Mark 12:35-13:3 – Jesus Exits the Temple Disgusted but Determined

May 23, 2012

After Jesus cleansed the temple, he was incessantly confronted by temple authorities and other leaders within the Jewish community. They peppered him with questions hoping he might say something that might undermine his popularity with the people or endanger his life from the Romans. Eventually, however, they backed off, and now Jesus becomes more proactive. He goes on the offensive.

This section is the backend of the “temple narrative” which began when Jesus entered the temple on the day of his triumphal entry, looked around and went back to Bethany (Mark 11:1-11). The next day he exercised his kingdom authority by clearing the temple of exploitive merchandisers. Now at the end of this narrative, where Jesus is teaching in the temple courts, Jesus asserts his authority and compares his ministry with the temple authorities. In other words, the Son has come to assess how the vineyard is being run and his judgment is that the authorities should be replaced. This involves, ultimately, purifying the temple, that is, the destruction of the temple (Mark 13) and building a new one (resurrection).

This section (Mark 12:35-13:3) hangs together as Jesus’ proactive judgment against the temple complex. The discussion of Psalm 110 (Mark 12:35-37) asserts his authority over the temple, the contrast between the scribes and the widows asserts his judgment against the ruling class (Mark 12:38-44), and the announcement of the temple’s destruction asserts his judgment against the temple itself (Mark 13:1-3). There are several literary clues that connect these three episodes into one story, one judgment, which justifies the cleansing of the temple that occurred on the previous day.

The first episode, the question about Psalm 110, answers the temple authorities’ original question in Mark 11:28: “by what authority are you doing these things”? In other words, who gave you the right to cleanse the temple? Jesus’ response is essentially that while the Messiah is a descendent (“son”) of David, the Messiah is also much more, that is, he is David’s “Lord.”

Psalm 110 was often read in a Messianic way by Second Temple Judaism. The question Jesus raised is the juxtaposition of two assertions: (1) Psalm 110 is Messianic and (2) the Messiah is a “son of David.” Psalm 110 is an enthronement Psalm. The exalted king will reign until all enemies are crushed and the nations are judged. Further, he will function as a priest like the royal Melchizedek in Genesis 14. Psalm 110 envisions a royal priesthood that defeats the enemies of God as a warrior King.

By quoting Psalm 110, Jesus asserts his Messianic authority to judge God’s enemies, including the temple authorities. Thus, he has authority to cleanse the temple. He does this not only as David’s son, but also David’s Lord. The enthronement scene, which is interpreted elsewhere in the New Testament in terms of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to the right hand of God, envisions the reign of the Messiah in a new temple which is the temple of Jesus’ own resurrected body. Jesus is more than a son of David; he is (will be) the resurrected Lord of the earth who defeats all the enemies of God, including death. By quoting Psalm 110, Jesus anticipates his own resurrection and thus the rebuilding of the temple in his own body.

The second episode employs a strong contrast between wealth and poverty. It is difficult to decide whether Mark 12:38-40 is an independent saying or whether it should be closely aligned with Mark 12:41-44. I assume that they contextualize each other, that is, Mark combines these in order to strengthen the contrast between the wealthy, favored scribes and the poor, oppressed widows.

The scribes are described not only as those who are noticed and “first,” but also those who “devour widow’s houses.” Their dress (usually long white robes) identified them, their prayers were long to demonstrate their knowledge and erudition, and they were noticed (greeted) in the marketplace. They were the center of attention and they were honored with “first place” (proto). They were “first” in the synagogue (protokathedrias) and at meals (protoklisias). Culture exalted them and everyone wanted to appear with them.

But they exploited widows! What does Jesus mean by this statement? Within the narrative it prepares us for the contrast between the rich and the widow, but it also alerts us to Jesus’ critique of the temple complex. The temple economy, in some way, exploited widows; it placed a burden on widows that oppressed them.

How did the temple complex exploit widows? Some suggest that scribes were often given trusteeship over widow’s estates. Since women could not administer it for themselves, scribes were given the task. This, of course, had tremendous potential for abuse. Others, and this seems more likely, suggest that the contrast between abuse and prayers indicates that this was a temple problem. Perhaps the excessive costs of maintaining the temple devoured the resources of the poor. The economy of the temple, then, is Jesus’ point of attack just as it was when he cleansed the temple. The temple was supposed to be a house of prayer rather than a means of economic exploitation.

