It's no secret that Christ's preferred method of teaching is through parables. Throughout his ministry on earth he teaches his disciples many important principles through parables. Each parable has a rhyme and a reason to why Jesus is telling it, but towards the end of his ministry we start to see a glaring pattern. His parables are all referring somehow to the Jewish leaders and their people. He gives four significant parables at the end of his ministry that demonstrate this. The first being the cursing of the fig tree, then the two working sons, the parable of the husbandmen in the vineyard, and finally the king's wedding.
1. In the curse of the fig tree, Jesus is hungry and finds a fig tree in his way with leaves that make it appear fruitful but it is producing no fruit. He curses the tree to never produce fruit and it withers away instantly.The Jewish leaders compare to this fig tree in the way that they are professing righteousness and appear on paper to be living the words of God, but are not acting in a righteous manner. They are hypocrites and await the same fate as the fig tree that Jesus destroyed.
2. In the parable of the two sons, a father is asking his two sons to go to work. The first denies him and then repents and does his work. The second says he will and then does not do his work. The first son represents the Gentiles who at first rejected the gospel and were not blessed and then changed their hearts, repented and are counted with the blessed. The second child is the Jewish leaders who are again all talk and no action.
3. In the parable of the evil husbandmen, no surprise the Jewish leaders are the evil husbandmen. Essentially the Lord is compared to the owner of a vineyard who opens his gates to husbandmen who are supposed to yield fruit. The Lord sends his servants to collect the fruits, yet the husbandmen immediately kill them. He continues to send servants and they kill those as well. He then sends his own son (three guesses who that is) and they kill him as well for his inheritance. Well it's no surprise that at the end of the parable these husbandmen are smited by the mighty hand of God and are promptly destroyed. This is the fate of the Jewish leaders who allowed the son of the Lord to be sacrificed.
4.Finally, easily the most complicated of the parables, is the parable of the King's Wedding. The Lord's kingdom is compared to a wedding held by the king. He sends his servants to invite all the people who the king has invited to the wedding. These initial guests represent the Jewish population. They all exhibit one of three characteristics. They ignore the invitation, they find what they're doing more important, or they kill the servants. All three of these actions are really offensive to the Lord and so he destroyed them. He then had his servants collect everyone, (the Gentiles) these people came in good and bad and somewhere in between. One man comes without his wedding garments, which in this case represent his purity and righteousness. Bad choice, because he is immediately send to outer darkness, where we will all promptly be sent if we try to enter the kingdom unworthily.
All in all, Jesus is leaving us some real gems in his last few sermons. He is giving us direct instruction of what not to do if we want to successfully enter the kingdom of Heaven. All we must do is follow it and we will be blessed.
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