Mark's Gospel Part 20 - King and Judge

We're in Mark chapter 11.

Mark 11 · chapter mention

But just think for a couple of minutes before we read this passage.

I don't know if you've been here the last four or five weeks, and what a glorious challenge, if you have, those chapters of Mark's gospel account have been.

So from back in chapter 8, verse 34, it has been all about what it means to be a disciple, what it means to follow Jesus.

It's been all about denying yourself, taking up your cross and following him.

It's been all about losing your life now in order to save it forever.

It's been about giving up short-term greatness in order to be a servant.

It's been about going where Jesus has gone before us and growing to be more like him, who came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

It has been, Christian brother and sister, about losing everything, that we might gain everything as we gain Jesus Himself.

And just when we got to the very end of that little section last week, we got this guy, saw, sorry, uh forgotten, shunned, blind old Bartimaeus.

Do you remember him?

Bartimaeus, who knows that he is not great.

And instead of trying to use Jesus as a stepping stone to become great, like James and John did, he comes to Jesus with nothing and asks for nothing but mercy.

And of course, what a good Savior we have.

And Jesus shows him mercy as he does for anyone who comes to him with nothing in their hands to give but their need for him.

And Jesus shows him mercy, gives him eyes to see, both physical eyes and spiritual eyes, and sets him free.

Go your way, Jesus says, as if he's freeing a bird from a cage.

Go your way, Bartimaeus.

And what does Bartimaeus do?

The very last sentence of chapter 10.

He follows Jesus on his way.

And the person who has come to Jesus for mercy, what do they do with their liberty?

They follow Jesus on his way.

And I want us to stick with Bartimaeus actually for a little bit.

Because what is the way that he is following Jesus on?

Where does the road take him?

And I might ask, where does the road take any one of us who follows Jesus?

Well, verse 1 of chapter 11.

I know we haven't read the passage yet, but look there.

Jesus and those following him draw near to Jerusalem.

The road runs to Jerusalem.

But we're not on the way.

This isn't just a random bit of geography that happened to be in this place at this time.

It is a little bit like Lord of the Rings fans.

It is like Frodo and Sam drawing near to Mordor.

It is ominous.

It's inevitable.

It's approaching trouble.

It's approaching sorrow.

It's approaching betrayal.

It is approaching death.

Jesus is on the way to die.

From chapter 11, we enter the last days of Jesus' life.

All of his earthly ministry has been building up to this.

The time has come.

They are going to Jerusalem so that Jesus can die.

Imagine old Bartimaeus again.

Jesus, I'm going to follow you on your way.

Okay, says Jesus.

My way is the way of the cross.

If it hasn't been clear, it will become clear over the next week of Jesus' life.

My way is the way of the cross.

And a question for Bartimaeus and for us as we follow Jesus through this last week of his life.

Given the roads to be taken, given the suffering and sacrifice that come with going Jesus' way, what is it about him that makes it worth following?

We're going to see him announced as a king today.

But what kind of king?

What kind of king is it worth living, suffering, and even dying for?

Well, we're going to read our passage and find out.

We'll read it in two bits.

Children, as we read this, these first eleven verses, maybe you could be looking out for what kind of king Jesus is.

Verse one.

Untie it and bring it.

If anyone says to you, Why are you doing this?

Say, The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.

And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it.

And some of those standing there said to them, What are you doing, untying the colt?

And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go, and they brought the colts to Jesus, and threw their cloaks in it, and he sat on it.

And many spread their cloaks in the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.

And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David, Hosanna in the highest.

And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.

And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

So, friends, what's happening?

Jesus approaches with his followers Jerusalem on Sunday, and he will be dead by the following Friday afternoon.

This is the start of the last week of his life.

But the start of the last week of his life comes with quite a bang, doesn't it?

These first eleven verses, we call it the triumphal entry, and it is.

It is the story of Jesus arriving in Jerusalem being hailed as king.

But if you actually look at the story quite carefully, it is an odd way to tell this story.

Let me show you what I mean by talking about something else.

