Cornerstone of Relationship: Mark 12:10-12

God created us to have relationship with Him.  Sometimes that relationship is easy; other times that relationship is hard.  We frequently allow ourselves to be distracted from our relationship with God by something in the world that momentarily catches our hearts desire.  Even then, though, God waits for us to turn around and return to Him.  On some level, everything that God does is about the relationship that exists between us and Him.

Jesus is the stone that was rejected.  He is the cornerstone of what God is building.  Jesus – and Jesus alone – is the answer to the greatest problem of mankind.  The fall introduced sin and broke our perfect relationship with God.  Jesus solves that problem.

To solve the problem, though, He must become the sacrifice.  While sacrifice implies loss of some kind, blood sacrifice implies death.  Someone must be willing to kill Him.  The world – specifically the part of the world that is happier following its own path rather than looking for God’s path – will oblige.  They make Jesus the sacrifice God intended so salvation comes to those willing to receive it.

God can use anything or anyone for His glory.  When this phrase is employed, listeners frequently wrestle with God’s ability to use human sinfulness to bring about His glory.  The cross is the greatest example of this.  God sent His own Son to the earth.  Jesus came to die so many may live eternally.  For this to happen, God demonstrates how He works through human sinfulness.  The world kills God’s own Son; God uses that great act of rebellion to bring about an even greater act of salvation.  This is the awesomeness that is God.

God doesn’t want to walk away from us.  If He did, He could.  He could destroy this earth and start over if He chose.  That isn’t what He wants, though.  He wants to work with us.  He wants to bring us back into relationship.  He wants us to learn why His ways are better for us and then choose His ways over the ways of the world and our human nature.  He can stare disobedience in the eye and offer love in return.

It should be humbling and awe-inspiring to see God work through our flaws and our disobedience.  It should also be freeing to see this.  This is why God doesn’t need our perfection.  If God can use the flagrant disobedience of the religious elite of His own people, He can use anything.  If God can use the actions of people intending to kill His own Son, He can use us when we desire to be His hands and feet but cannot do so perfectly.

This is why Jesus tells the religious elite that the landowner in the parable will destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.  Even when people crucify His own Son, God is not done with us.  God created us to have relationship with Him.