Palm Sunday

I would like to take you with me back in time to the land of Israel.  The year is around 740 BC.  It's a warm evening in late summer and the end of the grape harvest.  It's been a good crop and the wine looks as though it will be a good vintage.  It's a traditional time for feasting and a large number of people have gathered for the harvest celebration.  There is food in abundance and there's the delightful smell of an ox roasting on a spit over a large open fire.  There's dancing and chatter and the wine's flowing freely when into the firelight steps a young troubadour.  And as he begins to sing a hush descends over the gathered throng. "I will sing for the one I love a song about a vineyard:  My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside"

The singer is none other than the prophet Isaiah, a young man with a passion for his God.  We see that in the opening words of his song as he sings about the one he loves and it is clear from verse 7 that the one he his singing about is Yahweh -  Israel's name for the Lord God Almighty.  Yahweh is at the very centre of Isaiah's life. 
He has a passion for God burning within him and it's when we have that passion that things begin to happen in our own lives. 

I wonder if that is something evident in our own experience or does God only occupy some place at the margins?  Perhaps we can hold that thought for the moment and come back to it later.

As the young troubadour continues his song some of his hearers start to become nervous and twitchy.  They don't like some of the things they are beginning to hear and the mood turns sombre. The song tells the story of how the owner of a vineyard clears it of stones and plants it with high quality vines, doing all he can to make it the very best including building within it a watchtower and installing a brand new state of the art wine press.  But as the troubadour continues it becomes clear that the vineyard he is singing about is a very different and in stark contrast to the one in which the present party is going on.  The owner of this vineyard is looking for a crop of good grapes but to his disappointment discovers only bad or bitter fruit.  I think we can all identify with that feeling of disappointment.  Those occasion when we've been let down on something we have spent time on and that was important to us.  We've done everything we can and we think what more could we have done?

And that message is not one its hearers want to hear.  The owner of the vineyard is Yahweh, the Lord God almighty and the vineyard represents his people.   Things appear O.K on the surface but beneath the thin veneer things are far from well. They might be Yahweh's chosen people but the reality is that their hearts are far from him. For a people of who have been chasing after pagan gods, the idea of Yahweh turning up in judgement and spoiling the party is a very unwelcome intrusion.  He's no longer someone they want to know.

There's a story told of a young man at the beginning of the last century whose elderly parents were poor farmers in the United States.  The young man was their only son and naturally wanted to do their best for him.  As he showed promise they wanted to give him the opportunity of a good education but in those days it was something that had to be paid for.  The old couple therefore scrimped and saved and did without so they could raise the funds to send their boy to college.  So off he went and each week letters came back each week with all his news - and then the letters stopped coming.  After a bit the old father says: "Look I can't stand this any longer I must go and see how John is."  So he packs a few things and puts on his best clothes which are a bit old and worn but at least they are clean.  He then manages to get to the town where the college is situated and stops to ask for directions to his son's lodgings.  He eventually finds them and as he pauses outside the door he hears the noise of a party going on inside.  So he knocks on the door and hears the sound of his son's voice saying "Come in."  And as the old man goes in he sees a great party in progress and in the middle of the room is his son John.  The old man says "John!"  But John looks at him and says: "I am afraid there's some mistake - I don't know you." 

Sadly it's a scenario that is played out all too often today.  There are many who are quite happy to receive all God's goodness and all his good gifts but they do not want to know Him.  And then what about us I wonder - when we are out with friends or at work are we happy to be known as a follower of the Lord Jesus or do we find that too embarrassing and pretend we do not know him?

And so in our text in Isaiah we see the nation that Yahweh had brought out of
adversity and slavery and nurtured to be an instrument of blessing to the world turn its back on him and go bad. 

What more could the owner do sings the troubadour.  He's done everything, there's nothing more now that can be done but to leave the vineyard to go to rack and ruin and the judgement that will surely follow.  And, of course, this is what happens.  In due course Assyrian and later Babylonian armies invade the lands of Israel and Judah and take the inhabitants into captivity.  

And as we reflect on this passage of Scripture one can only wonder at the increasing aggressive secularism we see in our own nation as God is increasingly ignored and issues of Christian faith are gradually pushed to the margins of our society.  And what about ourselves in the Church as the people of God under the new covenant - do we think he is pleased with us or might there be that sense of disappointment?

Let us now move on a few centuries and in the temple courts of Jerusalem stands another man telling a story of a vineyard. Those listening to him are the nation's leaders but they find the storyteller troublesome and want him out of the way.  But this story teller is no less than the Son of God.  The story is a familiar one to them as it echoes the troubadour's song of Isaiah.  The owner of land plants a vineyard and as he will be away for a long time rents it out to some tenants in return for being sent a share of the crop but his share never arrives. The owner naturally wants to know why but each time he sends a servant to investigate he meets a hostile reception as the tenants want the vineyard for themselves.  What more can the owner do?   I will give them one last chance, he says, I shall send my son surely they will respect my son.  The son is willing to go but it all ends badly, the son is rejected and put to death by the tenants.  "He came to his own, but they did not want to know him."

Those listening to Jesus knew only too well what the story meant.  The story was too well known for them to miss the point.  The vineyard is the same; the one who planted it is the same - the rest they could work out for themselves.   Look at verse 19:  "The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them." 

The parable also has something to say to us too. Well we might say I would never treat God like that: - but then I wonder how often do we keep God at arms length as someone only to be called upon in a crisis or on special occasions?  And then what about those situations when we want to be the ones who decide what's right and wrong.  And what about when he wishes to assert his rights of ownership in our lives what is our response - "alright you can have a place in my life Lord but on my terms please?" 

As we continue to work through the parable we then come to the key verse - verse 13.  Then the owner of the vineyard said, "What shall I do?  I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him."  But did they respect him? - No they put him to death.  And Jesus is here pointing to his death and that's when we are confronted with the cross and all that it means; and the question arises as to where we stand in relation to it.?

The authorities of the day hated Jesus and had him nailed to a cross but let us not lose sight of the fact that we are implicated too.  What does the Scripture say?  "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him."  And it's to the cross we must come sooner or later if we want know God's peace in our own lives.  But its meaning and power and preciousness will be lost unless we acknowledge that we were involved in it too.  It was our sin that helped put him there.  We need to come to the place where we can say with the Apostle Paul: 'the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me' or as St. Teresa of Avila put it: "He did it all for me."

When we are confronted with the cross it's then we realise that leaving Jesus to occupy the margins of our lives is no longer an option.  What more could he do.  He did everything and gave everything.  He need not have gone through with it. And as we come to the cross and see such love being poured out for us as Jesus dies in agony carrying the weight of our sin upon him it demands a response.  And only one response seems appropriate and it's one encapsulated wonderfully by Isaac Watts in that great Easter hymn.  "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all."

Philip Newell
Licensed Reader