Ready for the End? (Mark 13.32-37)

The 1998 film Deep Impact imagines how people would behave if a comet were about to destroy most of the Earth.

Some try to flee the destruction.

Others sacrifice themselves to save their loved ones.

Still others believe that death is inevitable and seek to make the most of the time they have left to mend their relationships with their families.

The film asks the question: if we believe the end of the world is coming, how should we live?

This question is not only asked in fiction.

Some will remember the Y2K bug.

The idea was that at the turn of the year 2000, all the computers in the world would crash and civilisation would collapse.

Some people therefore chose to prepare for the end by stockpiling supplies to survive, withdrawing all their money from banks and building bunkers.

In the end, the transition to the new millennium went rather well.

But the question remains: if we believe that the end of the world is coming, how should we live?

Let's add extra element to the question.

How should we live if we believe the end is coming but don't know when?

The date is unknown.

Would that mean living in a state of paralysis – doing nothing, locking ourselves away at home because it could happen today?

Would we live in a state of panic?

Or would we choose to live as if nothing was happening? Stop worrying. We don't know when it will happen, so let's enjoy life while we can.

How should we live if we believe the end is coming, but we don't know when?

Last Sunday, we listened to Jesus' teaching on the end of the world as we know it.

Jesus is in the temple in Jerusalem, his disciples are admiring the grandeur of the building, but Jesus gives them a rude awakening by announcing that it will be destroyed, judged by God.

When? the disciples ask.

Jesus responds by speaking of the final judgement of the temple, but also by explaining that the final judgement of the temple will anticipate and foreshadow the final judgement of the world.

The temple will be judged, and so will our world.

Hence the question: if we believe that the end of the world is coming, but we don't know when, how should we live?

If you are like me, this may be a question you don't want to think about.

Perhaps because we feel that preparing for the end must involve making some really strange choices!

There have been plenty of examples of super weird choices throughout history!

In the 1840s, an American pastor named William Miller announced that the return of Jesus was imminent. Thousands of people chose to leave their jobs, sell all their possessions, and wait on top of a hill, dressed in white, for Jesus to arrive.

He did not arrive on the predicted date, and this date was later nicknamed "the great disappointment".

There are plenty of other examples.

In some cases, the choices were comical. Sometimes they were truly tragic.

How should we live if we believe that the end of the world is coming, but we don't know when?

Knowing that Jesus is coming back, without knowing when, we will see this morning that this actually involves radical choices.

These are also choices that are part of a daily life that is in many ways very normal.

Three points...

1. Watch out! He’ll return without warning!

2. Don’t fall asleep

3. Keep living for the future

Mark 13:32-37

“But about that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be careful, stay awake and pray, for you do not know when that time will come. It will be like a man going on a journey: he leaves his house, gives authority to his servants, tells each one what to do, and orders the gatekeeper to stay awake. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come: in the evening, or in the middle of the night, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not find you asleep when he comes suddenly! What I say to you, I say to all: Stay awake.”

Watch out! He’ll return without warning!

The first thing to understand is that Jesus' return will be unexpected, sudden and cataclysmic. We must therefore be ready.

We all know what it's like to wait for guests we haven't seen in a long time, whom we are very happy to see again, but who are coming from far away and therefore there is uncertainty about their arrival time.

We tidy up the house, clean, prepare appetisers, cook our best dishes and then try to keep them warm.

We do everything we can to be ready because they could arrive at any moment.

This is a bit like how Jesus talks about his return.

He compares it to a man who goes on a journey, leaves his house to his servants, asks them to be ready for his return, but without telling them what time it will be.

It could be in the evening, or in the middle of the night, or at cockcrow, or in the morning.

These four times correspond to the four watches of the night in Jesus' time. The fact that he does not specify during which of these watches he will return means that we do not know how long we will have to wait.

The fact that all these times are at night shows us that it will take effort to be awake when he arrives.

Hence the watchword he repeats in verses 34, 35 and 37: stay awake! Stay alert!

In Greek, it is the same word each time: watch!

