He Came Anyway

Now at vintage-time he sent a servant to the vinedressers, that he might receive some of the fruit of the vineyard from the vinedressers. And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent them another servant, and at him they threw stones, wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully treated. And again he sent another, and him they killed; and many others, beating some and killing some.  Mark 12:2-5

By the time we get to the verse with the many others, we have seen the pattern and might find it easy to fault this absent vineyard owner for not taking action other than doing the same thing repeatedly. Of course with a bit of consideration, we can see that those servants killed would not be able to send word back and so the owner might think they had run off or gotten lost. The empty-handed one may have been too embarrassed to return to his master, and the one wounded in the head unable to make sense even if he was able to return. But all of that useless fault-finding would be to our shame since the actual fault lies with those vinedressers no matter how many servants the landlord sends. If we as the readers of this story try to find fault with anyone other than the tenants committing those heinous acts, then we are like the boss who wrote up his murdered employee for dereliction of duty! 

Praise God that His Son, knowing well what had happened to the prophets He had sent, volunteered to come and save us anyway. 

Bucky