Time and Tradition Means Nothing to God
Mark 11:9-10
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!
No more objections against the people publicly expressing their faith and adoration for Jesus as the Messiah. Now they have a kingly parade processioning into the temple and back out again.
Fulfilling the prophets' words in keeping with tradition...
Zachariah 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.
He takes a look around Jerusalem, and Mark's gospel doesn't have much of anything to say about that whole trip.
Until the next day.
Jesus comes back to the temple and this time he stops all the merchandising that was going on there. He stopped the money changers who exchanged Roman coins for Jewish shekels, at a small profit of course. He stopped the businessmen from moving their products in and out and through the temple grounds. They had been using the temple avenues for transporting their goods in and out. And he overturned the tables of the people selling doves that were used for offerings in the temple sacrifices.
Then he schooled them all:
Mark 11:17
He was teaching them:
"Is it not written, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?" (Quoting from the prophet Isaiah 56:7)
"But you have made it a den of thieves!" (Quoting from the prophet Jeremiah 7:11)
It seems that not much has changed among the temple peoples and their descendants. The Kosher laws were introduced by them to create a religious market culture so that the temple priests could earn a profit from the pilgrims coming into the house of prayer. I wonder what Jesus would say about some of the churches today. I wonder what he would say about the various religious deceptions that go around, trying to squeeze money out of prayerful people? I wonder what he would have to say about the whole business of "doing church" that is promoted by so many today.
It's Tuesday morning, they come upon the fruitless fig tree that Jesus had cursed earlier, and Peter recalls the tree.
Mark 11:21
Then Peter remembered and said to him, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered."
This fig tree is obviously symbolic of the whole nation of Israel being spiritually barren, but especially the temple authorities. They've turned the Lord’s house of prayer into a den of thieves and sold out the birthright of Zion for short term gains, power, and comforts. Like Esau had sold his inheritance for bowl of stew. And Jesus cursed them for it. And they knew it. Which is why they were seeking to kill him. Jesus was not only bad for business, but he was also powerful and holy, and they had no way of overcoming his curse, not even with prayer. They were godless and their crimes were the unforgivable kind.
They could not shake off the sins they had committed against God's graces. They had fallen short of the grace of God. Things have gone too far for too long. Time has not improved their godliness. Now their hard hearts are filled with nothing but murders and immorality. And so, they are like this fruitless fig tree that the Lord curses and destroys because they have defiled God's name and rejected his Son. They have established a bitter root that was growing up in the temple and it was poisoning the whole family of God.
Hebrews 12:15-17
"See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done."
Israel has failed to listen to the One who shook the earth with his words, and now they will again reject him when he calls to them from heaven, shaking the very heavens and the earth.
Haggai 2:6
"For this is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: In just a little while I will again shake the heavens and the earth, the oceans and the dry land."
Repentance will not be heard from them for even the full destruction of their temple could not bring them to their knees in tears and repentance. God is a consuming fire. His wrath cannot be shaken, neither can his mercy and grace. They refused his mercy when he walked upon the earth, they refused his grace.
God is looking for fruit from the nation of Israel. They failed before, they killed the son sent by the vineyard owner. Now once more they will hear his voice from heaven. And once more they must heed his word and obey his commands to love one another. To show hospitality to strangers, and to visit the prisoners and sick people. To honor marriage and reject all forms of adulterous behavior and sexual immorality. And to always keep their hearts and their lives far from the love of money.
Deny yourself Israel. Take up your cross and follow Jesus. Deny yourself all you religious people who worship the objects of faith and do not obey the source of their divine power. Deny yourself all you merchants of religious works, reject the flesh, and receive the Holy Spirit.
It's Tuesday. And they came into the temple. And now it's time to face the religious authorities. You'll see this sort of thing all the time as the temple authorities exist even today in every works focused Christian community. For this is their claim to righteousness. Their works, in their minds, gives them their authority.
Mark 11:27-28
They came again to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came and asked him, "By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do these things?"
Jesus tests them on the sacraments...
Mark 11:29-30
Jesus said to them, "I will ask you one question; then answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was John’s baptism from heaven or of human origin? Answer me."
From where does their authority come?
Is the Ark of the Covenant the power and authority of God, or is it from God in heaven that it gets its power? Does just possessing the Ark make the one possessing it authoritative? Is the temple in Jerusalem the power and authority of God, or is that power from God in heaven? Do the inhabitants of the temple have power and authority in and of themselves, or does power come from God above?
"Was John’s baptism from heaven or of human origin?"
Of course, the answer is that John baptized, and John was a human. But many saw him as a prophet so that designation comes with a kind of authority from heaven. But that designation never prevented the Israelites from killing the prophets. And John also did not escape their wrath. So, authority is as authority does when it comes from mankind. And so, it goes with all the sacraments and those who distribute them by their own authority. Any authority they may has been given to them from human origins. And that means they can be taken away by those same humans who claim heavenly authority to do so.
John baptized with water. And he prophetically said that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. All heavenly authority comes through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven above. No man can wield it or refuse to give it because it doesn't come from them.
Mark 11:31-33
"They discussed it among themselves: "If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’”—they were afraid of the crowd, because everyone thought that John was truly a prophet. So they answered Jesus, "We don’t know."
And that is exactly right. They do not know the works of The Holy Spirit. They don't understand it because he's not in them. They've rejected him long ago when they invented their traditions and adopted pagan rituals into their worship. They were absent the Spirit when they pursued the power and authority of the priesthood and presumed for themselves the authority from heaven. They grasped that station and status by virtue of geography, the temple grounds and the Ark of the Covenant were their authority. Even though the Spirit of God had long ago left that place and those artifacts. The Spirit hadn't been there for hundreds of years, until Zechariahs encounter having to do with the birth of his son John the Baptist.
You see, time means nothing to God if God's not in it. Today you'll see people clinging to an idea that thousands of years of priestly orders somehow proves authenticity and authority. When obviously the gospel proves that time and priestly authority means nothing to God. God shows up at the time-honored temple and he faces the time-honored priests and all their time-honored traditions and abortive rituals. And he says to them then and now...
Mark 11:33b
And Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."
In our next devotion we'll dig more deeply into what Jesus has to say about these things in the parable of the vineyard owner.