If our measure of Jesus’ skill as a gardener came only from his interaction with the fig tree in Mark 11, we would have to conclude that the Lord’s thumb was far from green. But before we have time to read the end of the fig tree story, Mark interrupts us and confronts us with Jesus’ bold cleansing of the great Temple itself. The passage then concludes with Jesus’ teaching on the lesson from the fig.
Have you ever wondered why these two stories are so close together?
More importantly, have you wondered what they tell us about Jesus as King during his final week before crucifixion? Last week we began our King in the City series with Jesus’ Triumphal Entry and the question, “Are we willing to follow a King who rides a donkey?” This week, we will ask the same kind of question of a King who withers trees and turns over tables. As we look more deeply into Jesus’ actions here, I believe we will find them more challenging, more refreshing, and perhaps more troubling than we previously knew.
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Grace Fellowship Church
Jon Stallsmith
Series: The King in the City
March 16, 2014
Fig and Temple Sandwich
Mark 11:12-25
As we’ve been going through this series, what we’re really trying to do is focus on Jesus in his final week before going to the cross and the resurrection, of course. So these six weeks we’re here and we’re going to be reading these stories from Holy Week in the gospel of Mark. Last week, we kicked it off with the first reading from this section, and it’s the triumphal entry, as many of us in the church have known it, but as we looked at it more closely we saw that perhaps this entry wasn’t as triumphal as it seems at first glance.
Of course, Jesus when he came into Jerusalem, it’s the climatic rising action before the great moment at the end of the week when Jesus is going to go to the cross. The gospel of Mark has been building toward this, Jesus coming to Jerusalem. When he comes into the city, if you remember from last week, he doesn’t choose to ride on a war horse as a symbol or a sign of his great strength or military intent. Rather he chose a donkey, which we know from the prophecy in Zechariah is a symbol or sign of his humility.
But the people around, as they were looking at Jesus, they really wanted him to be this massive overthrowing Messiah who was going to crush Rome and all the oppression they were dealing with. We know that because as Jesus was riding down toward Jerusalem, they picked up palm branches, the sign traditionally of revolution, and they’re waving them in the air, and they’re saying, “Hosanna!” quoting Psalm 118. “God, save us now.” That’s what hosanna means.
So they’re there and saying, “Okay, this is the guy. He’s going to start the revolution.” Of course, we know that when Jesus gets to Jerusalem he looks around. He spends a week in the city, but at the end of the week he doesn’t pull out his sword or summon angels to overthrow all of the oppressors. Rather, he goes to the cross, which is a sorely disappointing outcome.
Imagine if you were one of those people who were on the road at the point when Jesus is riding in at the triumphal entry and you’re thinking, “This is the going to be the guy who’s going to save us. This is our hero.” By the end of the week, he hasn’t done anything you wanted him to do. This was so disappointing that when given the option of whether or not to see Jesus crucified or a murderer released into their midst, they said, “Give us the murderer. At least he knows how to use a sword.”
If you maybe could put it into other terms, like as an analogy, what happened that week was similar to if you were on the playground in elementary school and everyday at recess there’s just this bully who bullies you and he hits you and he treats you badly. Day after day it goes on, and you’re worn down, and you’re sick of it, and you’re tired of going out at recess.
Then one day, a new kid shows up, and he appears to be incredibly strong. He’s bigger than the bully. As you get to know this new guy, it seems like he really cares about you and he has everything that it’s going to take to get rid of the bully. So you can’t wait for recess because you know when you get out there, your buddy, this new hero, is going to sock that bully right in the eye.
So you get out there at recess, and the bully starts wailing on you, and you’re like, “Okay, hero, time to come!” So the hero walks up, your buddy, but instead of socking that bully in the eye, he says, “Hey, hit me right here too.” Can you imagine if you’re on the playground in that scenario? “What? No, no, no! I want you to deal with the bully.” “Hit me too.”
That’s what Jesus did. Jesus didn’t sock Rome in the eye. Rather, he said, “Hit me too,” and he was subject to the worst bullying Rome could offer, death on a cross as a criminal. So this was sorely disappointing to the people. The observation we made last week is that Jesus in this process wasn’t willing to settle for a shallow solution or a Band-Aid fix. Yeah, he could’ve overthrown Rome, but it wouldn’t have won the deeper victory.