This exploitation is illustrated in the contrast between the contributions of the wealthy out of their abundance and the meager contribution of the poor widow. Read in this way, the story about the widow is not so much a praise for how the poor give all they have but rather a lament that the temple economy exploits such widows while the rich give out of their abundance (cf. Wright, CBQ [1982], 262]. When Jesus sat “facing” the temple treasury—which consisted of thirteen trumpet-shaped chests in the Court of Women—this signals that he intends to scrutinize (etheorei) this economic activity.

The Jesus’ saying, emphasized by calling his disciples to him (their first appearance since Mark 11:27) and introduced by “Amen” solemnity, draws a stark contrast between the many rich who give out of their abundance and the single poor widow who gives out of her poverty. The rich given abundantly, but the widow gives everything, which is nothing more than the smallest valued coins in Palestine. Practically, she gives nothing but yet she gives everything. The rich continue to be rich but the widow now has nothing. The temple complex, a place of prayer, devours widows! The widow is a victim of the system that imposes duties on her for the sake of supporting the temple complex. The economic system oppressed the widows while it empowered and gave status to the rich. Churches and televangelists do the same when they extract gifts from the poor to support their wealthy structures.

In the third episode, Jesus exits the temple which alerts us to the conclusion of the controversy narrative (Mark 11:27-12:44). His exit may be interpreted as an act of disgust as if he is done with the temple. He does not return to it in Mark’s narrative. This disgust contrasts with the marvel of his disciples who are impressed with the size of the Herodian stones and the beauty of the temple complex.

But Jesus is in no mood to revel in the beauty of the buildings. Jesus recognizes their “greatness,” but he is unimpressed. He knows the future of these stones. The Herodian temple will be destroyed. Jesus announces the divine judgment to his disciples. Just as in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, so in the days of Roman oppression, the temple is given over to destruction. God will judge the tenants of his vineyard and destroy the temple.

Exiting the temple and crossing the Kidron Valley to ascend the Mount of Olives, Jesus sat opposite the temple. The narrative stressed the determined attitude of Jesus. He sat facing (katenanti) the temple (Mark 13:3) just as he sat facing the temple treasury a few moments earlier (Mark 12:41). This is a dramatic moment in the Markan narrative. He “faces” the temple—he looks it in the eye, discerns its evil and repudiates it.

It is a settled conviction. Judgment is coming. He has prefigured it in the cleansing of the temple, he announced it through the cursing of the fig tree, and now he will tell his disciples the story of temple’s horrid end.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mark 12:18-27: Who is Your God?

May 10, 2012

In this story Jesus confronts the limiting rationality of Sadducees who think it impossible that God should raise the dead. Their theology is limited by their own experience and rational argumentation.

I dare say that is not too uncommon in our present moment as well. For example, it is not unusual to hear, “If God is like _________, then I could never believe in a God like that.” The assumptions present in that statement are numerous but at bottom it rests on the presumption that God must fit (or conform to) my rationality to be worthy of my affirmation. It turns the table on the God-human relationship as we judge an infinite God by a finite, fallible human rationality.

Jesus catches the Sadducees doing this very thing.

The Sadducees, authorities in the Jewish ruling council (the Sanhedrin), appear as the fourth group to attempt to trip up Jesus while he taught in the temple. The chief priests and elders questioned Jesus about his authority to cleanse the temple, the Pharisees and Herodians questioned him about the Caesar tax, and now the Sadducees question him about the resurrection. But this last question does not seem to be the same sort of question as the first two since those endangered his life. Actually, this last question was one of many inter-Jewish disputes between the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

So, what is the function of this question? At one level, it may simply be an attempt to stump Jesus and thereby undermine the hold he had on the populace as a teacher. The Sadducees, by using their “trump” question–the question that would immediately defeat the opponent (like “what about the person who dies on the way to baptism?”), possibly hoped to dishonor Jesus and demystify his status as a great teacher.

