The Drama of Lent: Jesus vs. the Chief Priests

Three Sages Continues its Coverage of the Lenten Journey

Lent is the central drama of the Christian calendar. After teaching throughout the land for three years, Jesus has decided that in order to deliver his message of the Kingdom of Heaven and its possible attainment most effectively, he must travel to Jerusalem for the Jewish Passover celebration.

The main opposition to his message has come from the Jewish religious and financial elite embodied in the Chief Priests of the Temple. Their ruling clique is the council of elders known as the Sanhendrin. Backing them up within Jewish society is the faction of the Pharisees, whom Jesus has chastised for practising their devotions “to be seen of men,” not in the silent recesses of the heart. Nevertheless, Jesus has won followers among the Pharisees as well, as with Joseph of Arimathea, in whose garden Jesus’s body will be laid to rest.

Jesus has been to Jerusalem before and has preached in the Temple. So the Chief Priests know who he is and have been learning what it is that he is teaching—that every person, rich or poor, has the potential to discover the Kingdom of Heaven within their own soul and consciousness, whether in this world or the next. For Jesus teaches emphatically that the human soul is immortal, while the priests are interested mainly in their power and prestige in the secular world.

Let us listen as Jesus speaks to the Chief Priests during a previous encounter. This conflict will erupt into world-changing controversy during Jesus’s final visit that is yet to come during his Lenten journey, ending with his crucifixion on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Of course this drama has been played out ever since—every minute of every day.

Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46

Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:
"Hear another parable.
There was a landowner who planted a vineyard,
put a hedge around it,
dug a wine press in it, and built a tower.
Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey.
When vintage time drew near,
he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce.
But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat,
another they killed, and a third they stoned.
Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones,
but they treated them in the same way.
Finally, he sent his son to them,
thinking, 'They will respect my son.'
But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another,
'This is the heir.
Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.'
They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?"
They answered him,
"He will put those wretched men to a wretched death
and lease his vineyard to other tenants
who will give him the produce at the proper times."
Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the Scriptures:

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes?

Therefore, I say to you,
the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you
and given to a people that will produce its fruit."
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables,
they knew that he was speaking about them.
And although they were attempting to arrest him,
they feared the crowds, for they regarded him as a prophet.