What Jesus was after this week was going in and not just overthrowing Rome but going down to the roots of Rome and the sin and the selfishness and the Satanic influence that was creating this whole system of oppression, and he was going to uproot that, but the only way to do it was by giving up his life in sacrifice that released the powerful blood that rendered all of that powerless.
So as Jesus was doing this, we saw how probably the people around Jesus were really frustrated he wasn’t living up to their expectations. They felt like they had Scripture, they had promises, they knew what God was supposed to do, and Jesus just wasn’t meeting their expectations. It became the mother of such deep bitterness.
In our lives so often we do the same thing with Jesus. We wave the flag. We wave the palm branch. We say, “Hey, hosanna! Save us now!” We’re praying like we’ve never prayed before. “We need you in this moment. Come deal with the bully!” Jesus often feels like he’s not responding, or even worse, rather than socking the bully in the eye, he says, “Okay, well, I’ll come in there and be there with you,” but he doesn’t end the suffering.
We said last week that when it feels like Jesus is not meeting our God-given expectations it’s because he’s usually in the process of exceeding them. The challenge of Holy Week over and over again is to learn to trust Jesus, to learn to trust the way he is King and he is Lord and he is Savior, to learn to walk with him and follow him and know him on his own terms, not on what we make him to be.
So we’re going to see this continue in this week’s text. It’s Mark 11. We’re going to start in verse 12. Before we read though, here’s the question. How many of you guys like sandwiches? Many hands. That’s good. Some of you guys are probably going gluten free, so a sandwich is sort of a bittersweet memory. Some restaurants now serve gluten-free sandwiches, which is just the middle. Here’s a hamburger on a plate with some cheese on it, and you’re like, “Well, this is what it has come to, huh?”
What’s your favorite kind of sandwich? A Reuben! Yeah, I love the Reuben. What else you got? There’s a lot of murmuring. Normally on Wednesday nights I teach the kids at KidzLife, and I ask a question like that, and all the kids are waving their hands all over the place, like, “Call on me! I have a favorite sandwich.”
Somebody over here. What’s your favorite sandwich? Peanut butter and jelly. Classic. Economical. Tasty. What about another one over here? A gyro. Chick-fil-A. Sandwiches. I love sandwiches. Do you know who else loves sandwiches? Mark. In his gospel, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as Mark writes, he makes a lot of literary sandwiches. The technical word for this is called interlocution, but I think it’s easier to say sandwich. Thank you for laughing.
But what Mark will do is begin a story. You have to start with a piece of bread if you’re making a sandwich. He’ll being a story, and then right in the middle of that story he’ll interrupt it with another story, and then he’ll finish the original story. So a great example of this is in Mark 5 where Jairus comes to Jesus. “My daughter is dying.” Jesus says, “Okay, great, I’ll head that way.”
On the journey they’re interrupted because of a woman who has had an issue of blood. She’s had this private debilitating disease for all of these years. She reaches out and grabs the hem of Jesus’ garment. Jesus feels power emanate from his person. He turns around and says, “Who touched me?” It was the woman. She was healed the moment she reached out and touched Jesus.
Of course, they have a little conversation, and then during their conversation, the people come and they say, “The girl has died. No need for you to keep coming.” Jesus says, “No, no, no. We’re going to go on to the house.” Of course, he goes to Jairus’ house and he raises the girl from the dead.
This is an interesting sandwich because you have the beginning of the Jairus story, then the woman is healed, and the end of the Jairus story with the little girl. What Mark wants us to do is eat that whole sandwich together. In order to understand the big picture of what he’s doing, we have to take a bite of the whole sandwich.
You know what it’s like if you’re trying to eat a sandwich and all you eat is the pastrami in the middle… It’s not going to help you very much. So to really savor the full Reuben, so to speak, you have to eat the whole sandwich. So that’s what’s going to happen here. Mark loves to make sandwiches. I think if he were alive today he’d open a sub shop and call it Jersey Mark’s. Yeah, yeah. That’s exactly what Amy did this week. I was talking to her. We were watching TV one night and I said, “Hey, what do you think about this idea, Jersey Mark’s?” Same response.
All right, so we’re going to read this, and this passage actually is a little bit troubling, and if you try to eat or understand just one slice of bread or something in the middle, maybe the meat of the sandwich here, you’re going to be left wanting more and not really understanding what’s happening. So we’re going to have to read the whole thing together. I’m going to read it starting in verse 12 and go down to verse 25, and then we’ll unpack what it is Mark is cooking.