At another level, something more significant may be at stake in this question. Some suggest that it is about power, land ownership and ruling authority. Levirate marriage laws (Deuteronomy 25:5-6 ; cf. Genesis 38:8) secured the inheritance of land within a clan or family through regulations that mandated that a brother marry his sibling’s childless widow. The land could not be inherited by a widow (read: woman) and thus she needed a legitimate child to inherit the land. If this is the point, then their question is about who will inherit the land in the resurrection as much as it is whose wife will she be.

Others, I think more correctly, suggest that the issue concerns the nature of the new age, the reality of a resurrected world and life in it. The Sadducees assume that resurrected life is wholly identical with the present reality. For them resurrection, as they understood it from (presumably) the Pharisees, is that there is little to no difference between resurrection and resuscitation. And this is the point that Jesus addresses directly.

Jesus claims that they err because they “know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” This is an important characterization. It signals exactly how Jesus will respond to the query.

First, they do not know the power of God. They have limited God by their own conception of rational possibilities. Resurrection, for them, can only mean that life will continue as it is now. But Jesus undermines this assumption. While there is continuity between the present and resurrected life (our personal identities, for example), there is also discontinuity. The new age (the resurrected life) will be different. Procreation will not be part of the coming age so there is no need for marriage as it presently exists regulated by Torah legislation. We will be “like angels”–not that we will be angels ourselves; that is, our communal relations will be similar to how the angelic community lives in harmony with each other. The difference between angels and humanity, however, is that we will inherit the land (the cosmos).

Second, they do not know the Scriptures. Jesus quotes Exodus 3:6 which recalls a key moment in Israel’s history, the day when Moses encountered Yahweh at the burning bush. Many interpreters focus on the present tense (“I am the Gd of Abraham”) as the key to how Jesus uses the text in response to the Sadducees. In other words, God is still the God of Abraham, that is, Abraham is still living. This form of Jewish “grammatical exegesis,” however, does not seem to fully fit the bill since this does not really say anything about resurrection but, at the most, only their present ongoing existence (which is not resurrected life itself).

Instead, following Janzen’s suggestion [JNST 23 (1985) 43-58], Jesus is not utilizing a grammatical exegesis but is rather employing a narratival hermeneutic. When Jesus uses the ancestral formula, “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” we remember the ancestral narratives of these patriarchs. We remember Abraham whose wife was barren but yet gave life. We remember the barrenness of Rebekah and Rachel. The wombs of Israel’s ancestors were dead but God gave them life. Thus, the formula remembers a God who brings life out of death. This is the God of Israel, the one who brings life from death. Yahweh is a resurrecting God, one who delivers Israel from death. God does not leave Israel in death but gives life.

The Sadducees are faulted on two counts. They put God in the box of their own rationality and they don’t even know their own story.

Humans, whether we are talking about theodicy, omniscience or other issues in philosophical theology, tend to put boundaries on their gods. They like them to conform to their expectations and to the limits of their own rationality. We will only believe in a God who suits us or we will only believe something about God that fits within our parameters. This is the mistake of the Sadducees. They do not know the “power” of God or, we might add, the frailty and fallibility of their own rationality.

At the same time, we don’t just believe in any god. Rather, we confess the God of Scripture. We embrace a narrative logic. This God is faithful; Yahweh does not lie. This God is powerful; Yahweh can save. We read Scripture, not simply to do tidbits of grammatical exegesis, but to hear the narrative story–to embrace the narrative logic–of the self-revealing God. We know the Scriptures so that we might know our God and experience the life God gives. With Jesus, we confess that our God delivers from death.

Such a confession does not fit our experience. People die all around us and they do not come back to life. Just like the succession of seven brothers, they all die. But the narrative logic of Scripture–the narrative of a redeeming, life-giving God–overwhelms our experience and we confess that God will raise the dead and give life.

This confession, however, is not simply about resuscitation. Rather, we confess that God will inaugurate a new age. God will create a new heaven and a new earth in which the redeemed people of God will live in their resurrected bodies suited for the new age. While our rationality (and even our science) may find that hard to believe, Christians confess both the power of God and the narrative logic of Scripture.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Lipscomb on Giving Caesar His Due (Mark 12:13-17)

May 8, 2012

Yesterday I posted on Mark 12:13-17 where jesus encounters the “Caesar tax” question as part of my regular blogging on my Sunday morning Bible Class.  It was not an agenda piece but rather part of working through the text of Mark as I understand it.

