NOTES for Mat 21:43-46
What does Jesus mean when He says, ‘...whoever stumbles over this stone will be broken, and whoever it falls on will be crushed’? And what does all this have to do with the spiritual leaders of that time, the Pharisees and the learned rabbis (‘scribes’)? By the ‘stone’, He undoubtedly means Himself. And, of course, throughout His earthly ministry no one could match Him in debate. But is that all there is to it? Yes, if He wished, Jesus could indeed outargue anyone. But was that the purpose of His mission? Evidently, the point was not that those who tried to argue with Jesus inevitably suffered defeat. What, then, are the parables mentioned in the text about? Clearly, about the Kingdom. And about how to enter it. Perhaps, in speaking of the stone, Jesus means not only Himself but also the Kingdom. Yet there is something strange here: why does Jesus compare the Kingdom, permeated by the breath of life, the Kingdom where neither sickness nor death has a place, to a stone that serves destruction rather than building? Of course, the cornerstone is the most important element of the foundation; but why, then, does it cause so many problems? Clearly, this can happen only if those building the house ignore the true foundation and try to build on another, one they have made themselves. The cornerstone is the corner element of the foundation; it is too heavy to be used in any way other than for its intended purpose. And every attempt to do so will bring nothing but trouble to those who try. So it is with the Kingdom: in the building called spiritual life, it alone can be the foundation, just as within the Kingdom itself only the Saviour Himself can be the foundation. Yet among the Pharisees there were constant attempts to find an alternative both to Him and to the Kingdom He had brought into the world. These attempts arose because the Kingdom was not turning out as religious people, such as the Pharisees undoubtedly were, wanted it to be. And this is hardly surprising: for them, it was not the Kingdom but their religion that came first. They sought to make religion, rather than the Messiah, the foundation of the Kingdom. All such attempts inevitably led to substitution, falsehood, deception and self-deception. Not because the Kingdom has no room for religion, but because no religion can contain the Kingdom, let alone serve as its foundation. Yet a religious person finds this simple truth extraordinarily difficult to accept. So difficult that at times such a person is ready to reject the Kingdom for the sake of their religion. And lose it. For ever.