“On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.” This is right after he entered into Jerusalem. It’s the next day after the triumphal entry, and he’s hungry. Verse 13: “And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 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 has 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, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.'” (Mark 11:12-25)
It’s quite a bite. There’s a lot going on here. This section raises some challenging and even troubling questions. What did the fig tree do to Jesus? Is he just grumpy? Is he having an off day? In our family sometimes we talk about if our blood sugar gets low because we haven’t really eaten, we say we’re just hangry. That’s hungry angry. Is Jesus hangry here with this fig?
What’s the deal with the temple? Why are there these tables? What does it mean den of robbers? Then he starts talking about casting mountains into seas and praying. How does all this fit together? Sometimes if you’re thinking of it in terms of a sandwich, it’s like he has put mayonnaise on a peanut butter and jelly and then used rye for the bread. It just doesn’t seem to all fit together.
So how do we get into this? Let’s start with the fig. This is a very peculiar fig. This situation we’re probably not really aware of, because I’m guessing most of us are not regular fig farmers, but actually Mark wants us to know this fig is very unique. The reason for that is the fig is one of the only fruit-bearing trees that produces fruit before it has leaves.
So I have the lifecycle of the fig up here. I know you’ll be thrilled by this. There you go. Fig-production cycle for a single tree. So moving through the year, you’ll notice that a fig tree, whether it’s fruiting on new wood or an old branch, the fruiting process begins sometimes around March. Do you see where the leaves appear? Sometime toward the end of March, beginning of April.
So Jesus we know is in Jerusalem around the time of the Passover, which would’ve fallen in April, in that rectangle right there. So if he sees a tree with leaves on it, what should he expect? That there’ll be fruit on it too. In the ancient world you knew that a fig tree, specifically with leaves on it, should have fruit on it.
1. Why a leafy, fruitless fig? So now the question is not so much…Well, when did Jesus come to Jerusalem that he didn’t find fruit? Actually, the question is…Why is this particular tree fruitless? If we’re going to get at that, we need to peel back a few of the layers and understand the social situation of Judea in that region at the time.
It had three main groups. We’ve already talked about the Romans a little bit. They’re the overarching, controlling empire running everything, collecting all the taxes, and making sure they have plenty of soldiers stationed around so no one gets too far out of line. But directly underneath the Romans you have this ruling class of Jews made up of primarily the elite priests, so the high priest and his family. If you look historically, there were about four main families that made up this little group of very wealthy, very elite priests.
Then they had with them their scribes, who were the people who kept track of all the money and all the records, and the elders, who were the nobility, big family names, who were out in the villages. In fact, just a few verses down, in verse 27, Jesus encounters all three of these, all of this leading class. Let me show you a picture.
Underneath that Jewish ruling class you had this huge mass of peasants. So this is kind of what it looked like. Remember, Rome is at the top and they’re collecting taxes, collecting taxes, collecting taxes, collecting taxes. The elite priests and the scribes and the elders are responsible for getting all the taxes out of the peasants and then passing it on to Rome. So it’s just flowing upward.
Now here’s the big problem. Of course, they had to pay taxes on all sorts of things, their land, their crops, but also there was a requirement that you had to pay taxes to go to the temple. If you go to Exodus 30, it talks about when you go to the temple you pay a half shekel tax. Now what happens if you’re very poor and you can’t pay the tax when you get to the temple but you feel like you need to go to the temple to pray and to seek forgiveness by making a sacrifice.
Furthermore, what if you can’t pay the temple tax and you don’t have enough money to buy a suitable sacrifice? (Because they would sell goats, lambs, rams, and bulls.) Of course, if you were poor it would be a bird you would sacrifice. What happens if you feel like you need to perform this religious duty because it’s in the Old Testament law but you can’t pay for it?
Well, that intermediate group of people, the scribes and the elite priests, were all too happy to extend credit. They’d say, “Oh yes, we’ll lend it to you, but you’ll be in our debt.” Guess what you have to put up as collateral for your debt? Land. If you’re a peasant, you’re a farmer, you have your little plot of land for your family. You don’t have any money, you can’t pay the temple tax, but you need to go to the temple, so you show up. They say, “Okay, no problem. We’ll take care of your temple tax, we’ll even help you out with the sacrifice, but now we own your land.”
Of course, this is contrary to the commands of God in the Old Testament. The way the land of Israel was supposed to be distributed was that every family would have an inheritance, and a family would work that inheritance and they would grow crops there and they would feed their families and provide for their families off of that land.
