“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!”
Mark 11:9-10
Until now the bulk of Jesus ministry has been focused in the north of the country - around the Sea of Galilee. But since the end of chapter 9, Jesus has been moving south with his sights fixed Jerusalem. The last word of chapter 10 was that Bartimaeus followed Jesus ‘along the road’ - that is the road to Jerusalem.
Now, here in verse 1 of chapter 11, we find Jesus approaching Jerusalem and arriving at the Mount of Olives. And that becomes the base of his operations for a little while.
One of the features of the Mount of Olives is that it has an excellentview of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Temple Mount is that flat-topped hill in Jerusalem where Solomon had built the very first temple. If you remember, it was in the heart of his father David to build a temple, but God said ‘no, it will be your son who builds it’.
That first temple was destroyed by the Babylonians when Judah went into exile during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. But, after 70 years of captivity in Babylon, under the decree of Cyrus king of Persia, the temple was rebuilt.
And with the addition of various bits and pieces that king Herod made to it, when Jesus looked down from the mount of Olives towards Jerusalem, he would have seen that second Jewish temple.
That temple was destroyed also. In AD70 - 30 to 40 years after the Lord Jesus ascended to heaven - the Romans came and descended on Jerusalem like a consuming fire and burnt it to the ground.
Today, the Al-Aqsa mosque, with its shining golden dome, sits on the site that Jesus looked out on from the mount of Olives.
The reason for telling you this is that the temple is a significant focus now. Not only the verses we have this morning, but also this unit of the gospel.
At the end of chapter 11: The chief priests and teachers of the law from the temple will challenge Jesus’ authority, resulting in confrontation.
At the beginning of chapter 12: Jesus will speak parables against the leaders of the temple resulting in further conflict. And Jesus will refer to himself as a cornerstone - a parallel with the huge stones the temple was built out of.
Then, in the second half of chapter 12, Jesus will face the religious rulers again whilst in the temple courts, when they try to trap him.
And finally, the whole of chapter 13 will be a doomsday prophecy starting with the destruction of the temple - and taught by Jesus entirely from the mount of Olives.
So that’s the lay of the land as we move into chapter 11. We’re starting on the Mount of Olives and we’re going to end this section of Mark’s gospel on the mount of Olives because it’s a section all about how Jesus’ arrival on the scene affects the temple, and by extension, the entire covenant God had made with the Jews.
Don’t forget what the temple represents. It represents the place where heaven meets earth. The temple represents the presence of God in the midst of humanity.
It also represents where intercession is made for sinners so that they can approach Holy God. It represents also a house of prayer and worship. And also, of covenant agreement between God and people.
So, there’s a lot of significance in the temple. And that means that what Jesus says about the temple; how he behaves around the temple; how he interacts with the people of the temple, tells us a lot about him.
With that in mind, we’re going to focus our attention on verses 1-25 of chapter 11. And we’ll see three very radical things about Jesus unfold.
We’re going to see his kingly authority established in a visible way. We’re going to see his assessment of the temple create kingly judgment in him. And finally, we’re going to see Jesus assert himself as the new centre for everything God related. So, kingship, judgment and radical relocation - in himself.
Kingship
Over Christmas I took a photography walk with our very own Josh Allen and his friend Ben. A photography walk - it’s not something I’ve done before, and so I wondered, where would be a good place to go.
I thought a place where there would be interesting things on route, and also big vistas, would be the kind of thing that they might enjoy. That way we could take different kinds of photographs.
So, I concluded, where better to go than Holmfirth? I know some routes there really well. And we’d be able to get up high with lots of great views. But also on the route, there would be interesting buildings and quirky features to look at too. Perfect!
An when we’d finished the walk, I think we’d all really enjoyed it - which was a relief, being as I was both guide and novice in the group.
But one thing that stood out was, that as we walked, I had lots of connections with the place that Josh and Ben didn’t have. As we encountered places and features, I was able to do something they couldn’t, which was to explain how that place featured in my own story.
