Not just another Tuesday

Confrontations and conversations during Jesus’ last days

Mark 11-12

And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation” (Mark 12:38-40)

^{photo courtesy Carol Von Canon, Flickr}

Holy Week, the days between Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and His resurrection is the most important week of the Church calendar. Most believers know Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter. Many know the traditions of Maundy Thursday. Fewer deeply study Monday to Wednesday as historical and chronological events leading to the crucifixion. Pastors and priests teach the activities of those days, but often as isolated events, distinct from the week as a whole. As the last week of Jesus’ earthly life, each day holds unique events and teachings, some of which are at odds with the contemporary version of Jesus taught today. On these three days, some of Jesus’ most misunderstood actions take place, along with the most passionate of his teachings. Matthew dedicated several chapters to the teachings of Monday and Tuesday, and John only a few verses. Luke included details, but Mark stuck to the actions. While reading all four of the Gospels together offers the most complete account of the days between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday, the action of Mark’s gospel demonstrates just how much Jesus did in the days before he died.

Sunday and Monday saw Jesus the King making his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and weeping over the city. He cleared out the money changers and began teaching. Matthew and Luke cover most of what he taught those days. Matthew focused on teachings about the future while Luke included messages for both the first-century hearers in their present and the future events. On Monday, either on the way to Jerusalem or the return trip to Bethany (Mark and Matthew were both there, but they remember the timing differently), Jesus noticed an early developing fig tree, full of leaves, but no fruit. He cursed the tree, saying, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again” (Matthew 21:19; Mark 11:14). The timing is less important than the withering of the tree and the metaphor it became.

On Tuesday, Jesus returned with his disciples to Jerusalem. The cursed fig tree had withered to its roots. Jesus used the moment to teach his followers about the power of prayer and the necessity of forgiveness. It doesn’t make much sense to a 21st-century Western Church, but the hearers likely would be reminded of some of the prophecies in their scripture, particularly in Jeremiah: When I would gather then, declares the Lord, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree; even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them (Jeremiah 8:13). Perhaps the scholars among the crowd recognized Hosea’s warning: “My God will reject them because they have not listened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations” (Hosea 9:17). The metaphor at the time of the tree’s demise, then, would have been clear to the listeners and infuriating to the religious leaders: The leafy, fruitless fig tree acted as a metaphor for the nation of Israel and the leaders whose desire for power superseded their call to ministry. They acted as though they were more religious than the people, but in truth, they were empty of real faith in the Living God. Worse, they preyed upon the very people whom they were supposed to serve. Jesus’ curse of the fig tree and its utter destruction was both a warning and a prophecy.

By the time Jesus finished explaining the connection between prayer and forgiveness in the context of the nation of Israel, the chief priests and scribes were ready to attack him and catch him in a trap of words. As Jesus walked into the temple, the battle began:

Religious leaders: Whose authority empowers you?

Jesus: You tell me first, was John’s baptism from God or human desire?

Religious leaders: Awkward silence as they tried to decode Jesus’s meaning and what answer would maintain their power over the people and their security under Rome. Then, finally,

We don’t know.

For the moment, the religious leaders backed away to regroup, which gave Jesus time to teach. He taught about himself, albeit in parables, beginning with a story about a vineyard leased to greedy tenants. When the landowner sent a servant to collect the portion of the harvest due him, the tenants killed the servant. Servant and servant after servant, the tenants murdered every person who came to collect what they knew they owed. Finally, the owner of the field sent his son, thinking that the tenants wouldn’t harm him because he was the heir and held authority over them. The man was wrong; the son was killed. The people may not have fully understood what he meant, but the religious readers knew exactly what Jesus meant when he quoted, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23). The religious leaders’ paranoia continued to grow with every word Jesus spoke that day.

Having failed to catch Jesus in a spiritual trap, the chief priests and scribes called for reinforcements in the form of Pharisees and Herodians, hoping a legal trap might work:

Pharisees and Herodians: You obviously have your own take on things, so if you know so much about God, is it lawful to pay taxes? As you know, paying taxes means accepting the ultimate authority of Rome, but you say that your God is the ultimate authority. Which one is it?

Jesus: Whose picture is on the coin with which we pay the taxes?

Pharisees and Herodians: Caesar’s, of course.

Jesus: Exactly. Give Caesar what is his and offer God the things He requires.