If someone got into debt too much they could mortgage their land, so to speak, but God put it in the Old Testament law that every 50 years they’re be a Jubilee so that the land you had to give up because you got into debt would be restored to you. Hit the reset button every 50 years. By the time Jesus shows up in Jerusalem in the first century nobody had hit the reset button in a long time. The rich had gotten richer and the poor had gotten poorer.
What began to happen was that instead of having a lot of smaller plots of land where farmers were working on the crops they needed to live, because land ownership was beginning to be held by just a few people at the top, they created these massive estates. On these estates they started to raise, primarily, cash crops. Now the cash crops in that day were grapes and olives, because grapes you could turn into wine, and wine was easy to export. You could make money off of wine. Then olives. You squeeze them. You get the oil. Once again, it’s very easy to export.
What was beginning to happen in the social fabric of Judea of the time while Jesus is walking around is you have a bunch of peasants who have lost their land and are being forced to raise crops that don’t really feed their families. They’re all tenant farmers. So this is a messed-up system. Where does the fig tree fit into that?
Well, we know historically the fig tree is not a cash crop. Actually, a fig tree is something you would grow to feed your family. We saw the production cycle up there on the slide. The fig produces really good fruit, particularly through the fall, although in the spring also you could eat the early fruit. Through the fall, you could feed your family, king of over time.
Now why is this leafy fig Jesus encounters here on the road from Bethany fruitless? One of two possible reasons. The first reason… Actually Jesus tells another parable about this in Luke 13. I think it’s on your sheets there, but listen to Jesus when he’s talking about the figs. In Luke 13:6, it says:
“And [Jesus] told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, “Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?”‘”
Hear that now. Hear that through the lens of what we just talked about with tenant farmers. The vinedresser is the guy who’s just working the land. The owner shows up and he says, “Hey, this fig tree is not getting me enough money. It’s a waste of the land. We need to plant something that’s going to make me money here.” Do you guys see what’s going on there?
So in verse 8, “‘[The vinedresser] answered him, “Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”‘” (Luke 13:6-9) So without going into all of the symbolism in that parable, Jesus is telling a well-known situation for an ancient farmer living in Judea. Everybody knows if you don’t take care of your fig tree, it’s not going to really bear fruit for you.
You have to dig around. You have to fertilize it. You have to pay it attention. So the fact that this fig tree has leaves but no fruit on it is an indication that the farmer on whose land it sits has not had time or capacity to pay attention to it so it would be fruit bearing. That means it’s a sign or a symbol of the whole wretched system of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
It’s a sign of people who are just trying to make ends meet, help their families eat and live, being shoehorned into a tenant farmer, rotten situation where their lives are dominated by crushing debt and they don’t even get to make decisions about what kind of crops they’re going to grow. So when Jesus comes up against this fig tree and he meets it and sees it and it has no fruit on it, he’s going, “Oh, this is a picture of what’s wrong with Israel right now.”
The second possible reason (which I think is a little less likely but it is possible) that this tree would have leaves but no fruit is that the owners of the estate could have harvested all of the early fruit and put it into storage so they could sell it later. Either way, when Jesus encounters this tree he’s encountering a huge sign of oppression, injustice, and brokenness in the land.
So when he curses it, he’s not just hangry, he’s not just frustrated, he’s saying this whole system shall never bear fruit again, which I think any of us walking in that same situation would’ve said, “Amen. Yeah, let’s break this rotten way that’s dominating the land of Judea.” So that’s the first slice of bread on the sandwich.
But then the next thing that happens, because it’s the meat of the sandwich, we know it’s going to be very much connected to what we just saw with the fig tree. So move on to the temple. What do we do with this temple scene? Just as a reminder on the fig tree before we move on. In the Old Testament, the fig tree is often a picture of Israel.
When Israel is in brokenness or injustice or oppression, it’s compared to a fig tree without fruit, and when Israel is prophesied to be in abundance and when God’s favor and blessing are poured out, the picture there that’s often used is that every farmer sits under his own fig tree, that every person has the freedom in their land to make a living, provide for their families, and worship God freely, which is really God’s heart for people.
So that’s what’s going on in that picture of the fig. It’s just fits really well into the Old Testament imagery connected with the fig also. So now on to the temple. What do we make of the temple? We talked a little bit about this idea of the people coming to the temple and having to exchange money there and make their sacrifices and everything else, but what was the original purpose of the temple?