My views, however, are generally similar to those of David Lipscomb. He reads Jesus’s comment as essentially saying, “pay your tax, but you are not children or servants of the earthly governments.” Or, pay your tax, but you (and everything–including what Caesar thinks is his) belong to God. In other words, pay the tax as part of the situation in which you live “in” this world but you are not “of” this world. Give to Caesar what is necessary as part of living under Roman rule but do not think that the world belongs to Caesar or that you thereby belong to Caesar. Rather, you belong to God and only to God is your allegiance owed. Disciples of Jesus owe no allegiance to Caesar (or any national state).

While C. P. Alexander argued that Jesus was subtly saying “don’t pay the tax” because their allegiance is to God rather than to Caesar, Lipscomb believes that Jesus authorizes payment of the tax. However, the rationale is not because it is owed to Caesar as a matter of allegiance but rather that it is submission to God’s ordained arrangement. In other words, we pay taxes because we are kingdom people who live in peace with their neighbors, including governments.

Below is his comment on an article by C. P. Alexander entitled “Christians Duty to Civil Government” in the Gospel Advocate 15 (23 January 1873), 77-81.  Lipscomb’s comments on the article are found on pages 81-82.

Fully agreeing with our brother that Bro. P[inkerton]‘s [GA (November 1872)] conclusion cannot be legitimately drawn from his premises [e.g., two-kingdom theory or dual citizenship, JMH]; and indeed from no passage or example of Scripture; we yet feel under the necessity of dissenting somewhat from some points of our brother.

We understand with Bro. P. that the Savior did teach in the reference to the image on the money the necessity of paying taxes or tribute. We are confirmed in this interpretation from the perfect harmony of the example and other teachings of the Savior and the apostles with this interpretation. We are to pay taxes, Rom. 13, to the civil government under which we live, as a duty we owe to God, a Christian duty–because God commands it, not from a principle of fealty or homage to the civil government. God ordained this much as necessary in order to the peace and quiet of his children.

Submission to the authorities under which we live, is certainly taught us in various passages of Scripture. That submission involves the duty of paying taxes and doing everything required by civil government that is not incompatible with the principles and practices of Jesus Christ. To refuse to pay taxes by evasion or otherwise then, is a refusal to obey God. Justin Martyr affirms in his apology to Trajan the emperor “of all men we pay taxes most faithfully.”

But Bro. P. in my estimation fails to distinguish between submission to a thing and active participation in it. The Bible teaches submission. It does not teach the propriety of active participation. As we regard it, it wholly prohibits it. Indeed in the strict proprieties of language we can hardly be said to submit to that in which we actively and heartily cooperate and participate, into which our sympathies and feelings fully enter. Submission bears the idea of coming under something separate and apart from us. It carries the idea of something upon us that is not agreeable, in harmony with us, that is onerous or burdensom to us. We feel sure too that God has given no license or authority to his subjects in this or any other passage of Scripture to participate in the management of these institutions. No better explanation has ever been given of this saying of the Savior than that offered by Tertullian, in the 2nd century. Give the money that bears Caesar’s image to Caesar–the man which bears God’s image to God. If both money and men be given to Caesar what is left to God? The early Christians all refrained from active participation in civil government. But few of those who protested against Romanism permitted their members to do so until the 15th century. The reformers brought with them this idea from Rome and the Protestant sects adopt it.

Nor do we think Bro. P. on proper consideration, will say the family, originated and perpetuated by God himself, for his own children, bears the same relation to the church that human governments do–which were instituted by man, had their origin among those in rebellion against God, and have been ordained by God in the sense that he ordains instrumentalities to punish those who reject his appointments and seek others of their own liking. But we intended only to dissent from Bro. A’s position on taxation which seems to be rather extreme and which might bring reproach upon the truth.

The great danger is in running to extremes. Like Bro. A. we have no faith in the purity, spirituality and unfaltering zeal of the church, until its members divorce themselves from all attachment to these institutions, free themselves from their spirit, and rely immediately on God’s ability and willingness to confer all good through his own institutions.

********

Below is his comment in Civil Government (pp. 65-66) on the episode.