I found myself saying, ‘my dad was born over there’. ‘My grandma worked in that mill there’. ‘Deb and I had an alarming encounter with a large bull in that field there’. Things like that.
Which is a long way of saying that the features of the event that unfolds here in verses 1-10 - that we know as ‘the triumphal entry’ - connect Jesus with a kingly story. And because that’s the case, it tells us that Jesus’ kingly authority is what is in view here.
Let me show you what I mean. Verse 2 tells us that Jesus sent two of his disciples to the town ahead with a very specific task. When Jesus gets specific like this, we shouldn’t miss that something important is going on.
He tells the disciples specifically, that as they enter the village, they will find a colt - a colt just means a young version of an equine animal, it could be a horse, but here we know it is the colt of donkey, becauseMatthew tells us that in his account.
With even more specificity, Jesus says, it will be a young donkey ‘that no one has ever ridden’. Their instruction is to take it and bring it to him. And should anybody ask them, ‘why are you taking that colt?’ their answer should be, ‘the Lord needs it and will send it back’.
Verses 4-6 record for us that it all turned out exactly as Jesus had said, and the people did let them go with the donkey.
So now that Jesus had the donkey, the disciples threw their cloaks on it and Jesus sat on it. Up until now Jesus has walked everywhere apart from taking a boat on the lake. But now, with rigorous intentionality, he readies himself to enter Jerusalem riding - and that’s really important.
As he does so, Mark says in verse 8, ‘many people spread their cloaks on the road while others spread branches they had cut in the fields’.
That’s not all. The people - some in front and some behind - shouted and announced his coming by saying, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’
Whatever it is that Jesus is communicating, he wants to make it very clear by intentional signs. He is simply going out of his way to make this event look a certain way. When, in verse 3, Jesus told the disciples to tell the people asking about the donkey, that he ‘needed’ it - that tells us that Jesus is constructing a scene here. He’s compelled to tell a story. And it’s a story about himself.
The colt of a donkey is telling part of the story. Solomon, David’s son, who built the temple, was placed on King David’s mule at his coronation. And the people followed the mule, shouting ‘Long live King Solomon’ and rejoiced greatly, so that the ground shook with the sound - 1 Kings 1:40 says. Solomon was great. But Jesus is David’s greaterson.
The colt is especially one that ‘no one had ever ridden’. There seems to be something about the fitness of animals that have never carried anything before - a fitness to bear the weight of divinity.
In 1 Samuel 6, the cart that carried the ark of the covenant back to Israel was purposely pulled by oxen that had never been yoked. Jesus is not only a king in the line of David, but he is also the God-king.
Jesus sits on people’s cloaks and his donkey carries him over people’s cloaks. That’s telling us that he is entering Jerusalem as king becausewhen Jehu was anointed king, the people quickly took off their cloaks and spread them under him (2 Kings 9:12-13). Not only is Jesus telling the story, but the people are also participating in the story. They are saying, by placing their cloaks under him, ‘you can be our king’.
The spreading of branches beneath Jesus echoes the feast of tabernacles established in Leviticus. That feast was to remind the people of God’s sovereign provision for them when he brought them out from under the hand of the cruel king of Egypt (Leviticus 23).
And then there are these words from Psalm 118 which the crowd recite as they follow Jesus into Jerusalem. ‘Hosanna!’ It means ‘Lord, save us!’ – ‘Who is sovereign and who can save us? You are, our majestic Jesus’.
‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ – ‘Who is it who comes on behalf of God Almighty? It is you sovereign Jesus’.
‘Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!’ – ‘Who is it who comes in the kingly line of our great father David to establish his kingdom? It is you, O Jesus, Lord of David!’
‘Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ – ‘Be praised in the courts of heaven Jesus. Be praised by all the angels! For you are king on high, as well as here below.’
All the details of this triumphal entry are pointing to the kingship of Jesus. Jesus is saying ‘I am king’. And the people are responding: ‘You are! Rule over us’.