2. Why tables in the Temple? In the Old Testament, God said to Moses, “I want the people to build a tabernacle.” God’s choice of dwelling was a tent. Humble, portable. But then David became king in Jerusalem, and he had this idea, and he said, “I would like to build a temple, like a lavish house.” God says, “Okay, but you can’t do it because you’ve killed too many people. Your son will have to build it.” So David raises the money, and Solomon, David’s son, builds the temple.
When the temple is built, it echoes the structure of the tabernacle. There’s a Holy Place and a Holy of Holies, and the ark of the covenant is brought in. In 1 Kings 8, if you ever want to go back and read the original intention for the temple, it’s a great passage because there they bring the ark in and make sacrifices. They’re rejoicing and celebrating, and it says the glory of the Lord came in a cloud and consecrated, filled that temple, so thickly that the priests could not do any ministry there.
All of the people rejoiced. It was like, “God is in the temple! That is amazing.” Not only in the temple, but his manifest presence is uniquely there in this temple. Then Solomon dedicates the temple with a prayer. If you read through Solomon’s prayer, there are two main things he really emphasizes that this temple should be about.
First, that it’d be a place of forgiveness, that people could come here and be reconciled to God through that sacrificial system in the Old Testament, that they would find mercy and forgiveness. Then secondly that it would be a place of heard prayers, that people who come, even, Solomon prays…
Those who come from other nations and from afar, when they pray in this place Solomon is saying this would be a place where prayers are uniquely heard. So these are the two things that really mark out the temple, that it’s a place of forgiveness and a place of heard and answered prayer.
But by the time Jesus shows up in the temple, things have shifted far from that original vision. That temple Solomon had built in all its splendor and glory had actually been destroyed in 586 BC by the Babylonians. Nebuchadnezzar came in, overran everything, and knocked it down to the ground.
We know that some of the exiles returned, Ezra and Nehemiah, and they rebuilt the temple, but in Ezra 3 it says as they were laying the foundations for the new second temple (that’s why they call it the second temple, because it was built after Solomon’s temple) those who had been alive to see the original one Solomon had built wept because it was such a far cry from that original beautiful structure simply made of wood.
The temple was rebuilt and added upon several times, but it wasn’t really until Herod showed up, Herod the Great, who was ruling during the time of the birth of Jesus and a little bit before. He was a great builder, and as a ruler in Judea, he decided he wanted to take that temple to the next level, so he initiated one of his massive building projects and took that temple Ezra and Nehemiah had worked on and really made it a lavish affair.
So I have a couple of pictures actually from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. If you come with us on EPIC, we can go check this out. This is a first-century model of Jerusalem, and it is like probably 50 or 100 yards by 50 yards, a massive model. This is the temple mount itself as they believe it would’ve appeared during the time when Jesus came and cleansed it.
If you look at the columns around the outside, there’s a covered area. That’s what they call Solomon’s Porch. In the book of Acts sometimes it talks about the believers gathering in the Portico or the Porch of Solomon. So that’s where they would’ve been, but in the center, the big, tall building, that’s the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Then around are the outer courts and the places where the priests would take care of the sacrifices and everything else.
This is zoomed in a little bit so you can see some more of the detail. Even in this model, they’re being very true to what some of the early historians said about the temple at this time. Just notice the gold ornamentation, the gold on the doors. Josephus, who was a big historian from the first century, wrote this about the temple.
He said, “The exterior of the building wanted nothing that could astound either mind or eye. For, being covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays. To approaching strangers it appeared from a distance like a snow-clad mountain…” Keep that word mountain in your mind.
“…for all that was not overlaid with gold was of purest white. From its summit protruded sharp golden spikes to prevent birds from settling upon and [polluting] the roof.” That last one is a funny detail. Even the anti-pigeon spikes on the roof were made of gold! Josephus is saying this thing is so lavish that when the sun rises on it the gold gleams so hard it’s like looking at the sun itself.
The question comes in…If almost all of the peasants in Judea are living at or below the poverty line, how is this temple so rich? Part of the answer is that it was very corrupt. Part of the answer is that the religious leaders were just taking advantage of the people as they came to the temple, collecting the temple tax, taking debts, overcharging for the sacrificial animals.