Imagine that you are watching the TV coverage of the installation of the next president of the United States.

But as you're watching the TV coverage, you're getting increasingly frustrated because more than half of the coverage seems to be focused, obsessed with this idea, not of the president, but of the limousine that he's going to be driving in on within.

The age of it, the model, the features, what showroom it came from, how much it costs, the process of how the president asked his assistant to go to a particular showroom and ask if we could borrow it.

And how that happens.

And you're wondering why this mode of transport is such a big deal.

Just show me the president.

Come on.

Matthew, Mark's Gospel.

More than half of these verses are devoted to the mode of transport that Jesus would use to get into Jerusalem.

This is the coverage of Jesus entering Jerusalem as king, and most of it is about a donkey.

This cult, this young donkey.

Why?

You forget about the donkey, just show me the king.

But Mark, he isn't just sort of distracted with something that he shouldn't worry about over here.

Mark is telling us about this donkey so that we can see the king.

And that is why he's telling us about it.

Now, maybe that means nothing to you.

If you were a Jew, listening to that, watching what was going on, it would certainly mean something to you.

So if you go back to the Old Testament, I won't get you to turn there now, but to hear what the prophet Zechariah said in Zechariah 9, verse 9, if you're a note taker.

Zechariah 9:9

In Zechariah 9, verse 9, God's prophet said this.

Zechariah 9:9

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.

Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem.

Behold, your king is coming to you.

Righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey.

On a colt, the foal of a donkey.

And as Mark tells us about that cult, the cult, the cult did this.

It was here, it was there, the cult was here, they've gotten the colts.

As Jesus climbs on that donkey, he is deliberately enacting something that all the Jews would have known from Saturday school.

The king was coming into Jerusalem on a cult, the foal of a donkey.

This is Jesus saying, Alright, come on, we're here, let's go.

Fetch the donkey, we're off.

The time's come.

It's why Mark wants us to know that Jesus is on a donkey.

It's because he is saying that the king that was promised is here, the king of the Jews.

It's the first time, really, that such a bold and public statement has been made about this.

Until now, Jesus has kept things quiet, but you cannot miss right now what he is saying.

Certainly if you're a Jew.

And it's all because the time has come for him to approach Jerusalem, to approach the cross, to approach his death.

And that's the symbol going on right at the beginning of this story.

And so they get going, don't they?

And as they enter Jerusalem, you've got the donkey, and then you've got all these people who start throwing their cloaks on the ground.

It makes you think back to Bartimaeus, who threw his cloak off, didn't he?

Just so that he could follow Jesus.

And they're throwing the cloaks on the ground in front of Jesus and getting all these leafy branches, we're told.

It is the red carpet treatment because he's made the symbol that he's the king.

This is it, the time has come.

The prophecy of Zechariah is coming true, and the word's getting out, he's the king.

And perhaps another bit now of the Old Testament comes to mind.

2 Kings chapter 9.

2 Kings 9 · chapter mention

They remember something that happened once to another king of Israel, a guy called Jehu.

Maybe you don't know him very well, but when he became king, what happened?

Essentially, as he walked in to become king.

Branches were torn down, leafy branches, and they were cut down, and he walked in on them like a red carpet.

He's the king.

And the crowd's getting pretty excited.

There's momentum here, isn't there?

Verses 9 and 10, the hubbub, the excitement grows, doesn't it?

Look down there at what they're all shouting.

Well, who's here?

Who's shouting it?

Uh the Jews have this festival called Passover.

Most of you will have heard it, heard of it.

And on Passover, all people from all around the place, all around the country, they're going to come into Jerusalem from all over.

Thousands and thousands of pilgrims have come.

And on this Sunday afternoon, we're only three miles outside Jerusalem.

Remember, people aren't driving in or taking the train.

They're walking.

And all these people are flocking in to Jerusalem on that road on Sunday afternoon.

And they're there when Jesus is there.

And the news is getting out pretty quickly about him.

The symbolism builds, and the people are excited.

They're here to celebrate God's salvation, the Passover, their liberation from slavery in Egypt.

