has endowed it. We human beings have a power complex. Like an incompetent actor determined to play Hamlet, so puny man has ambitions to play God. And he is congenitally incapable of realizing that the role is too big for him. So instead of giving power to humble men and women who might lead nations along the path of moderation and peace, again and again we invest power in the megalomaniacs—the Stalins, the Hitlers, the Saddam Husseins—and then winge at the leviathan of control and intimidation with which they encircle us and destroy our freedom.
It all comes down to the same thing. We are not content to be tenants of the vineyard. We insist on being owners. The ingratitude of it is bad enough: that God should bestow such privilege and dignity on the human race, such potential for creative endeavour, and that we should be so little prepared to render anything back to God. But it is the futility of it which is so pathetic. For it's a rebellion doomed to failure. The insane insolence of it, that puny creatures should wave their fists at omnipotence, rejecting anything and everybody that God sends to remind us of the debt that we owe him, and think that we'll get away with it! Surely he won't tolerate it! Will he?
The extraordinary thing about Jesus' story is that he tolerates it for so long.
2. How Jesus understood his own mission
‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him’ (Luke 20:13).
I find a pathos in this verse which is intensely moving. Jesus portrays here the patience of God, who has provided rebel human beings with one opportunity after another for repentance, only to find himself slapped in the face every time. Yet still he desires to show his mercy; still he restrains his righteous indignation and turns the other cheek. He will offer one last chance, even if it means
