Mark 12:6-9 6He had still one other, a beloved son. He sent him last to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.
The biggest surprise of the parable is that the landowner sent his beloved son. Verse 6 begins with awkward and stilted grammar, highlighting the shift in the parable and the importance of what is to follow. There is no finite verb but only an infinitive. The unstated questions is, why would the owner send his beloved son knowing how all the servants were treated? The answer is suggested in the owner’s statement that he expected the tenants to respect his son because he would come with the father’s full authority. The son had full legal authority and ownership like the father. It would be as if the father was coming himself.
The description of the son as beloved (agapēton) recalls the voice from heaven in 1:11 and 9:7. The reader of Mark should not miss the intended connection of the story at this point to Jesus, though this will be even clearer in the following verses. Jesus as the beloved Son of God came in a long line of prophetic voices calling Israel back to God. The leaders were in danger of making the same mistake as the tenants in this story.
The depravity of the tenants comes through in verse 7 with their response and plans to kill the son and assume ownership of the vineyard for themselves. Like many squatters today who take over land or houses, these tenants were badly mistaken in their thinking. They wanted not only the fruit but the whole vineyard. They assumed the position of the son and thought they deserved the inheritance, but they were only stewards of what the owner had entrusted to them. The leaders of Israel were in danger of assuming too much authority and serving as the final voice of God. Their pride and arrogance against God were bringing them to the point of judgment and destruction.
People reject the truth of the gospel and those who bring it. If Jesus was rejected, beaten, and even killed, we should expect the same treatment. The bad news of this parable is that Jesus was speaking it to those who should have known better. They knew the Scriptures but had so distorted them in their effort to be in control and hypocritically pious that they missed the truth that was right before them. The true prophetic voice will be consistent with what God has revealed already. The truth will stand the test of time. Those in positions of responsibility must be good stewards of the truth and respond in faith and obedience to what God has called them to proclaim.
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