One rabbi from the time was writing and he said he guesses that when they sold pigeons… Remember, the pigeons or the doves or the birds that were sacrificed there at the temple were for the poorest of the poor. If you couldn’t afford a lamb or you couldn’t afford a bull, you could at least sacrifice a pigeon. That’s what it says in the Old Testament. He said those pigeons were being sold at 25 times their regular value.
So the people, the peasants are coming to worship God, trying to pray, seeking forgiveness, and they’re just getting massacred financially by these rotten, rotten leaders. Then beyond that, the temple was a very rich and wealthy bank. This was actually common practice in the ancient world. People looked at temples, whether it was the temple in Jerusalem or some of the other temples around in the ancient cities of the world, and thought, “Well, that’s a god’s temple. He’ll probably protect it. So it’d be a safe place to invest my money.”
People, if they were wealthy, would come and they’d make huge deposits in those banks, so to speak, and the priests would keep it for them with some interest, and you could take a withdrawal back out. The temples would make loans. Actually, in the ancient world, there were some temples that were networked together, some of the Greek pagan temples, so if you wanted to make a deposit in Delphi and then go over to Ephesus, they’d give you the money out in Ephesus. It’s kind of a highly efficient system in many ways.
So the same thing was happening at the temple in Jerusalem. If you read some of the writings from around that time… If you have a Bible with the apocryphal books in it, you can look up 2 Maccabees 3. It talks about people coming and that there was more wealth than anybody could count in there. One guy tries to come in and make a request of cash for what would be the equivalent today of $3 million from the temple.
So the functions of the temple by the time Jesus gets there are far beyond simply praying and seeking forgiveness. By the time Jesus gets there, it’s now a highly complex economic reality that is facilitating the oppression and injustice throughout the entire land. It’s the exact opposite of what God wanted it to be. It wasn’t where prayers were being answered; it was where people’s last hopes were being extinguished. People weren’t finding forgiveness; they were actually finding indebtedness there. Everything had been turned on its head.
So when Jesus shows up, it’s little surprise that he has this fierce reaction. He overturned the tables. In fact, the Greek word for bank comes from the word table, because a banker typically would sit at a table, change money, exchange money, keep money. It’s the same thing in our English word bank. It comes from the old word that means bench or table or counter. That’s where we get our word bank. Same idea.
So when Jesus comes in, he’s going after the unjust economic realities of what’s going on. He singles out the sellers of pigeons in verse 15, because those are the ones… If anybody was really taking advantage of the poor it would’ve been the pigeon salesmen. Then he wouldn’t allow anyone to carry anything through the temple, no vessels or containers, because that’s what you would’ve had all your money, your coins and things, in. You would’ve carried it through like this, buying and selling and trading and all the rest.
3. Why “house of prayer” and “den of robbers”? Jesus here is pronouncing judgment on the temple. He said, “My house will be called a house of prayer, and you’ve made it a den of robbers.” A den of robbers is not where robbers go to commit their crimes and to rob people. The den is where everybody comes back and counts their winnings.
The word for robber here is the same word here brigand. It means people who are taking money violently by force. Jesus walks in and he is just sickened by the whole deal because all of these leaders are here and they are pillaging the people, extorting them, stealing their land, the fig trees aren’t bearing fruit, the money is all flowing in one direction, and Jesus is just mad about it.
Maybe as we’re talking about this you’re going, “Well, I read this, and I always thought it was kind of like a little more spiritual, like about pure worship and stuff.” But this is spiritual to Jesus. The oppression of people, the systems that destroy their lives and make it impossible for them to work jobs, provide for their families, and love God in freedom, Jesus hates those.
When he’s bringing in his kingdom, what he wants to do is break those open from the inside. He wants to overturn those systems and restore a way where people aren’t just free to worship, but they’re free to really live and love God altogether. We have a problem with this sometimes because we watch movies about Jesus or we see paintings of Jesus and it just seems like he’s this blue-eyed white guy kind of floating through Galilee until he gets to the cross where he’s going to die so we can all go to heaven.
But what Jesus is doing here is bringing the kingdom. What Jesus is doing here is walking right into the heart of oppression and injustice and saying, “This will not stand. These tables need to be overturned. Those vessels need to stop walking to and fro. Stop selling those pigeons for unrighteous prices!”
This is what Jesus is doing, and this is what he does in our cultures too. As we follow Jesus, he challenges us to look at our lives. Are we the ones who are worn down, beaten down by oppressive systems, or perhaps more terrifying, are we the ones whose consumption and whose greed fuel this sort of thing?
