Throughout our study of Mark's Gospel, we have had occasion to notice that Jesus was continually aware of the dark and difficult days that lay before him and his disciples, in Jerusalem. Time and again, however, he carefully avoided forcing the issue for the time had not yet come. He had much to do by way of proclaiming the new way of life that he had come to make possible for all who would believe in him. Especially was he anxious to instruct the twelve in preparation for the work which he would eventually put in their hands.
Now the hour had drawn near. With grim determination, Jesus steadfastly set his face toward Jerusalem. It was the season of the Passover. The city was filled with pilgrims from all the regions of Jerusalem and beyond. His earthly ministry was drawing to a close. No longer would he urge those who proclaimed him as the promised Deliverer to hold their peace. He was ready to meet the opposition head on.
There was an air of expectancy in Jerusalem at this time. The news had been made abroad that the Deliverer was at hand. John tells us in his Gospel that the raising of Lazarus from the dead had made a terrific impression on the people (John 12:9). The curious crowds, hearing that Jesus was on his way to the holy city, went out to meet him.
It would appear that Jesus had a threefold purpose in making a dramatic entrance into the city at that time. First, he desired openly to acknowledge the messianic tributes that had been offered him from time to time throughout his public ministry.
The reason he did not silence the people who acclaimed him, as up to this time he had never failed to do, is not hard to understand. He could not do so before without inviting misunderstanding and threatening his ministry. But now, the hour of decision has arrived. To conceal his claim any longer would be a betrayal of the cause. For three years, according to the common estimate, he had carried on his ministry up and down the land and now, at last, he offers himself to the nation as the promised deliverer.
In keeping with this purpose, Jesus deliberately chose to fulfill the Scripture prophecy that was widely discussed by the rabbis of that day: Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zechariah 9:9.
Second, Jesus chose to enter Jerusalem as he did because he loved Jerusalem in spite of all the opposition that some of its people (especially its religous leaders) had shown him. He would give them one last opportunity to acclaim him as the Anointed of God.
Third, he was now ready to come to grips with the religious leaders. His death at their hands was inevitable. There was no better entrance into the city and to receive the homage of the multitudes.
The response was tremendous. In something of a frenzy, the people plucked the branches from the trees and threw them on the road, as they customarily did in welcoming a visiting sovereign, crying: Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! (Mark 11:9). It was a fitting tribute to the coming Deliverer, but all too soon the crowd dispersed. With their lips they praised him. In their hearts they rejected him as their true Savior.
Upon arriving in Jerusalem, Jesus went to the Temple and looked around at everything. (Mark 11:11). Since the day was far spent, he held his peace for the moment and quetly withdrew from Jerusalem to spend the night with the twelve.
On the following day (Monday), as Jesus and his disciples returned to the city, he saw, in the distance, a fig tree that was in leaf. Upon approaching the tree, he discovered nothing but leaves. (Mark 11:13).
There has been much discussion about this incident. Did Jesus yield over so small a matter as being disappointed at not finding figs, even though it was not the season for the tree to bear fruit? The obvious explanation is that Jesus saw an occasion to illustrate to the twelve the spiritual condition of the religious leaders that they would face, in the city, the next day.
In that fig tree so advantageously situated, so abundant in promise, yet fruitless, Jesus saw an emblem of Israel. He had already likened her to such a tree and warned her of the doom which would overtake her - and now He repeats His warning.
Jesus pronounced sentence on the tree: May no one ever eat fruit from you again. (Mark 11:14). God's chosen people had been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
It is not surprising that Jesus became indignant at the situation that prevailed in the Temple of the Lord at Jerusalem.
In building the Temple, the Jews had made one of the few gestures of a universal outreach that is to be found in the Jewish faith of that day. It was solemnly decreed that no heathen unbeliever might set his foot within the sacred inner courts of the Temple, but on three sides of the Temple proper there had been bult an outer court which was known as the court of the Gentiles. In this portico, the rabbis and the scribes were to teach Gentile inquirers concerning the one true God.
For the sake of the revenue they could derive from it, the Temple authorities had turned the court of the Gentiles area over to traders and money-changers, who enjoyed a profitable business. Every Jew was required to pay his Temple tax each year about the time of the Passover. This tax had to be paid in a special coinage. Visitors from remote places were obligated to exchange their money for the recognized coinage. Likewise, visitors coming from afar needed to procure the animals that were to be used by them as sacrifices during the Passover season. To meet these demands, the merchants and the money-changers had set up their stalls and their tables in the area which had been designed for teaching Gentiles the truth of God.
