The New Temple
Sermon Notes
(Mark 11:1-25)
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’” They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “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 heaven!” Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “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.’” The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!” “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
Introduction
The working title for this sermon is: “Someone Get That Man a Snickers!”
This is one of those chapters where we walk away scratching our heads. What is going on here?
Taken individually, each of the elements of this story is somewhat problematic.
The fig tree thing is especially disconcerting because Jesus just seems to be irritable, what we, in my family, call “hangry.” Completely unreasonable. It wasn’t even the season for figs.
And, on top of that, we have never seen Him use His power to destroy, only to restore.
His anger in the temple is much more understandable, to us, at least, but it certainly wasn’t to anyone who was there that day. And, if we’re honest with ourselves, even though we can justify His anger at those who had cheapened the temple, we still have to admit that we’re somewhat disturbed by the thought of Jesus, red in the face, spit flying from His lips, throwing tables across the room, physically preventing people from walking through the temple courts with merchandise.
Then, there’s the statement He makes after His disciples are astounded by the fact that the fig tree has withered, which, to me, is the most disturbing part of the story and seems to be a bit of a non-sequitur.
Taken individually, the pieces are baffling.
That, of course, is why we shouldn’t take the pieces individually. This is one of those stories that prove that context is necessary. In fact, when we put this passage in its proper contexts (historical, literary, linguistic), we see that, not only does it make sense as a whole narrative but that it changes everything.
Narrative context: I love telling Jesus stories (because they still speak today). This is how God chose to communicate Himself to us. So, the best thing I can do today is serve as a tour guide through this story and let it speak, let Him speak (not overly sermonize).
Begins with Triumphal Entry
Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem is rife with messianic expectation.
Combining images from OT (Zechariah) and from the Hasmonean Dynasty (palm branches, the last time the Kingdom belonged to Israel)
Jesus is making a statement, and everyone in the crowd knows it. He had revealed Himself, shown His power and authority, gathered a following (an army), made His way to Jerusalem, entered the city in a highly symbolic way, and was preparing to ascend the throne.
Expectation was that Jesus would mobilize His army and march on the Romans.
But, they got into town pretty late in the day, so Jesus just poked around the Temple for a bit and then called it a night. Never wage war after a long day’s travel.
So, the next morning, everyone woke up ready to go. Bethany was buzzing. People were excited, but Jesus was in a foul mood. It all started with a fig tree.
The Fig Tree
As they were heading from Bethany toward Jerusalem (down the Mount of Olive, across the Kidron Valley, the city of Jerusalem and the temple mount in view the whole way), Jesus saw a fig tree in the distance.
A beautiful tree lots of green leaves.
So, Jesus went up to the tree hoping to grab breakfast or a snack or something. Mark has let us in on a little secret though: it wasn’t the season for figs. It was spring; figs are harvested in the summer.
When Jesus arrives at the tree, He doesn’t see any figs on the tree, and He snaps at the tree. “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”
Again, hangry Jesus! The same thing happens to me when I head to Chik-fil-a after church only to realize as I pull into the parking lot that Chik-fil-a is closed on Sundays. May no one ever eat chicken from you again. As of yet, my curses haven’t done anything to Chik-fil-a’s empire. Is Jesus acting like a petulant child? Is He just being unreasonable? Is He taking out His divine frustration (which is far more potent than mine) on this poor tree?
It wasn’t even the season for figs!
Botanical context: well, we have to understand something important about fig trees if we want to understand this story. Fig trees have two crops: one crop of figs in the summer but, prior to that, one crop of pre-figs called breba that grow in the spring on the chutes of the previous year’s crops. We can think of these as blossoms. These are smaller and drier than figs but still edible and still taste like figs. So, it wasn’t the season for figs, but it was the season for pre-figs. Jesus knew this. He grew up eating these things from the trees all around Nazareth.
So, what does the fact that there were no pre-figs on this tree tell us? That there wouldn’t be any figs either. In other words, that the tree wasn’t producing fruit. It was fruitless. Lots of leaves but no fruit, which means that it was useless, drawing all sorts of nutrients from the soil to produce green leaves but not bearing any fruit. So, Jesus did what anyone would have done. He cut it down.
It’s translated as a curse, and I suppose it is, but it could also be translated as a statement of fact. “No one will ever eat fruit from you again.”
The Temple
Then, Jesus moves on to the Temple where He saw (and had seen the previous day) people buying and selling in the Temple courts
What were they buying and selling? Mark points out one thing: doves. To be used in sacrifice. In other words, people had set up shop in the temple to make money off of people who came to worship. They were capitalizing on the business of worship. The whole scene is very commercial.