You do not know when he will come—watch! Stay awake!

It would be possible to misunderstand what it means to watch.

When I was little and we were waiting for friends to arrive from far away, I would stand at the window with my nose pressed against the glass, sometimes for an hour, watching for their arrival. There were no mobile phones for them to let us know what time they would arrive, we only had a rough idea, we didn't know if they were stuck in traffic, so I stayed at the window trying to spot them from afar.

One could imagine that watching and waiting for Jesus' return is a bit like that.

Scrutinising world events, analysing the news, everything that is happening in the Middle East, who is president of the United States, the colour of the moon and a whole host of other things in an attempt to decipher the signs and figure out how imminent the return of Jesus is.

But "watching" cannot mean that.

Last Sunday, we saw that God gave only one clear sign that Jesus' return is coming.

The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

This event took place in the year 70 at the hands of the Roman army.

From that point on, the next date on God's calendar is the return of Jesus, which we must expect at any moment.

It's a bit like the beeping of the underground doors.

When you're on the underground, when you hear the beep, you know the doors are about to close.

Sometimes it beeps for barely a second and then the doors close.

Sometimes it beeps a little longer than expected. You stand there, waiting, wondering how long it will last. Maybe it's because the driver is kind and saw someone running to catch the train.

The beep tells us that the doors are about to close. It just doesn't tell us exactly when.

The destruction of the temple is a bit like the beep. It tells us that Jesus is coming. It just doesn't tell us how long it will take.

Therefore, "watching" cannot mean trying to decipher the signs of his return. The only clear sign has been given.

Watching while waiting for Jesus means "staying awake", "remaining vigilant"... "being ready at all times".

This is essential because the moment of Jesus' return will be unexpected: you do not know when the master of the house will come.

On that day, some will be out shopping.

Others will be at work.

Still others will be doing their homework. I know some who would like Jesus to return just before homework time!

Some will be partying, others will be playing sports.

Then Jesus will arrive.

It will be unexpected.

It will also be sudden.

If the master could potentially find his servants asleep, it is because he did not call them five minutes beforehand to warn them that he was coming.

We will have no warning that we need to prepare. Now is the time to prepare!

It will be unexpected, sudden and also... cataclysmic.

It will be the end of the world as we know it.

The temple had been torn to pieces.

Jesus presents the destruction of the temple as the preview of his return... to judge the world.

Creation as we know it will be turned upside down when the King finally comes to clean up our world.

Those who have recognised Jesus as their king will be gathered together to live in a new creation, free from everything that spoils this one.

Those who have refused to recognise Jesus as their king will be swept away by his judgement.

It is a glorious prospect! It is also a serious prospect, depending on how we have responded to Jesus here and now.

Unexpected, sudden and cataclysmic.

So Jesus invites us to be ready, no matter how long the wait.

When we are expecting guests but do not know what time they will arrive, we do everything we can to get things ready and keep them ready!

The house is tidied. No, children, this is not the time to jump on the sofa. This is not the time to build a fort with sheets!

This is not the time to take a nap!

This is not the time to repaint the walls.

Maybe they'll arrive in five minutes, maybe in an hour, it doesn't matter! We have to be ready!

This is what Jesus teaches about his return.

Be ready and stay ready!

Live in a constant state of vigilance, in which the prospect of his return keeps us constantly alert.

We're going to talk about what that means.

But first, let us note that it is a kindness on God's part that He does not tell us when Jesus will return.

I was talking about this passage with my children this week and I asked them: what happens in your classroom when the teacher says he is leaving and will be back in 10 minutes?

Everyone shouts, everyone does whatever they want, everyone misbehaves... for 9 minutes.

OK, now what happens when the teacher says he is leaving but doesn't tell you when he will be back?

Well, that's different, you have to be careful, you can't get up to as much mischief.

(They did say they send someone to the door to see if the teacher is coming back, but you get the idea!)

Not knowing when Jesus is coming protects us from doing silly things and making bad choices.

Imagine if I knew that Jesus was coming back in a year - on 26 October 2026.

