The Return of the King

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Introduction

Continuing in the Gospel of Mark

Last Week:

Jesus’s final prediction of the sufferings he would face in Jerusalem

Healing of Bartimaeus

This week:

Jesus enters Jerusalem

The whole gospel has been building up to this point

The King has returned to his throne/temple

And Jesus is not happy with the state he finds things

Scripture Reading

Mark 11:1-25

Outline:

The Return of the King

2. The Cursing of the Temple

3. The New Temple

The Return of the King

Throughout the Gospel of Mark — Jesus has been moving under the radar

There is this idea of the secret of the Messiah

And it slowly unravels—but he quiets people who might reveal this earlier than he wanted

But as Jesus approaches the cross—he has a direct confrontation with Jerusalem and the leaders of the Jews.

Like David, he was a king in exile

He was persecuted, hunted down, those in power wanted him dead

But today we read the return of the king

Jesus enters Jerusalem in what we typically call the “Triumphal Entry”

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Mark 11:7–11 CSB

7 They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes on it, and he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their clothes on the road, and others spread leafy branches cut from the fields. 9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted: Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!

Now even the title we give this section of scripture is highly ironic—it is upside down, just like Jesus’s kingdom is

What do we imagine as a ‘triumphal entry’?

Us: Presidential Parades

Them: Roman Triumphs

Historical: Muslims

Mohammad rode into Mecca on a warhorse, surrounded by 400 mounted men and 10,000 foot soldiers. Those who greeted him were absorbed into his movement; those who resisted him were vanquished, killed, or enslaved. Mohammad conquered Mecca, and took control as its new religious, political, and military leader. Today, in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, Mohammad’s purported sword is proudly on display.… Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, accompanied by his twelve disciples. He was welcomed and greeted by people waving palm fronds—a traditional sign of peace. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because the Jews mistook him for an earthly, secular king who was to free them from the yoke of Rome, whereas, Jesus came to establish a much different, heavenly kingdom. Jesus came by invitation and not by force. (Dever, It Is Well, 65)

But Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem is hardly triumphal…

He rides in on a young donkey (a donkey)

He is welcomed by tree branches

And once he enters, he looks around, and leaves

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Mark 11:11 CSB

11 He went into Jerusalem and into the temple. After looking around at everything, since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

And he adds later that “Whenever evening came, they would go out of the city” (11:19)

The King wasn’t even welcomed in his own city

He had no place to sleep

If I was labeling this section… I would not call it a triumphal entry

But Jesus doesn’t triumph how we imagine the world does

And Jesus does the same in our lives

Expound

Jesus enters with humility, in peace, and focused not on himself—but the temple of God

And this is Jesus’s main focus: on the state of God’s temple—his father’s house

The Cursing of the Temple

The next day we read the story of one of the most difficult miracles of Jesus — the cursing of the fig tree

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Mark 11:12–14 CSB

12 The next day when they went out from Bethany, he was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves, he went to find out if there was anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for it was not the season for figs. 14 He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And his disciples heard it.

Now all sorts of people have a problem with this miracle (Bertrand Russel)

It is Jesus’s only miracle of destruction (although there is plenty in the OT)

Mark adds that it was not the season for figs

Why would Jesus be upset that a tree isn’t producing fruit when it is not the season for fruit?

I think that we can only grasp the significance of the fig tree if we place it in context

Jesus is concerned with the temple, far more than he is concerned with this particular tree

This tree is a living parable of the state of the temple

To get caught up on the tree, is to miss the point completely

Exalting Jesus in Mark Put Your Faith in This Savior (Mark 11:20–24)

Any sympathy for a soulless tree in our day is badly misplaced and says much about our sloppy, sentimental culture and its tragic perversion of real values. God had told Jonah to weep over lost people, not a plant (

If we notice the structure of what is happening:

Jesus cleansing the temple is sandwiched by the story of this fig tree

He curses it on the way into Jerusalem

He cleanses the temple

And the next day they are passing by the same fig tree, and it is withered from the roots up

Mark is trying to get us to see the connection between these two things

So lets look at what Jesus is trying to teach his disciples:

The problem with the fig tree was that at a distance it looked healthy but up close there was no fruit

Fig trees are deciduous—so they only have leaves when it is time for fruit

But this tree has leaves—but no sign of fruit

Outwardly it looked good, but there was a problem at the root

So this is what happens when Jesus enters the temple:

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Mark 11:15–17 CSB

15 They came to Jerusalem, and he went into the temple and began to throw out those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, 16 and would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple. 17 He was teaching them: “Is it not written, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves!”