And yet, something is out of place. It’s the priests. They are nowhere to be seen! ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ (Psalm 118:26) should have been sung by the priests. And they would have completed that verse saying, ‘From the house of the Lord [from the temple] we bless you’. But they’re not there! And it’s because they’ve rejected him.
Oh, how Jesus has to be king of our lives! He has to have the throne of our hearts.
Where’s my cloak? On my back like a warm blanket? Or on the floor under his feet saying, ‘you be my Lord’.
‘You say go here Lord, and I’ll go. You say do that Lord, and I’ll do it. Because you are my king, Lord Jesus’.
Or am I like those cold, callous, priests who didn’t want anybody to be the king of their lives except, one - themselves?
Judgement
Is it any wonder then that Jesus went straight to the temple after he arrived in Jerusalem? It’s like he’s saying, ‘where are those priests?’
Verse 11 says ‘he went into the temple courts and looked around at everything’. And then, because it was late, he left and returned to Bethany.
The next day started with a parable. It’s a parable that serves twopurposes and we’ll come to the second shortly. But the first purpose is to foreground what’s about to happen at the temple.
Mark says in verse 12 ‘they were leaving Bethany’. So, I guess it was breakfast time. Mark says ‘Jesus was hungry’. And, seeing a fig tree in the distance, Jesus went over to it to see if there was any fruit on it. But Mark records that he only found ‘leaves’. And he gives the reasonfor that: it wasn’t the season for figs (the end of verse 13). It’s not like the fig tree should have had fruit but didn’t. It wasn’t the time for it to have fruit.
That makes no difference to Jesus though. He seems revolted by this fig tree regardless. So much so, he pronounces a curse on the tree – ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again’.
Now all this happens as Jesus is heading back to Jerusalem. And when he gets there, he’s going to go into the temple and look for a ‘house of prayer’ (v.17 says) – that’s how Isaiah describes the temple.
But what he’s going to find is, what he describes in his own words as ‘a den of robbers’ (v.17) – and that’s exactly how Jeremiah records Goddescribing the temple in his day. Jesus uses God’s word to pronounce judgment on the temple.
In other words, Jesus finds the temple fruitless like the fig tree. Instead of the fruit of prayer, he finds the leaves of buying and selling; of money changing; and of merchandising. And it’s an abomination in his view.
He’s quite simply incensed by what he finds. And in his kingly authority, he overturns the money tables; he throws down the benches; and he stops the merchandise from being carried through the temple courts.
He’s revolted by their desecration of the temple of God. So much so, he’s willing to confront the sin of his day at the risk of offending his fellow Jews in the most forthright fashion.
And as we work through this section of Mark’s account, we’re going to see that Jesus fully expects God’s final judgment to fall on the temple; and for it to fall soon.
Do these remarkable and uncomfortable events serve to bring the priests to their senses and make them acknowledge the error of their ways? They don’t. In fact, they serve to deepen their error.
Verse 18 says, ‘The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this[all the scene that Jesus had made in the temple] and began looking for a way to kill him’. Mark says they feared that the whole crowd would follow Jesus unless they did something about him, and I think they thought the crowd would make him king.
Hard hearts do not receive discipline from Jesus favourably. Hard hearts, hear Jesus speak and it stings. Hard hearts don’t like the voice of Jesus when he speaks contrary to what their itching ears want to hear.
And that was these teachers of the law. They should have softenedtheir hearts and said to themselves this teacher speaks in line with the law of the Lord – like no one ever did - we’ll listen to him. But instead, they rejected his rebuke, and they plotted against him in their hearts.
Relocation
Once again Jesus and the twelve retired to Bethany. And once again, the following morning they set out for Jerusalem. Which took them past the fig tree again. But this time they found it withered – Mark says, withered ‘from the roots’.
Jesus issued the curse the day before – Peter calls it a ‘curse’ in verse 21 – and the next day judgment had fallen on the plant. Jesus had said, ‘may no one ever eat from you again’ and the next day the tree was withered – not even a leaf to be found.