What would I be tempted to do while waiting? Silly things! Things that could be destructive for me and bad for the people around me.

I would delude myself into thinking that I would prepare for Jesus on 25 October.

It is possible that some of us are curious about Jesus but are postponing our decision to give our lives to him, telling ourselves: I still have time! I am young! I will make a decision later!

From experience, when we think like that, we usually end up not giving our lives to Jesus, we drift away.

But in any case, if we don't know when He will come, that should prevent us from playing with fire.

If you are one of those people who are curious but not yet believers, take the time you need to explore and decide, but don't put off the decision by telling yourself that you have all the time in the world.

You don't know anything!

It is God's kindness that we do not know the day or the hour.

***

So what does it mean to be ready?

That is our second point...

Don’t fall asleep

I said earlier that it is tempting to think that preparing for the end involves making extremely strange choices.

Quitting your job, selling everything you own and waiting on top of a hill.

Stocking up on tinned food and building a bunker.

It's much more down-to-earth than that.

It's about doing everything you can to live for Jesus forever... when he returns.

Nothing Hollywood-esque! Just doing everything you can to always be a Christian when he arrives.

Or if we are no longer alive, to have died having lived for Jesus until the end.

In Mark, we saw that the response Jesus asks of us is to follow him.

"If anyone wants to be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me!"

Jesus wants to find us trying to do this when he returns.

It is demanding, we do it very imperfectly, we need a lot of grace.

That is what he wants to find.

Last week we saw several factors that can make it complicated.

Jesus says, "Take care that no one leads you astray."

He warns us not to be deceived by false teachings.

You don't need to have been a Christian for long to realise that a false teacher does not arrive with horns on his head!

They have a Bible in their hand and a big smile on their face.

So we must all keep our noses in the Bible and our minds alert so that we are not deceived.

That is why I ask you to have the text open before your eyes during a sermon. My words may contain errors. Not these.

(May I encourage you to come to church with a Bible... in paper form?)

Jesus also warns us not to be frightened by current events.

"When you hear of wars and threats of wars, do not be frightened, for these things must happen. However, this will not yet be the end."

If things happen in the world that disturb us, let us not be unsettled. God has not lost control.

In a broken world like ours, these things will inevitably happen.

But Jesus is still on his throne.

And he warns us not to be surprised by hostility.

Mark 13:13

“You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved.”

Following Jesus means going against the grain of a world that rejects Jesus' reign. It means exposing ourselves to hostility!
I don't know about you, but I don't like facing hostility!

It doesn't take much for me to wonder if I'm really sure I want to follow Jesus.

Jesus says: it will happen. Hostility can even come from those closest to us.

Persevere!

***

But you know what? I don't think false teachings, current events, or hostility are the main danger to us.

I think the main danger is the one Jesus mentions in verse 36, in the story of the man who goes on a journey.

Have you seen what it is?

Mark 13:36

"When he comes suddenly, may he not find you asleep!"

I used to be a journalist for a news channel where I sometimes had to work at night.

There was always that quiet hour between 2 and 3 a.m. when almost nothing ever happened.

It was very tempting to fall asleep!

But I couldn't because you never knew when important news might break.

If we were asleep at that moment, it would be problematic.

With infinitely more important issues at stake, Jesus warns us not to fall asleep spiritually.

What would it mean for us to fall asleep spiritually?

It is what happens when we allow distance to grow between us and Jesus. When other things take first place in our lives.

Take the student who has arrived in the big city of Paris, eager to enjoy his freedom now that he no longer lives with his parents.

As a teenager, he had lots of friends in the youth group.

But now that he is a student, Sunday mornings follow Saturday nights... it's not always easy to motivate himself to go to church.

Maybe one day I'll try to get up, he says to himself.

Or the young graduate who is just starting his career.

As a student, he was a regular at GBU.

But now that he's working, he has to show his bosses that he's ambitious. Arrive early and leave late.

It's okay, I'll find time for God later! One day, maybe.

Or the forty-something who dreams of a more comfortable life. What if I moved to the countryside and worked from home full time? What a dream!