We don’t have enough time to go into it right now, but just think. In our county, in Gwinnett County, in Atlanta, in Georgia, in the United States, what are the systems that are like the temple that grind people down to the nub and give them no chance to live well? Are we buying into those systems? Are we oppressed by those systems or are we with Jesus opposing those systems?
4. Why the murderous intent? You wonder why after this occasion when Jesus cleanses the temple the Pharisees and the religious leaders, the Sadducees, the elites were so intent on killing him. Well, it’s pretty much what any mobster would do.
If somebody shows up and starts threatening your financial pipeline and your whole religious economic system you’ve created to control the masses, and the people start getting excited about what he’s doing, oh yeah, you have to snuff him out. He’s a problem. “One life to maintain our broken system? Yeah, no problem. Jesus needs to go.”
Sometimes we think, “Oh well, that’s just religious. They didn’t really like the way he was being Messiah.” No, they didn’t like the way he was being Messiah because he was challenging the very system upon which their wealth and injustice had been built. This is what Jesus does. As you read this… Oh man, this week I’ve been loving Jesus. He’s awesome! He’s smart. He’s brilliant. He’s bold. He’s courageous. As you get into these texts, you can’t help just loving who Jesus stands up for and how he does this stuff.
5. Why is the tree withered “to its roots”? So let’s finish the sandwich. Because what’s going to happen to this temple, this big mess of a temple, Jesus says in verse 20… We’ll just finish up the text. “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 has withered.’
And Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God.'” That’s an interesting response. “‘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, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.'” (Mark 11:20-25)
What’s Jesus going to do with that system of the temple? Well, he tells us in two different ways. First, the picture of the fig. That whole broken temple complex is going to be withered from the roots up. If you put your trust there, if you put your faith there, if you start looking for fruit there, do you know what you’re going to find? Withered.
6. Why say to “this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea'”? Then he says this peculiar think about the mountain being thrown into the sea. Now, remember, they’re on the road from Bethany to Jerusalem, so what’s the mountain they could see while they’re talking? It’s the temple mount. Jesus isn’t just talking about some arbitrary mountain, like, “Hey, if you don’t want to have to drive around the Rockies on your way to California, just say, ‘Be thrown into the sea,’ and you can have a straight shot.”
That’s not what he’s talking about at all. Do you know what he’s saying? He’s saying that whole corrupt mess is going to be thrown into the sea and obliterated. Oh, amen. Good, because that mess ruins people. It ruins their lives. He’s calling us to join him in that. Remember what the two functions of the temple were as originally envisioned when Solomon built it, prayer and forgiveness?
When Peter starts talking to Jesus about this fig tree withered away to its roots, Jesus says, “Okay, see that fig tree? That’s what’s going to happen.” Then he says, “Have faith in God. The mountain will be thrown into the sea.” Then he says, “Whatever I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received, it will be yours. Whenever you stand praying, forgive.”
What’s Jesus saying about the future of the temple? He’s saying that that whole corrupt, broken system is going to be covered up and thrown into the sea, but in its place, who will be the new temple? The people who pray and their prayers are heard. The people who forgive and forgiveness happens. Those are the people who are around Jesus. Those are the disciples. Those are the people who, as he says in verse 22, have faith in God.
Jesus is redefining this whole thing. He says, “Do you know how the mountain gets thrown into the sea? Do you know how this whole thing gets overturned? It’s when my people rise up and become the new temple.” Not just a central location prone to corruption, but a people full of the Spirit of God, God’s presence at work within them, who walk everywhere as a house of prayer for all nations, and when we pray, God answers our prayers, and when we forgive, people find forgiveness, and when we talk about God, they’re able to trust in God.
We’re not creating hoops and religious things for folks to jump through and oppressive systems or anything like that. We’re actually living, walking representatives of the true temple. That’s what Jesus is talking about, and it’s powerful. So what do we do with this? There are a couple of applications I’ve thought about this week that have really blessed my heart.
Thank you for staying with me that long. I know we had to do a lot of history and some horticulture, but I tried to talk about sandwiches at the beginning. We’re chewing on a big sandwich right here. There’s a lot more thought that needs to go into all this than we have time to do right now.
One of the things as I’ve been just praying about this passage is that first of all Jesus is almost always doing more than we normally notice. I don’t know about you, but I’ve read through these passages many times in my life. A lot of times, I’m just like, “Oh yeah, fig tree. Temple. Get your worship right. Keep going. A little bit weird about that tree.”