But now they're seeing these signs of the coming of God's King.

With all of the talk that's going on about Jesus, anyway, and they're probably thinking, well, we're here to celebrate God liberating us from Egypt.

But now, maybe the King is here to liberate us from Rome.

He's someone to be excited about.

And it must have been brilliant to be there.

Imagine the atmosphere of the best sort of festival you've ever been to, the biggest buzz, three miles outside the capital.

You know, you get caught up in the moment, don't you, with all this going on.

The crowds are shouting these words in verse 9 and 10 from Psalm 118 that they used to shout and sing around Passover.

You see it there, what are they saying?

Hosanna.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, they quote.

It doesn't mean woo, it doesn't mean yay.

Hosanna means save us.

It means save, save us now.

They've realized they need saving.

They've realized that maybe Jesus is here to do it.

They've identified Jesus.

In verse 10, because they carry on.

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father David.

King David, from whom it was promised, my God, God's eternal king would one day come.

The Son of David would be the king.

I suspect then that you've got the gist of it, haven't you, in these verses?

And Jesus puts a marker in the ground.

I am here.

This is the time.

I'm the king.

He's laying claim to the throne.

But what sort of claim was he laying?

What sort of king is he?

Again, if you're a Jew, you've got Zechariah 9 in your mind, where we're told that yes, he'll come on a donkey.

But we're also told that he will take away the chariots of Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem and he will break the battle bow.

Jesus is come to proclaim peace to the nations as his rule is established.

Jesus has come to save, he's come to bring peace.

And I think the crowd probably thinks that on his way to that, he's going to start a revolution, right?

He's going to go into Jerusalem, he's going to stand up in the temple, he's going to galvanize the people, he's going to say, right, the time has come.

We've waited years and years and years.

Rome's time is done.

I'm the king.

Let's go.

That's what people are hoping for.

Jesus has come to save.

And it is right that Jesus has come to save.

And he has come to go to war.

But not in the way that they think.

Zechariah 9 again, if they were paying careful attention to their Bibles, the prophecy, the prophet says of God's, I will set the prisoner free.

Brilliant.

Liberation.

But not with an army.

It'll happen, Zechariah says.

The king will save, Zechariah says.

People will be set free, Zechariah says, by the blood of his covenant.

The king has come to save.

But he's come to save by dying.

The cross will be where the war is won.

So Jesus is the king who came to save.

But I want to read the rest of the passage as well for us.

Because he hasn't just come to save, he's come to do something else as well.

If you've got an order of service, you've probably worked out what that thing is already.

But, children, as we read the rest of it, just have a look at what else Jesus comes to do.

We're going to read from verse 12.

So if you can follow along, please do.

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he, Jesus, was hungry.

And seeing in the distance a fig leaf, fig tree and leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it.

And he came to it, he found nothing but leaves.

And he said to it, May no one ever eat fruit from you again.

And his disciples heard it.

And they came to Jerusalem, and he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons, and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.

And he was teaching them and saying to them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers.

And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.

And when evening came they went out of the city.

As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots.

And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed is withered.

And Jesus answered them, Have faith in God.

Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

And whenever you stand praying, forgive.

For if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

So verse eleven.

And we arrive at the temple.

Jesus looks around at everything, and it's already late, so he goes off to Bethany with a twelve.

It's sort of a scouting mission.

His first night in Jerusalem, it's a reci that Sunday evening.

It's quiet.

He goes to see the temple with his own eyes.

He's getting ready for the next morning's action.

And then they go off.

They come back the next morning, verse 12.

And what we get here is actually a bit of a strange story, isn't it?

If you've never read it before, probably very strange for the disciples standing there.

He's back on the way to the temple in another three-mile walk.

And he passes the fig tree and he's hungry, but he can't eat from it because there's no fruit on it.

And so he curses the tree.

And what is going on here?

It's such a strange thing to do.

And this is one of the really cool things that Mark does as he writes his gospel account.

He does this quite a lot.

And he sort of uh sandwiches events between two other events to help you make links to them.