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No clearer evidence could be furnished that it was well understood by the enemies as well as the friends of Christ, that his mission was to destroy the governments of earth than the record, Matt. xxii: 15, Mark xii: 14, Luke xx: 20. Knowing this they sought to commit him against the lawfulness of giving tribute to Caesar and thus find ground for accusation to secure his condemnation.

“Then went the Pharisees and took counsel against him how they might entangle him in his talk, and they sent unto him the lawyers with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man, for thou regardest not the person of man. Tell us therefore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money, and they brought him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. When they heard these words, they marvelled, and left him and went their way.”

This clearly shows that it was well understood that Christ was to destroy the kingdoms of earth. These lawyers under the guise of friendship sought to entrap him into expressions that would convict him of treason, that they might secure his condemnation. He not only thwarted their purpose, but taught the lesson in an empathic way of the Christian’s duty to human kingdoms. Tertullian, who was probably born within a half century after the death of the apostle John, gives this explanation of this saying of the Savior:

“The image of Caesar which is on the coin is to be given to Caesar, and the image of God which is in man is to be given to God. Therefore thou must indeed give thy money to Caesar, but thyself to God, for what will remain to God if all be given to Caesar?”

No better explanation has ever been given of the Savior’s words. It teaches what the Savior taught: pay your tax, but you are not children or servants of the earthly governments. Give your personal service and your bodily powers to God. Tertullian not only gives this as the meaning of the Savior, but he shows what was the prevailing impression of the teaching of the Savior and the apostles, within the first century after the establishment of the church. These ideas must have come down from the days of the apostles. They could not have originated after the church found favor with the civil power.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mark 11:12-26 — The King Comes in Judgment

April 2, 2012

King Jesus, riding on a donkey, triumphantly entered Jerusalem hailed as the one who would usher in the kingdom of David. Surrounded by an expectant crowd, he entered the temple, looked at everything, and went home for the evening.

What did Jesus see? The next morning, Monday of Passion Week, Jesus tells us. The King who came to make peace (Zechariah 9:9-10), the Prince of Peace, went to the temple on Monday in judgment. Apparently, he did not like what he seen the previous day.

The enacted parable of the fig tree bookends the central judgment event. Jesus curses the fig tree on Monday (Mark 11:12-14) and the fig tree is dead at the roots by the next morning (Mark 11:20-21). Sandwiched between the fig tree stories, and thus interpreted by them, is the prophetic act of cleansing the temple. Whatever Jesus is doing in cleansing the temple is symbolized by the fig tree. The temple cleansing and the cursing of the fig tree share the same theme: judgment.

As Malachi anticipated (3:1-5), when the Lord comes to his temple, he will come to purify and refine through judgment. Malachi envisions a moment when God will judge immorality and economic injustice as well as those who deprive the alien of justice. God shows up at the temple in judgment rather than grace (cf. Psalm 50 for a similar theme). Jesus sees something in the temple that turns his first kingdom act in the temple—his first teaching moment—into a moment of judgment.

But first the fig tree. Prophets often used symbols and concrete actions to announce their message. Jeremiah uses a linen belt (13) and a clay jar (19). Ezekiel lay on his side for 390 days (4:1-5) and packed his possessions as if going to exile (12:1-8). Isaiah walked about naked (20). Jesus follows in the steps of earlier prophets by using the fig tree and enacted parable (and he will do the same in cleansing the temple).

Among the prophets, the fig tree was a popular symbol of Israel (cf. Jeremiah 24; Hosea 9:10; Joel 1:7). The image of the fig, either barren tree or tasking badly, was emblematic of Israel’s own barrenness or covenant-breaking (cf. Jeremiah 8:13; 29:17). In particular, Micah 7:1-7 compares the violence and injustice of Israel to the lack of figs on a tree. Further, to curse a fig tree is sometimes a symbol of God’s judgment upon Israel (cf. Hosea 2:12; Isaiah 34:4). When Jesus curses the fig tree so that it withers and dies, this is symbolic of his judgment upon Israel and particularly the temple authorities.