But as I’ve gotten deeper into this and I’ve begun to really see more clearly what Jesus is doing, he is doing so much more than we notice. Always. It’s not just here; it’s in our lives too. Sometimes it feels like Jesus isn’t doing that much. It’s because he’s doing more. Sometimes we don’t really see it or we don’t understand how he’s doing it, or sometimes it even is troubling to us, like looking at this cursed fig tree at first glance, but he is doing more than we notice.
I love this about Jesus. The fact that we don’t notice doesn’t stop him from doing it. He’s still at work whether we notice it or not. He’s not there going, “Hey, I’m not going to work unless you notice me.” He’s just showing up. He’s riding his donkey into town. He’s overturning tables. He’s cursing fig trees. He’s doing what needs to be done to uproot sin and brokenness in the kingdom of darkness, whether we notice it or not.
But the beautiful thing is he invites us to be a part of it. This is the language that 1 Peter uses. First Peter 2 talks about we as God’s people following Jesus, the people of faith. We’re the ones who are like the living stones being built together into a new temple. What are we built upon? The cornerstone.
In Mark 12, just a few verses after this, Jesus will go back and quote once again that Psalm 118. As he’s having conversations with people in the temple trying to work out what he’s actually doing in their midst, he says, “The stone that the builders rejected will become the cornerstone.” There’s this invitation for us as the people who are willing to trust Jesus to come around and build our lives, the stuff we value, to plant our feet upon the cornerstone that can’t be shaken.
But the problem is so often if we just think about the stuff we value in our lives (and I have some of these plastic coins here just to think about it), yeah, we’re willing to trust Jesus as the King for salvation and heaven and eternity, but right now I have some problems with my job, and I have my savings account, and my family. I’m pretty concerned about my family and where my kids are going to go to school and their education, and my marriage, and all these pieces of really valuable stuff.
Do you know what we do all too often? As we walk with this and instead of resting it on the cornerstone of Jesus, we take these things and we walk up to these flimsy tables, and we end up putting all of our chips here and trusting some corrupt, broken system. We have all of our values just sitting here.
Do you know what Jesus does with this? He walks up and he says, “No. No! This is not where to put your stuff!” We freak out when it happens. “Look what happened to my life! I had all that sorted. I had my life all together, and then this happens,” and we freak out. Do you know what Jesus is doing?
He’s saying, “Come back to me. Build your life on the cornerstone. Come be a part of the temple that matters, that lasts. Not this broken system of oppression that’s going to be cast into the sea. Come be a part of my people. Have faith in God.” That’s Jesus’ challenge this whole week. “Trust me over and over and over again. Trust me.”
Trusting Jesus is not some thing of how much you feel it. It doesn’t require some level of emotional fervor. Trusting Jesus does not require some list of religious duties or accomplishments we’ve done. Trusting Jesus does not mean having all of your theology perfectly lined up.
Do you know what trusting Jesus means? It means saying yes to him over and over. That’s what the biblical definition of faith is. It’s when we have these things in our lives that really are valuable and we’re trying to figure out, “What do we do with them? Where can we trust these things? Where can we put these things that they’ll be safe?”
The Lord comes and he says, “I have a place. I have a cornerstone. You can put it on a temple that’ll never be shaken.” We say, “Yes,” over and over again. That’s what it means to trust Jesus, and that’s what he’s pressing us to do this week of Lent. Maybe you haven’t noticed it in your life, but this is the summons of God. Come, trust Jesus. Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you for you. Thank you for what you do. Lord, I ask that right now your Spirit would come search us and know us and reveal if there are any times or places or areas in our lives where we are heavily invested at a flimsy card table. Lord, show us if we’ve bought into the wrong systems. Lord, show us if we’ve invested in the places that are going to be thrown into the sea. Lord, show us those. Do that work. Come, bring that repentance, the changing of our minds, the way you see it, the transformation of our lives.
Lord, we ask by your grace and your power you would give us strength to trust you, to say yes to you, and to maybe even make some holy transfers to you, the cornerstone, the stone that was rejected by the builders but the one that now sets the standard for the eternal temple. Lord, help us to do that. Help us to live that way. Help us to build our lives on that. Lift our eyes above the commerce of a flimsy card table. Let us see you, the true, risen Lord. Let us trust you, God. Come now. Just inspire. Bring forth the ability to say yes to you, Lord Jesus. Amen.