As a result, there was constant confusion in the Temple area, quite out of keeping with an attitude of reverence and quite contrary to the purpose for which this area had been designated. In fact, the people generally had made the court of the Gentiles a common thoroughfare.
Fearless of the consequences, Jesus began to drive out the traders. He turned over the tables of the money-changers, and took over the Temple court, declaring, Is it not written: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of robbers. (Mark 11:17). Jesus became angry because God's house of worship had become a place of extortion and a barrier to Gentiles who wanted to worship.
A significant thing about this episode is the effect that it had on the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus was publicly denouncing them for allowing such a condition to exist. He was questioning both their spiritual discernment and their religious authority. In response, they must have murmured to one another, Who does he think he is? By what authority does he set himself over us?
From that moment, the issue between Christ and the religious leaders of Jerusalem was clearly drawn. They must get rid of Jesus or lose their place of leadership in the eyes of the people (Mark 11:18). Jesus left the Temple to spend the night outside the city with the twelve (Mark 11:19)
The next day, as Jesus and the disciples made their way back to the city, Peter pointed to the withered fig tree, apparently with some surprise that it had already withered. Matthew points out that the disciples asked, How did the fig tree wither so quickly? (Matthew 21:20)
In this question, Jesus saw another opportunity to enforce a spiritual lesson. He went on to speak to his disciples about faith and prayer. It is as though he were saying to them: Don't ask how this could happen. Have faith in God. With God all things are possible. "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go throw yourself into the sea' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." (Matthew 21:21-22)
The mountains of difficulty that we face time and again are no match for the power of God. The prayer of power, however, can be known only to the believer whose life is in tune with God. Effective prayer has no limits, but it does have its conditions. One of these conditions, as Jesus had previously indicated in his Sermon on the Mount, is a forgiving heart. (Mark 11:25-26)
Returning to the Temple, Jesus found the religious leaders seething over the blow he had dealt their prestige the day before.
He was met by an official delegation from the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews. Already they had met and sought how they might destroy him (Mark 11:18)
The religious leaders asked Jesus to state clearly by what authority he had taken charge of things in the Temple precincts. Jesus decided to let them answer their own question. They were familiar with the ministry of John the Baptist. They doubtless remembered that he had vigorously denounced them and their evil ways. So Jesus asked them where John had received his authority. The implication is that Jesus claimed to receive his authority from the same source - directly from God.
The question left the accusers speechless. To acknowledge that John's authority came from God would have been to grant Jesus the same right to speak in God's behalf. To deny John's divine sanction would have meant stirring up the crowds against them, sine John's name was still held in awe by the people. Jesus won the argument easily, but he did not win his opponents. They reasoned, all the more, that the only way to silence his opposition was to get rid of him.
Probably the delegation from the Sanhedrin was still standing before Jesus as he turned to the crowd and delivered what has been called the parable of the vine-growers. The details of the parable were all too clear to the religious leaders.
The vineyard is Israel (Isaiah 5:1-7). The owner of the vineyard is God. The wocked growers are the scribes, the elders, and the chief priests. The servants that were sent to the growers by the owner are the prophets of Israel, some of whom had been violently abused by the religious leaders and the people of their day.
The owner's son is the promised deliverer - Jesus himself, whom the religious leaders, at the moment standing before him, had already determined to destroy. But they would not be able to destroy him, really, for Jesus went on to say that their own scriptures foretold, The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief corner stone; this came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes? (Mark 12:10). The reference here is to Psalms 118:22.
The point of the parale is that God is still the owner of the vineyard, regarldless of what the tenants may do to his Son.
This parable was directed primarily to the Jewish nation and especially to its leaders. Nevertheless, there is a timeless lesson in this story for all of us as Christians. It is that privilege invariably entails obligations. As Jesus said on another occasion: From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more. (Luke 12:48)
The delegation from the Sanhedrin had been thoroughly defeated by Jesus in their attempt to ensnare him. Apparently they talked the matter over and decided to send to him representatives of two opposing schools with reference to the payment of tax to the Roman government.