So think of the fig tree, then you jump forward to verse 20.

You're actually jumping forward 24 hours here.

In the morning, the next morning, they walk along and see the fig tree withered from its roots, and Peter points it out.

Look, Jesus, there's the tree that you cursed yesterday.

It's dead.

And now the fig tree story, it is the bread of the sandwich, isn't it?

The fruitless fig tree is cursed by Jesus.

The fruitless fig tree withers and dies.

And what happens in the middle?

What is the filling of the sandwich?

What is Jesus teaching?

And the answer is in verses 15 to 19.

How does this fit in?

The heartbeat of Jerusalem, where we arrive in these verses, it is the temple.

Forget the city, forget the great capital, forget the great center of a new empire with Jesus as king as he beats the Romans out of town.

No, the one thing that he's got his eyes on right now, the one thing in Jerusalem is the temple.

And as he's on his way to the temple, he passes a fig tree.

And what he does to the fig tree is straightforwardly a picture of what is going to happen to Jerusalem and particularly to that temple.

Here's what happens He walks past the fig tree, it's full of leaves, beautiful and green and bushy, but there is no fruit to eat.

And the tree acts as a sort of living parable, doesn't it?

And Jesus said to the disciples, Do you see that?

Lots of beautiful leaves.

But it's all talk, no action.

It's all dressed up with nowhere to go.

It is rubbish.

And then verse 15, he comes to Jerusalem and heads straight to the temple.

And he's saying to the disciples, You see the temple we're about to walk into.

It is just like that fig tree.

It is all splendor, all important.

Everybody thinks it looks magnificent and respect its beauty and they want to do the things that is on the air there.

But it is empty.

It has no fruit to offer.

It has nothing that gives life.

It is all shown.

You see how the story's going.

He's having a go at the temple at the heart of Jewish religion with all of its civilized behavior and going to the priests and things being sacrificed and everyone doing the right things and you all doing the right things at the right times and trying your best to be a decent and civilized Jew so that maybe you can get to heaven.

And Jesus is saying, that is nonsense.

What is happening here?

At the temple, it's supposed to be the centre of Jewish life.

And when Jesus gets there, in the outer court of the temple, we are, where the Gentiles are supposed to be able to come and worship, there is all this buying and selling for sacrifices, money changing so that people can pay their temple taxes.

There is a thriving business going on here.

It is busy and bustling and active.

But Jesus isn't fooled.

And he isn't having it.

We're given a picture of Jesus in society as a person who's always very meek and mild and wouldn't say boo to a goose, but he gets very physical.

Driving people out, overturning the furniture, gets in the way of anyone trying to do their business here.

Jesus gets really angry, righteously angry.

And if you listen to his words above the squawking of the pigeons and the clattering of the chairs, Jesus explains why he is so angry.

And he uses two more bits of the Old Testament.

So verse 17, he quotes from Isaiah, is it not written, My house should be called a house of prayer for all the nations?

This place is supposed to be where the heartbeat of God Almighty is, where people can come from any culture, from any background, from any upbringing, from any faith, even, and they can come here and find and meet and know the living God, and you have turned it into a marketplace for your own greed.

But it goes even deeper than just the greed, even deeper than the desire for money.

The second half of verse 17 shifts from Isaiah to Jeremiah.

And Jesus says, But you have made it a den of robbers.

And that sounds like he's just still addressing the money stuff, and that is going on, but these folks know their Bibles, or they ought to.

And if you do, you know where that comes from, and you'll know Jeremiah chapter 7.

Jeremiah 7 · chapter mention

Back in Jeremiah chapter 7, that is not a gentle passage of scripture.

Jeremiah 7 · chapter mention

God is angry with his people.

Back there in Jeremiah, what is happening?

God's people were worshipping false pagan gods.

And they had the cheek, every now and again, to come to the temple and to worship God and to say, Oh, we are saved, oh, it is brilliant.

And God says, No, this is an abomination.

That's the word he uses.

You hypocrites, with your empty words.