The tree had had the appearance of life with its leaves, but its lack of fruit was not good in Jesus’ eyes. Its judgment is shown now by its dry, shrunken, lifeless form. And I think it says something that Jesus did this to the tree when its season for fruit was not in.
It says that Jesus expects to find fruit in all seasons of life. He expected to find the temple to be a house of prayer no matter when he turned up. And I think he expects to find our lives fruitful in all seasons too.
But, in the teaching of Jesus, the fig tree serves a second purpose also. It’s a response to Peter’s observation that the fig tree withered at the rebuke of Jesus. Peter made the connection between Jesus’ words and a physical change in the plant.
And Jesus’ response is to say that such a thing is not impossible, evenfor them, if they have faith. You can see that in verse 23 – ‘Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain [the mount of Olives], ‘go throw yourself into the sea’, and does not doubt in their heart but believesthat what they say will happen, it will be done for them’.
Now that is a remarkable claim. The mount of Olives is an enormous chunk of mountain. And except for the action of some natural disaster like an earthquake or a gigantic landslide, such things do not happen. So, what’s going on?
Well one word describes it perfectly ‘relocation’. Not the mountain - more profound things than the mountain. He’s using the figure of a mountain to refer to the whole old covenant. That old covenant was made on mount Sinai. He’s talking about throwing the whole Jewish order into the sea once and for all to make way for something new.
Remember, Jesus expected to find the temple to be a house of prayer, and instead he found it as a den of robbers.
And now here he’s talking about prayer, on the mount of Olives. I believe that what he is teaching the disciples is that judgment on the temple, and by wider implication the whole Jewish covenant, has been decreed.
The very place where fellowship with God and worship of God, and intercession before God, and the presence of God had been located was coming to an imminent end.
But, I think he also showing that that doesn’t mean that fellowship with, and worship of, and intercession before, and the presence of God go with it.
It means, rather, that a new and better way is opened up by which we draw near to God. And that new and better way is in himself.
It means that the law is out, and the priesthood is out, and the templeis out. And in their place come superior things that have to do with truespirituality. Things like faith, and spiritual community and God living within his people.
And Jesus is becoming the new location for intercession before God – by his blood shed on the cross. And he is becoming the new location for the right worship of God. He is becoming the new location for fellowship, because he made a new covenant in his blood. He is becoming the new location for prayer, as we come to God in his name.
He is the new location for everything that connects our lives to God. And our lives are hidden with Christ in God.
How can prayer move a mountain into the sea? Jesus is how. God is so happy with his Son that when we come wholly trusting in him and ask anything, we have a mighty audience with almighty God. And nothingis too hard for him to do. And to do for you. Verse 23, ‘it will be done for you’. Verse 24, ‘it will be yours’. These are amazing promises.
Now I know someone will be thinking that they have wholeheartedly asked, and they have not received. I am one of those people. I believe I have whole heartedly asked for something nearly every day for 4 years, and it would seem I haven’t received it. So, what should I think? That Jesus is defective. Jesus is not defective!
Instead, I find a helpful word here for me. In verse 24, Jesus says, ‘believe that you have received it, and it will be yours’. That’s a strange phrase.
I take it to mean that when I ask, there is a way that God gives, that doesn’t necessarily conform to my scanty understanding of answered prayer.
Rather, it conforms to his wisdom for what is best for me, as his child. And part of what it is to believe is to know that your seemingly unanswered prayer, is answered. It’s answered in the best possibleway – in God’s way.
And so, what seems to me like an immovable mountain, has actually been moved, but not in the way I see fit, but in the way he sees fit. I have to trust him for that.
The last word Jesus has to say, correlates to the immovable mountain. As you stand praying and remember that you have something against someone, forgive them.
Bitterness strangles prayer – did you know that? You cannot be bitter and be an effective prayer. We have to ‘get rid of all bitterness’ Paul says. And the way to do that is to forgive. It is one of the hallmarks of the new covenant – ‘love your enemies and pray for them’ Jesus says.
He says this because he knows how hard it is to forgive. But he gives us a great incentive to forgive: ‘that your Father in heaven may forgive your sins’.