Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

Texts:
Micah 7:1-4;
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22;
Mark Chapter 11.

To read Mark Chapter 11, click this link from Biblegateway.com

It’s a little weird to be reading the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem today. We usually read it the Sunday before Easter. We’re two weeks out from that and perhaps you aren’t quite ready for Palm Sunday to lead us to Easter yet. But we’re committed to reading Mark all the way through chapter by chapter and so here we are.

Besides, you’re in good company because Mark’s gospel isn’t even close to ready for Easter either. Between the triumphal entry and the resurrection story Jesus gives more than a week’s worth of additional instruction to the disciples in chapters twelve and thirteen. There’s a lot the disciples don’t understand yet. Some of those things they still won’t get, for months or even years to come.

In fact there are things in this part of Jesus’s walk to the cross that even scholars still wonder about. For example, in this gospel more than any other, it sounds as though Jesus planned every inch of his entry. Nothing seems to have been left to chance. Or the Holy Spirit.

A very specific donkey is prearranged to be picked up at a certain place. There’s a code phrase and counter phrase the disciples must use to get the owner to let them take the creature. It all works out perfectly of course. But it’s a little weird.

The ride that Jesus makes is carefully scripted. The cloaks spread on the donkey’s back, the branches in the street, the peoples’ cry, “Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord!”, and “Hosanna to the Son of David!” The images and words come from Genesis, psalms, Zechariah’s prophetic vision of creation’s end, and the Jewish hope and expectation of a coming Davidic kingdom.

All the shouting and strewing of branches tends to help us overlook what happens next. It all begins with a strange comment.  Jesus was hungry. When is Jesus ever hungry? He rarely even eats. Certainly he blesses bread and fish, but does he eat any of it himself? We never hear it.

But here Jesus is hungry. Hungry enough to look for figs on a tree even though, as Mark tells us, Jesus knows full well that it is not the season for figs. Even so, seeing there are no figs, Jesus utters a curse, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” Is Jesus so very mortal that even he gets hangry? It’s weird.

Jesus went on with his disciples to enter Jerusalem. His mood didn’t improve there either. He attacked people buying, selling, and exchanging money in the Temple courtyard. Yet these were completely acceptable and necessary activity for participating in the Temple’s system of thanking God with gift offerings. If even Jesus can be frustrated enough to lash out, we know he is fully human after all. Any way you look at it though, an angry Jesus is a fearsome thing.

In Mark’s gospel this less a defensible act than the final tipping point. The Temple leaders are beyond angry. The path to the cross is set.  Yet as Jesus and the disciples leave the scene no one lays a hand on them.

Mark is not done setting the stage for us. Which may explain why, on the way back out of Jerusalem, the disciples observe that the fruitless fig tree is dried up. Because it happens that the destruction of a fig tree is an image of God’s judgment in Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Jesus responded with another “have faith, for God nothing is impossible” style teaching. Perhaps he meant that as unforgiven and dead as the fig tree appeared, forgiveness, and fruitful new life was still possible. For fig trees and for people.  And praying to God is the path to those good ends.

Anyway. The Temple authorities set out to destroy Jesus. Not to kill him as our misleading translation suggests. That would break God’s commandment. Instead, they want to ruin his good name. This is why they demanded that Jesus reveal the source of his authority. They hoped to show that his power was either fake or from the shadow side, not from God. By their wits they would shame Jesus publicly.

But as we heard, it didn’t go well for the Temple leaders. In something like a verbal chess game they made their best move. So, Jesus, where does your authority come from?

But Jesus was the grandmaster as always. Where did John’s baptism come from? No matter how they responded his counter question about John’s authority to baptize people, their own answer would end up shaming them. Because either they admitted John’s baptism had God’s authority, or they announced that John was a spiritual scammer. But they knew John was popular. So they said, “We do not know” which was at least an honorable withdrawal from the field of battle.

And this is exactly what all this is. The field of battle that the prophet Zechariah foretold. But weirdly, the coming battle will not be what anyone thought it would be. Instead of being “the final battle” it will be the battle over what is final.

The disciples were not ready yet for this battle. Jesus had more to teach them, and only a little bit of time. But he would use the time very well.

Questions to Ponder

What power do you think a curse has?

Was Jesus in need of forgiveness?

What is the difference between the biblical final battle and the battle over what is final?