GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 12:4
Tough Jobs
A man went to his pastor and asked him to describe the hardest job he had. The pastor said he had difficulty finding a teacher for a primary Sunday School class. Three people had tried to fill that need, but they had given up for one reason or another. The boys were especially rowdy and difficult to control. “I’ll take it,” the man said.
The new teacher had prepared all week for the class, and on Sunday morning, he entered the classroom, excited about the new role. True to the pastor’s description, some of the boys were hard to control; after all, what was the teacher going to do? His disciplinary measures were limited.
In Jesus’ parable about the man who built a vineyard and leased it to tenant farmers, he said that when the time for the rent payment came, he sent a servant who was mistreated and sent away empty. “And again he sent to them another slave, and that one they beat on the head and dishonored.” (Mark 12:4) The tenant farmers apparently treated the second servant more harshly than the first, for they beat him on the head.
In Jesus’ audience were the official delegates sent to interrogate him for chasing merchants, money changers, and others from the temple courts. It is likely that they, and the other audience members, understood that Jesus was describing the Father sending messenger after messenger, or prophet after prophet, to Israel, only to have them beaten, abused, or even killed. More specifically, Jesus was describing the delegates’ rejection of his message. In just a few days, these delegates were likely among the mob that shouted, “Crucify him!”
Back to the Sunday school teacher and his tough new job: he was a farmer, and the next Sunday, he took a baby lamb to the class. The students fell in love with it, and the boys became attached to the animal, looking forward to coming to class every Sunday to see how the lamb had grown and, of course, to hear the teacher’s lesson.
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