The temple was a place of worship, prayer, sacrifice, and forgiveness

But it had been turned into a marketplace

Injustice (expound)

From a distance it looked like everything was okay

Sacrifices were being made, prayers were being offered

But there was no fruit

Just like Jesus desired to see fruit on the tree because he was hungry

Jesus desired to see solemn worship and reverence for Yahweh, but instead he finds a market place

Animals making noise, Animal excrement all over the place, arguing and bartering

And the same words spoken over the fig tree are applied to the temple

“May no one ever eat fruit from you again”

Let’s look at what Jesus said in the temple

Jeremiah 7:3–15 CSB

“ ‘This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Correct your ways and your actions, and I will allow you to live in this place. Do not trust deceitful words, chanting, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” Instead, if you really correct your ways and your actions, if you act justly toward one another, if you no longer oppress the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow and no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods, bringing harm on yourselves, I will allow you to live in this place, the land I gave to your ancestors long ago and forever. But look, you keep trusting in deceitful words that cannot help. “ ‘Do you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known? Then do you come and stand before me in this house that bears my name and say, “We are rescued, so we can continue doing all these detestable acts”? Has this house, which bears my name, become a den of robbers in your view? Yes, I too have seen it. This is the Lord’s declaration. “ ‘But return to my place that was at Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first. See what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. Now, because you have done all these things—this is the Lord’s declaration—and because I have spoken to you time and time again but you wouldn’t listen, and I have called to you, but you wouldn’t answer, what I did to Shiloh I will do to the house that bears my name, the house in which you trust, the place that I gave you and your ancestors. I will banish you from my presence, just as I banished all of your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.’

Jesus didn’t come to reform the temple and make changes—he came to condemn the temple

He was the new temple, he was the new sacrifice

There would be a new way of doing things

And this temple was not in that plan

The New Temple

So after this encounter—Jesus’s teaching seems out of left field

We’ve been talking about the lack of fruit that the temple was showing

And Jesus says:

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Mark 11:22–25 CSB

22 Jesus replied to them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, everything you pray and ask for—believe that you have received it and it will be yours. 25 And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your wrongdoing.”

This is a great teaching—but what does it mean in context?

It seems to have nothing to do with what has just happened

I think here Jesus is talking about the new temple

The temple was a place of faith

A house of prayer

People would go to the temple to pray (it was seen as a holy place for prayer)

Hannah in 1 Samuel

David

It was also a place of forgiveness

The main function of the temple wasn’t how we see the church today—a place of worship and teaching

The main function of the priests and of the temple was sacrifice—bloody animal sacrifice

And this is laid out in the OT, but the purpose of sacrifice was for the forgiveness of sin

So if we have this idea in mind: of what the temple’s purpose was—We can begin to read what Jesus is saying with a new light

Have faith in God — not faith in the temple

If anyone says to this mountain — temple was on this mountain

Even without a temple — God hears your prays

If you need forgiveness — you no longer need the temple sacrifice

There is no longer a transaction needed

The ways in which the Jewish people grew up—they found the temple as essential to their religion (and it was)

But Jesus has come to do something that no one could expect

He comes into this world as the new temple

John 1:14 CSB

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Jesus would be the place of God’s presence

Jesus would be the sacrifice offered

Jesus would be our advocate in prayer

He is our King, our Priest, and our Sacrifice

But if the new is to come… the old must pass away

And within the lives of the disciples — in 70AD

Just like the fig tree—just as Jesus had predicted—the temple would fall

Application

So what does this mean for us?

I think there are a couple of things

Challenge and comfort

Challenge - We are the temple of God

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1 Corinthians 3:16 CSB

16 Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you?

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1 Corinthians 6:18–20 CSB

18 Flee sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. 19 Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.

What we do with our bodies matter

2. Comfort - No need for religious ceremonies to access God

This isn’t just about causing a commotion

Jesus i talking about the new temple

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Heb 10 1-4

New Living Translation Chapter 10

The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. 2 If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.

3 But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. 4 For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

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Hebrews 4:11–14 CSB

11 Let us, then, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. 14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to our confession.

Reflection Questions

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What barriers do you try to put between yourselves and God?

What does it mean that we are God’s temple?

Where might we have leaves but no fruit in our lives?