And God promises to abandon the temple, and soon after the Babylonians will come in and destroy it.

Jesus sees the same thing happening here in his day.

You, you bank on this temple.

You think because you're Jews, because you're religious, because you do the civilized thing, you think that this is where life is found.

But this place is empty because your hearts are empty.

Don't play at worshipping God.

The temple is all show, no substance, all religion, no love for God, all external, no internal life.

Jesus is the king then who comes in judgment on empty religion.

And he came to do away with the temple.

Access to God is now found in Jesus.

But there was also a shadow of the literal destruction of the temple that would come later in 70 AD.

The fig tree, remember, had withered away to its roots.

It was no more, there was no coming back from this.

That is what's going to happen to the temple and to your empty religion, says Jesus.

Maybe we just for a minute need to consider this.

How offensive God finds hypocrisy.

How Jesus came to judge empty religion.

How God knows when we play Christianity on a Sunday, but we worship other things the rest of the week.

When we say we love God, but there are 150 things in our hearts that we love more than we love Him.

We would give Him up before we would ever give these things up.

If that is you, friends, turn to Jesus to find grace for your sin.

Turn to Jesus for help to change.

Turn to Jesus to remember him and to love him.

Turn to Jesus, who is not the God of empty, meaningless religion, but is the God of depth and heart change and forgiveness of sins and the transformation of your life that you might know him and love him and live for him with all that you have and have him and gain him and be with him forever, without end, without ever losing it.

That pearl of greatest price.

Jesus is the king who is worth following because he came to save.

And Jesus is the king who is worth following because he came to judge, and he won't let evil, and he won't let hypocrisy, he won't let sin go on forever.

Just for a minute, I want to look at those last verses, 22 to 25.

They feel like an odd bit touched onto the end of the story, don't they?

But really, I think they are just Jesus' loving response to a panicking disciple.

To Peter.

You know, he's noticed the tree has withered to its root.

And as he points it out to Jesus, you sort of get the impression that he's connecting the dots, isn't he?

The tree's dead, Jesus is angry at the temple.

The temple's on its way out, isn't it, Jesus?

And put yourself, though, in Peter's shoes as he follows Jesus towards the cross.

Jesus, this road is going to be hard enough already.

How are we going to worship God?

How is he going to hear our prayers?

How are our sins going to be forgiven if you take away the temple?

We need it.

Jesus tells him in verse 22, and this is really the key to what he's saying.

Have faith in God.

Maybe it sounds too simple.

But it shouldn't be.

God will continue to work, verse 23.

You just need to believe in him.

God will continue to answer your prayers, verse 24.

You just need to believe in him.

And God will be able to forgive your sins.

Verse 25.

Without the sacrificial system, without the temple, without the pigeons and the lambs and all the animals, because of Jesus, have faith in God, he says.

Peter and those following Jesus, I think, probably still don't fully understand what the cross is going to be like and what it's going to achieve.

But the truth is, Peter, that you don't need a temple anymore.

The curtain is going to be torn from top to bottom, and you will have direct access to God through Jesus.

And he will always be with you in his spirit, and he will never leave you.

And he will hear and he will answer your prayers.

He will love to hear your voices as sons and daughters of his.

Peter, you don't need the temple and its sacrifices, because my blood will cover your sin.

My blood is how I will set people free.

And as we just go back and we think of Bartimaeus then, and of all those who follow Jesus along the way of the cross.

That's you if you're a Christian.

That's me.

We see the Jesus who is worth sticking with, even if we suffer for him, because he is the King who judges sin and who saves sinners like us.

He's the King we can have faith in.

Because he has given himself to us.

And he will always have our back.

Let's pray.

Help us to know this King, that we might gladly and more gladly give up our lives for his sake.

And we thank you that he came to judge the empty, that Hypocritical, the religious, where people were not loving you, but loving anything else.

Father God, please help us to love you, to know you, to trust you.

Help us have faith in you, knowing your love and your care for your people, knowing your blood shed that we might be liberated to be Christ's and to follow him, yes, to the cross, but to life as well and life forever.

Amen.