners when today’s parable was new could not conceive of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, nor even of Jesus’ enduring presence in the world today, 2,000 years after they tried to silence him.

We are the Body of Christ; we are the living stones, rejected by the builders of secular society. We are the hands and feet, the eyes and ears of Christ in the world today, on our street, in our town, in our home. Be Christ to one another!