Strike two for the religious leaders. Attempted entrapment only made Jesus’s logical arguments more persuasive. Those who complain that taxes are immoral, unethical, or symbolic of dedication to a human authority miss the point. Faith does not exempt anyone from human laws until those laws require people to deny that Jesus is the Christ. There are thousands of martyrs, both in history and presently, who suffered because their devotion to Jesus exceeded their devotion to the State. Paying taxes is not heresy.

Having failed the legal challenge, the Sadducees took their legalistic religious shot:

Sadducees: Moses taught us that if a man dies without heirs, his brother must take his widow and produce heirs in the dead man’s name. So, what happens to a woman who was married in this way to seven brothers, each dying before producing an heir? When the woman finally dies, whose wife will she be? What about after the resurrection of the body?

Jesus (I imagine a facepalm here.): Y’all, do you not know the totality of the Scriptures enough to know that marriage is not a thing in heaven? And you don’t even believe in an afterlife! Marriage is an earthly covenant, meant to illustrate the covenant between God and His people. And as for the resurrection, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of the living, not the dead.

Once again, Jesus taught the most religious people in the community things they knew or should have known, and had failed to live out. Finally, one attentive scribe approached Jesus with an honest question, not designed to be a trap:

Scribe: Which of the commandments is most important?

Jesus: You speak it every day in the Shema. The most important is ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ And while we are talking about important commands, the second most important commandment is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love God, love people, that is the greatest commandment.

Scribe: You are correct, Rabbi. You know and speak the truth about God and how we must love Him above all and love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. That is more than all the offerings and sacrifices.

Jesus: You are not far from the kingdom of God.

And after that, Mark recorded, no one asked anything else. At that point, they knew they could not catch him in scripture twisting, lies, or maliciousness against Rome. Jesus was free to teach, and Mark wrote, “The great throng heard him gladly” (Mark 12:37).

Tuesday may have been one of the most significant days in Jesus’ interactions with the religious leaders. He refuted every gauntlet they cast down with insight, not only to the arguments they brought but also their motives. No sect of religious leadership escaped his correction, and the people who heard him understood that their leaders were corrupt to the point of condemnation. The next question is, then, how did these same people demand crucifixion only three days later? I don’t know. Maybe Friday’s crowd was a different group of people. Maybe the people were threatened by the Scribes, Pharisees, and Priests. Maybe they feared retribution from Rome if they didn’t go along. Maybe they heard Jesus gladly until it might cost them something. If that’s the case for some in that day, it may easily be the case for many who call themselves “Christian” today.

And this is the question for those of us who use the Name as our identity. Are we Christian in how we live out our faith, loving God and loving people through the power of the Holy Spirit? Or do we expect our own “Rome,” the governments of the world to be transformed into our perceptions of “just” and “right?” Nationalism must not be a Christian priority because our first loyalty is the Kingdom, not the nation. Christians should lead with grace and love to the communities in which they live, always giving glory to God. Loving God and loving people are the most important things we do in this life. Jesus taught us how, even in his last days.

Digging deeper into Not Just Another Tuesday:

Matthew chapters 21-25
Mark chapters 11-13
Luke chapters 20-21
John chapter 12:20-36

Religious leadership of the first century in Jerusalem

Scribes: Legal representatives of the Jewish people. They wrote legal documents and interpreted law and ethics in strict accordance with the letter of the Law.

Elders: Powerful members of Jewish society whose lineage was not necessarily priestly.

Chief Priests: High-ranking priests who performed sacrifices in the temple.

Priests: Guardians of the sanctuary and descended from Aaron and Levi (of Jacob’s tribes). Those who could prove evidence of Aaronic heritage held a higher position than the Levites, although there is some disagreement over how much. The priests were the primary speakers and diviners of the temple.

Pharisees: Focused on the oral traditions of the Law and Prophets, attempting to harmonize Torah teaching with their interpretations of it. They believed they followed the spirit of the Law as scholars and teachers. They acted as spokesmen for the population to Rome, but their allegiance was to Jewish scripture and education.

Sadducees: The wealthiest of the leaders, the Sadducees had authority based on the social order of the day. They controlled the temple property and were willing to work with Rome. The common people hated them because of their compromises. They influenced the Sanhedrin (the supreme court of the Jewish people) and elevated the letter of the Law of Moses over the spirit of the Law writ large. They did not believe in immortality, the resurrection of the dead, or angels.

Herodians: Politician partisans who ruled Judea in the first century.