“But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him” Matthew 21:38-39 (NRSV). This is a glimpse of the cross in a parable. But wait, did not Jesus offer forgiveness even to the killers when He hung on the cross? Killing the heir and getting the vineyard was their motive. But the killing of the Son made the killers potential heirs in a new kind of way. What is more astonishing than the loving grace that seeks to make persecutors and killers into daughters and sons who themselves become heirs?
“For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” 1 Corinthians 15:9-10 (NASB)
