(Read Mark 12)
Throughout my life, I’ve experienced brief moments where I’ve been blown away by absolute beauty and magnificence. “Blown away” doesn’t quite do justice to the feeling. These instances in art, music, scenery, and conversation reveal a distinction between human-powered displays and divine ones. While they may seem equally awesome on the surface, they are fundamentally different.
Author Wayne Dyer once shared a story of presenting to thousands, only to realize he had left his notes at his hotel. He proceeded without them, later saying, “I knew my message… I focused on my purpose, not my outcome.” Similarly, I recently heard a pastor deliver a 45-minute Easter message with no notes or aids—just the Holy Spirit and his faith. I couldn’t help but wonder: “Was it all him?”
In my own life, I’ve officiated six weddings. I dislike being the center of attention and always battle nerves. But during one homily, a few sentences in, the audience seemed to vanish. It was just the couple and me. My purpose in highlighting their union in God’s eyes had overridden my performance anxiety.
When purpose takes over, the results move from the talent of man to the realm of the Divine. We see this “Divine” perfection most clearly in the following accounts.
The Confrontation of David
The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”
David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
— 2 Samuel 12:1-6
Reading this, you cannot help but feel indignant. David was quick to condemn the “rich man,” perhaps because we are often most critical of the flaws we secretly harbor. Nathan used this parable to bypass David’s defenses, trapping the King into judging himself. David possessed a sense of justice, but had lost his self-awareness—seeing the “speck” in an imaginary eye while ignoring the “plank” in his own.
Then comes the hammer:
Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
— 2 Samuel 12:7-10
This was the shattering of denial. God reminds David that his core sin was ingratitude; he had everything, yet reached for the one thing that wasn’t his. This isn’t just literature; it is a perfect, divine intervention. A direct confrontation might have led to denial or execution, but God’s “sideways attack” through a story broke the prideful shell of Israel’s most hailed king.
The Wisdom of Solomon
“During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”
The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.”
But the first one insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.
The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’”
Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
— 1 Kings 3:19-25
These verses reflect the rawness of human bitterness—the woman who lost her child tried to steal another’s joy rather than face her own pain. Solomon’s command to “cut the child in two” was not cruelty, but a surgical strike to provoke a heart-level reaction.
The woman whose son was alive was deeply moved out of love for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”
But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”
Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”
— 1 Kings 3:26-27
The “sword test” revealed their true natures. The biological mother defined selfless love, choosing to lose her child to a rival so that he might live. The imposter revealed a “scorched earth” mentality—if she couldn’t have the blessing, no one would. Solomon needed no further proof; the evidence was in the love.
The Rejection of the Son
Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.
“He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
“But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
— Mark 12:1-8
This echoes the progression of human rebellion. Sin is not static; unchecked, it hardens into a total disregard for divine authority. God didn’t send Jesus as a casual messenger, but as His final, most precious offering. Yet, we often prefer to be the “owner” rather than the “steward,” attempting to seize the inheritance by removing the Heir.
“What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Haven’t you read this passage of Scripture:
“‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
— Mark 12:9-11
The answer to Jesus’ question is judgment. Privilege is tied to responsibility, and because the tenants refused the owner his due, they lost everything. In a brilliant divine reversal, the “stone” the leaders threw away as useless became the cornerstone—the one piece that holds all of reality together.
Final Reflection
These accounts show the complexity, frailty, and fickleness of the human condition. No one knows this better than God. This isn’t just literature; it’s a CT-scan into the human heart. Humans penned the ink, but God wrote the words. Nothing can take away my conviction that these passages were inspired by the Divine.
Life Application:
- When we focus on our performance, we become defensive and blinded. But when we focus on our God-given purpose—to tell the truth, to protect the innocent, or to honor the “Landowner”—the Holy Spirit takes over. True beauty and wisdom emerge when we stop trying to own the vineyard and start simply serving the One who planted it.