The Pharisees, on the one hand, resented having to pay taxes of any kind to Rome. It was an insult to their national honor. The Herodians, on the other hand, desired to strengthen the failing grip that the House of Herod had upon the political leadership. To do this, they desperately needed the support of the Roman government. Hence, they were, for expediency, in favor of paying tribute to the Roman Empire.
It seemed to the religious leaders that Jesus certainly could not escape from the trap that they had thus cunningly set for him, especially in view of the lavish compliment with which they prefaced their questions (Mark 12:14). If jesus decided against paying the tax, he would immediately find himself in trouble with the Roman authorities. If he decided infavor of paying ribute, he would antagonize the multitudes who at that time seemed to be on his side.
As always, Jesus was the master of the situation. He called for a denarius (penny) and asked: Whose is the image and likeness in this? (Mark 12:16)
The answer was all that Jesus needed to avoid the trap that had been set for him. Those who used the coin of the Empire must pay to Caesar whatever their earthly sovereign had the right to demand of them; no less, the must render unto God, their heavenly sovereign, whatever he demanded of them.
Jesus set forth a timeless principle that applies with equal force to our own day. As citizens, we have certain binding obligations that we simply cannot evade (Romans 13). It is our solemn duty to fulfill them. As servants of God, we have other obligations that are equally upon us.
Without diminishing in the least the necessity of fulfilling our obligations in both of these areas, it must be kept in mind that whenever these two loyalties are in irreconcilable conflict - if they ever are - then our paramount duty is to God.
One would imagine that the religious leaders would at length have grown weary of trying to ensnare Jesus - so deftly did he parry their thrusts. Yet they doggedly held on for, in a very real sense, their very existence was at stake. If they were to retain their leadership, they simply could not countenance defeat at the hands of Jesus. It was not long, therefore, before another group - the Sadducees - confronted Jesus. (This is the only time that Mark mentions them in his Gospel.)
The Sadducees were few in number but they were well-represented in the Sanhedrin. For the most part, they were wealthy and well-educated men. They accepted only the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) as the Scriptures. They did not believe in angels nor in spirits nor in the resurrection of the body from the grave. IN fact, the Jewish historian Josephus tells us that, to the Sadducees, the spirit died with the body.
In keeping with their traditional belief, these Sadducees asked Jesus a question that was calculated to make the resurrection of the body appear ridiculous and absurd. The law of Moses decreed (Deuteronomy 25:5) that if a widow was left childless, her husband's brother should take her to him to wife so that the first-born child of this second union might carry on the deceased brother's family line.
The illustration the Sadducees used was quite far-fetched. It is likely that they had confused the Pharisees more than once with that very illustration, but they did not confuse Jesus. He declared, first, that they did not know the Scriptures (Mark 12:24). Their own Scriptures, if properly understood, should have removed all doubts from their minds as to the reality of the resurrection of the body. Then, Jesus continued, they did not understand the power of God. God's power could accomplish the resurrection notwithstanding all real and imaginary difficulties.
Again, they did not understand the nature of the future life. Earthly conditions do not any longer exist in the future life. The entire matter of marriage, and child-birth, is applicable to the earthly life only, and not to the life to come.
Finally, Jesus declared that the Sadducees did not understand the nature of the character of God. He is the God of the living, not the God of the dead. A proper understanding of the character of God makes belief in the fact of life beyond the grave inevitable (Mark 12:27).
Mark 12:35-40
Let it be noticed that Jesus judged men, not as groups but as individuals. He would not condemn a man because that man was affiliated with a group which ordinarily opposed Jesus, if the man's own attitude was right and his motives pure. Perhaps it was because Jesus did not desire his fervent approval of an individual scribe to be construed by the onlookers as an approval of the scribes in general that he went on as he did.
Immediately after the inquirer had left him, Jesus began to rebuke the scribes in two connections. First, they insisted that the messiah would be a second David, an earthly potentate, a temporal king (Mark 12:35). From the Old Testament, Jesus argued this was not the divine intent at all (Mark 12:36). The promised Messiah would, positionally, not be David's sone and successor in the temporal sense but David's Lord, and would be exalted to the right hand of God.