As Jesus approached the fig tree outside of Jerusalem he saw signs of potential food. A leafed tree might portend fruit of some kind but it was too early for figs which do not appear until the summer months. Since Jesus came to Jerusalem for the Passover, he would have approached this fig tree most in March-April which is too early for figs. Consequently, his curse might seem unreasonable. However, in the spring the buds of the tree were also edible (cf. Gundry, Mark, p. 636). The narrative did not say he was looking for figs but rather for “anything” (literally translated rather than “any fruit”) that might satisfy his hunger. Nevertheless, Jesus did not even find what anyone might expect to find in March-April.

Jesus comes to the temple to enjoy a pious, devout people dedicated to justice, peace and the worship of God just as he expected to find food on the fig tree. Yet what he finds is a temple as barren as the fig tree and deserving of as much judgment as the barren fig tree.

What did Jesus see in the temple? He saw “buying and selling,” which included the exchange of money (exchanging currency for shekels, the currency of the temple) and selling animals (including two doves for offerings by the poor) in the Court of the Gentiles. This merchandizing—or the conduct of exploitive business—was inappropriate for the temple courts. Jesus, by a prophetic sign-act, embodies God’s judgment by overturning tables and driving out the merchandisers.

Mark justifies this prophetic act of judgment through the lens of two texts in the Hebrew prophets. The first, Isaiah 65:7, reminds Israel that the purpose of the temple is prayer, including the invitation to all nations for pray. The Court of the Gentiles, where the merchandizing was taking place, diverted the purpose of the court from prayer to exploitive money exchanges or economic injustice.

The second, Jeremiah 7:11, accuses the temple authorities of treating the temple like a “den of robbers.” There may be a double meaning here. The temple had become a place for thieves because they defraud and steal from their fellows which is one the emphases of Jeremiah’s own temple sermon. In addition, temple, as Jeremiah noted, had become a place where injustice hides—like a den where robbers hide from judgment. The temple cannot, so it was thought, come under judgment and therefore people are safe in the temple. But they were wrong; the temple will come under judgment as Jesus will make clear in the Olivet discourse (Mark 13).

The temple authorities understand the implications of the symbolic act and its interpretation through the prophetic texts. They recognize it as a political act that judges their authority and power. The kingdom of God—and Jesus acted as king as well as prophet in this moment—judges all other authorities. They feared the loss of power through Jesus’ popularity and thus decided he must die so that their status might be preserved. Whereas earlier Herodians and Pharisees conspired to kill Jesus in Galilee (Mark 3:6), now the temple authorities intend to do the same. Ultimately they will gather a different kind of crowd than the one on Palm Sunday which cried “Hosanna.” On Good Friday, they will incite a mob to scream, “Crucify him!”

Whatever the disciples may have thought about all this, they were surprised to see the dead fig tree the next day. Jesus’ saying about “faith” is a response to Peter’s observation that the fig tree had withered. In other words, “Have faith in God!” is one of the lessons of the withered fig tree. Faith can move mountains; faith bears fruit. With faith, fig trees are no longer barren.

Disciples believe, pray and forgive. Jerusalem, with its magnificent temple, would fall under the weight of divine judgment, just like the fig tree. Disciples will find deliverance through faith, prayer and forgiveness.

In the wake of God’s judgment of Israel, Jerusalem and the temple, how do the disciples of Jesus respond? They trust God. They pray in faith. They forgive their debtors. In the midst of judgment, disciples live by faith rather than sight, seek reconciliation and pray that God would move mountains.

When God shows up, God does not always come in grace. Sometimes God prosecutes judgment. Either way, disciples believe, pray and forgive.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mark 11:1-11 – The Coming of the King

March 30, 2012

As Jesus enters Jerusalem, we enter the last week of Jesus’ life—the passion week. The Triumphal entry on Palm Sunday leads to a cross on Good Friday which is reversed by resurrection on Easter Sunday. Mark 11-16, practically one-third of the Gospel, is devoted to the last week of Jesus’ life.

The messianic entourage approached Jerusalem on the road from Jericho near the towns on Bethany and Bethphage which were located on the eastern side of the Mount of Olives. They were now only about two miles from Jerusalem. In a short time they will top the Mount and see the temple facing east in their direction. This is a momentous occasion—the Messiah comes to the temple (Mark 11:11).