And was very disturbing to Jesus. He came to the Temple and saw a flurry of religious activity laying as a veneer over a corrupt system of capitalism. What was supposed to be a house of worship had become a supermarket. In other words, He saw a beautiful tree with a bunch of leaves but no fruit. Ah! Maybe these stories aren’t so random after all. Maybe Mark put them together for a reason.
Jesus did to the temple what He did to the fig tree: He pronounced judgement over its leafy fruitlessness. He cut it down.
The next day
That night is when everyone jumped ship. Jesus was supposed to attack the Romans, but instead He had attacked the temple.
We often wonder how people who cried, “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday would be shouting, “Crucify Him” by Good Friday. That’s how.
So, I imagine the crowd that woke up in Bethany was much smaller the next day.
They headed back down the same road, where they came across the fig tree, and the disciples freaked out because it was completely withered from the roots up.
And, Jesus makes this great statement: “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.”
And people hear this and say, “YES! Here’s the secret to getting what I want out of God. It’s not just the fig tree. He’s telling me that there is nothing that can stand in my way. Whatever mountain I’m facing, if I just have enough faith, I can say to it, ‘Get outta here,’ and it will.”
Lots of problems with this though. Again, context…
It ignores the literary context. We’re still in the same story, where the primary issue is the Temple and the fruitfulness.
It ignores the greater context of the book of Mark and really of the Gospels where the great concern is not us getting what we want (building our own Kingdoms) but us repenting, turning around, so that we can enter the Kingdom of God. Selling our little pearls for the pearl of great price. Losing our lives so that we can find them. The whole point of this narrative is that His Kingdom and ours will look very different. Why then would this narrative end with Him telling us how to build our own kingdoms?
Another problem is that the disciples who heard this clearly didn’t take it as a way to “name it and claim it.” We don’t see them throughout the rest of the New Testament yelling at their problems to move out of the way in the name of Jesus. We don’t see them castigating one another for not having enough faith when they’re facing hardships. In the book of Acts when persecution comes, they don’t even pray for the persecution to stop, for the mountain to move. They pray instead for more courage and boldness (Acts 4).
Finally, the biggest problem is that it doesn’t work (tell the Kreza story?).
Where do we go wrong in our interpretation? Again, we ignore the context: this time linguistic and geographical.
“This mountain”: He’s still hung up on the topic of the Temple.
He’s not talking about metaphorical mountains but a literal one, the one on which the Temple rests.
He’s not telling us how to get what we want out of God. He’s telling us how to get God. You see, at the time, they considered the Temple to be God’s house; it’s where God lived (despite the fact that God tried to tell them throughout the Old Testament that He didn’t live there). It was where people went to encounter the presence of God.
But Jesus is here saying, “I have come to put an end to that way of thinking, that way of being with God. I have seen where that leads, what it has become, and I have rendered it irrelevant. The temple is not where God lives. God indwells faith.
Where is God’s particular presence most powerful (as His general presence is everywhere)? Where there is faith. In a community of people who trust and grow in their trust of Him.
This understanding, the decentralization of Temple, is remarkably consistent with the rest of the New Testament.
With John’s account of the Triumphal Entry where Jesus tells the religious leaders to tear down the Temple and He will rebuild it in three days (speaking about His Body).
And of the rest of the NT:
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)
This is way better than getting whatever we want. This is about becoming people of Presence, filled to overflowing with the same spirit that filled the Holy of Holies. A lot of people think that when Jesus was crucified and the veil to the holiest place was torn, it was about us gaining access to go in. It wasn’t. It was an unleashing of God on us!
What do we do with the prayer, “Whatever you ask,” language?
Well, we understand first that if we become the Temple through the indwelling presence of God, then we take on the mission of the Temple.
A temple is to be a house of prayer for all nations, a place where the nations encounter God. What do you suppose happens when Jesus changes the temple from a building to a people? That’s right! He mobilizes it. He changes the nature of the mission from centripetal to centrifugal.
We become a place where all nations encounter God as we are sent out (Go into all the world.)
Extraordinary mission requires extraordinary resources.
Ask for whatever you need.
As we are indwelt by the presence of God and we participate with His indwelling presence (a huge conversation for another day), our hearts are aligned to His. This is not about getting what we want out of God; it’s not about actualizing our dreams. It’s about God putting His dream in us (His is better).
Willard quote: “Jesus is actually looking for people He can trust with His power. Trust to give whatever they want.”
The ultimate expression of the mission of the Temple is forgiveness.