Jesus had still further criticism for the scribes in general. They liked to proclaim their intellectual superiority by parading in their official teacher's robe; they were haughty. Furthermore, they took pleasure in receiving the homage of the crowds as they walked through the streets; they were vain. Again, they were always looking after their own interests and seeking the chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets (Mark 12:39); they were proud. Again, they did not hesitate to extract money from the poor (widows); they were unprincipled. And finally, they prayed long prayers just to make an impression on the people; they were hypocritical.
The indictment was scathing. It would seem that Jesus deliberately invited the antagonism of the scribes; but his criticism was only the truth, and a word which they had long needed to hear.
One after another, the representatives of the several religious and political groups had filed before Jesus, seeking to discredit him - the chief priests, the scribes, the elders, the Pharisees, the Herodians, and the Sadducees. One after another, he had put them to rout.
All of this opposition, it would seem, had occurred in the precincts of the Temple, on Tuesday, during the Crucifixion Week. Throughout it all, there was a scribe standing in the crowd who was greatly impressed with the dexterity and the insight of Jesus (Mark 12:28). At least, he stepped forward to put Jesus to the test. He wanted to know what was the essence of the law.
Jesus gave the scribe a sympathetic hearing and a clear and forthright answer. He quoted a passage from the Old Testament - Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Until this day, this passage is the central prayer of Judaism. It is the heart of every Jewish service. It is recited by the Jew when he believes that death is approaching. In Jesus's day, this passage was the call to worship in the Temple service. the scribe found himself in total agreement with Jesus's statement. That, he surely believed.
That was not all. Jesus went on to say that there was a second commandment which was also of central importance: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31). With the significance of this commandment, the scribe was no less familiar. The great Jewish teacher, Hillel, had once said, What you would have done to yourself, do to your neighbor; that is the whole Torah (law) and all the rest is commentary.
But, for the first time, perhaps, the scribe saw the relationship of these two commandments. They belonged together. Love of God must be coupled with love for man if the laws of God are to be fulfilled. Indeed, Jesus implied that the two commandments are essentially one, as he said: There is no other commandment greater than these (Mark 12:31).
We live in a day when necessity is laid upon all of us who follow Christ to heed his words to the inquiring scribe. Hatred and ill will and contempt for others do not belong in the heart of one who professes to love God, through Jesus Christ, with all of his soul and all of his mind and all of his strength.
When the scribe enthusiastically accepted the interpretation of Jesus Christ, our Lord warmly commended him saying: You are not far from the kingdom of God (Mark 12:34). That incident put an end to the questioning.
How utterly different in tone are the next recorded words of Jesus! When Jesus faced evil and corruption, he was outspoken and indignant. When he saw evidence of true piety and devotion, he was genuinely sympathetic and appreciative.
Sitting in the precincts of the Temple, he was in plain view of one of the thirteen receptacles that were placed here and there to receive the offerings of the people. He had noticed several individuals dropping in their offerings. Men of obvious means and affluence deposited sizable sums; though, indeed, some such men may have given a mere pittance.
Eventually, there appeared a woman (probably in the court of the women) whose drab attire proclaimed her to be a widow. By all standards, she might very well have been excused altogether from making an offering. Yet into the box she dropped two copper coins, the combined value of which was less than one cent!
She gave least of all? Not so, Jesus said, I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything - all she had to live on (Mark 12:43-44).
Here we have Jesus's statements as to the standard by which men should measure their gifts to the Lord. It is not, primarily, the amount of the gift that earns our Lord's approval, but the spirit of the giver and the extent to which the element of sacrifice is involved.
We know from the opening statement in chapter 13 that the disciples were about to express their admiration for the beauty of the Temple; Jesus pointed out the beauty of an act of devotion. The disciples were, no doubt, looking at the amount of he gifts; Jesus looked at the liberality of a heart. Of course there is beauty and liberality in the large gifts of the rich when such gifts come from devoted hearts. The Master is pleased with such consecrated offerings, but it seems as if his special tenderness is felt for the cheerful giving which wells up from the overflow of grateful, adoring spirits, of whom it can be said the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty have abounded into the riches of their liberality (2 Corinthians 8:2)
Jesus came to the close of a very busy day. All day long he had striven with his opponents with only two bright spots to relieve the tension of the conflict - the one, an earnest inquirer; the other, a generous giver. As the day ended, Jesus left the Temple with the twelve, terminating his last public ministry in Jerusalem. He would next return to the upper room for the last supper with his disciples and then to Gethsemane and a night of trials, and then on to the cross.