Jesus, conscious of the Messianic overtones of this moment, instructs his disciples to secure a “colt” (a young animal) for his use. Jesus will ride a donkey into Jerusalem. Mark tells the story in such a way that Zechariah 9:9-10 lies in the background. Jesus will enter Jerusalem on a donkey as the city rejoices over his coming which is what Zechariah announced long ago—the king comes on a donkey as Zion rejoices. In Israel, the donkey—rather than a great steed or a war-horse—was used in royal coronations in order to identity the king with the people as a mark of humility (1 Kings 1:33). Jesus casts himself in this role as his journey now becomes a royal procession into the city.

The narrative’s focus on the colt seems, at first glance, incidental but Mark highlights a couple of particulars. First, the colt belongs to the Lord. Translations rarely render Mark’s wording as “His Lord (ho kurios autou) has a need,” that is, the colt’s true owner is Jesus though he will return it when he is finished. Second, the fact that the colt is tied up identifies this circumstance with the Judah oracle in Genesis 49:10-11 (as Lane has noted in his commentary). The ruler from Judah will tether his colt/donkey to a vine/branch. With these allusions Mark unites two messianic texts(Genesis and Zechariah) from the Hebrew Bible and thereby emphasizes the Messianic nature of this triumphal entry.

The narrator has brought us to this exciting moment. The announcement of the kingdom has dominated the first half of the Gospel (Mark 1:16-8:26) and the second half of the Gospel has identified Jesus as the Messianic king of the kingdom (Mark 8:27 to this point). The King has come to claim his kingdom; he has come to Jerusalem, to Zion. The king enters the city. He receives a royal reception though we know mistreatment and violence lies in his future.

The significance of this moment is not lost on those who lined the highway into Jerusalem. They lay their cloaks over the road as others have done for kings in the past (cf. Jehu in 2 Kings 9:13).. Others spread leafed branches (palm branches, presumably from Jericho, in John 12:13) across the road which mimics the triumphal entry of the Hasmonean Simon in 1 Maccabees 13:51.

More significantly, they praise God with the language of Psalm 118:25-26. Psalm 118 is the last of the Passover Hallel (Psalm 113-118). The Psalm saturated the atmosphere of Messianic hopes that pervaded Passover celebrations. It is the thanksgiving of a king who comes to Jerusalem to celebrate God’s salvation and at the end of the Psalm the people respond with a prayer and a blessing:

O Lord, save us.
O Lord, grant us success.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,
From the house of the Lord we bless you.

Jesus hears this language when he enters Jerusalem:

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

They pray “save us” (“Hosanna”) and recognize in the coming of Jesus into Jerusalem the coming of the kingdom of David. Here the Gospel climatically and publicly announces the identity of Jesus and the reality of the coming kingdom. The third line in the Markan praise (“Blessed is the coming of the kingdom of our father David”) is added to Psalm 118 and serves to make Mark’s point. This is his interpretation of the triumphal entry. The kingdom of God has come to Jerusalem in the person of Jesus.

As Malachi (3:2) anticipated long ago, the Lord will come to his temple. Jesus enters Jerusalem which is to also enter the temple court through the south-eastern gate. Curiously, Jesus looks around—he “sees everything”—and then returns to Bethany. Presumably, Jesus and his company had traveled in a single day up the Jericho road to Jerusalem which is a distance of less than twenty miles. Since they entered late in the date, they quickly returned to their lodgings two miles away.

What a day! The Son of David entered Jerusalem on a royal donkey. He was acknowledged and blessed by the people as they praised God. The king has come. The kingdom of God has come.

The message of Mark is “repent and believe the good news because the kingdom of God is near” (Mark 1:15). Jesus has come to Jerusalem to enact the good news of the kingdom of God.

The King has come to bring peace not only to Israel but to the nations.  Zechariah 9:9-10 is quite explicit that the King who comes to Jerusalem will reign over all the earth (“to the ends of the earth”) and his reign will mean peace among the nations. War-horses and chariots are no longer needed; implements of war are not excluded from the kingdom of God. This King is the Prince of Peace.

Will Jerusalem receive him in peace? Ultimately, it will not.  Will we? Will we practice peace as followers of the Prince of Peace?

5 Comments | Biblical Texts | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

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