I don't know if there's a church in the area to encourage me in my faith... but I'll follow along on the internet!

Or that person who thinks they've heard it all 15 times before.

I've known the stories in the Bible since I was a child! What else is there to learn?

The problem with sleep is that you don't see it coming.

You have to decide in advance that you're going to be proactive about staying awake.

In practical terms, in order not to fall asleep spiritually, we must seek to grow spiritually. Never be content to stagnate.

It's like riding a bicycle. If you don't move forward, you fall.

One of the greatest sorrows of a pastor is to see people falling asleep or drifting away.

We want to shake them – please, don't do that! But we can't.

And pastors sometimes need to be woken up too.

I have known too many people who, little by little, have allowed themselves to fall asleep, and today it is difficult to say whether they still follow Jesus.

I am committed to the doctrine known as the perseverance of the saints, which states that God keeps those He has chosen until the end.

But if we understand this to mean that it is enough to have said a prayer when we were 15 years old and then do nothing else to grow spiritually, we are seriously mistaken.

The mark of authentic faith is that it is a faith that perseveres!

It does everything it can to avoid falling asleep.

So how do we do this? How do we avoid falling asleep?

keep living for the future

It seems to me that this text gives us two keys to staying awake.

The first is to remember what we are waiting for!

When I was little, if there was one night of the year when I couldn't fall asleep, it was Christmas Eve!

In France, it's a little different because we often give presents on the evening of 24 December, but in our house we received them on the morning of the 25th.

It was impossible to fall asleep! We were so excited.

This is somewhat the perspective that Jesus invites us to have regarding his return.

If we consider what we are waiting for, if we remember who we are waiting for, we won't be able to sleep!

It will be so amazing, a thousand times better than Christmas!

We are waiting for the world to be turned upside down and judged, and that too keeps us awake.

Jesus will put an end to everything and everyone who opposes him.

But what the King brings with him for those who wait for him will be so amazing that we would be crazy to miss it!

If we think that the master in Mark 13 is a grumpy, stingy master, like the boss we find most difficult to work for, let us think again!

He loves us. He is a master who says that he did not come to be served but to serve us and to give his life as a ransom for us.

He loves us. All the miracles he performs in Mark are there to give us a glimpse of this. His kingdom will be so much better than anything we can experience in this world!

I think one reason Christians fall asleep is because they lose sight of their future.

But God gives us opportunities every day to remember what we are waiting for, so that we do not fall asleep.

The good things he gives us—a good time with friends, a good meal, a good holiday—offer a faint reflection of what we will experience when the Master returns.

We can enjoy these good things and think about what we are waiting for.

The difficult things... they are given to us to remind us that the master has not yet returned.

This is one of the reasons why God sometimes allows us to suffer. So that we do not settle down in this world and so that we wait even more eagerly for the master :-)

I have a friend who sets his alarm clock a quarter of an hour earlier in the morning to meditate on life in the kingdom of Jesus.

To be ready for the master, let us remember what we are waiting for

And finally, let us serve while we wait.

Mark 13:34

It will be like a man going on a journey: he leaves his house, gives authority to his servants, tells each one what to do.

A book that has helped me a lot this week as I meditated on this passage is this one: Jesus is the Great Surprise, which tells the story of the master who goes on a journey.

In this book, what keeps the servants from falling asleep is all the work they have to do!

Everything must be ready for his return!

They have too much to do to allow themselves to sleep.

What work has Jesus given us?

In a word, it is to help others be ready for his return.

That is our job as Christians. To help others be ready for his return.

In our community groups, that is our job!

It's not just about having a nice evening together. It's about helping others to be ready for the Master's return by helping them to know him better.

This is especially true if we are leaders. I am not saying this to paralyse us with fear; it is the word that acts. I am saying this to make us face up to our responsibilities.

Evangelism and mission serve to help people near and far to be ready for the master's return.

We are surrounded by people who are not ready. Jesus wants to use us to change that.

And may I say a word to parents?

When we have children, especially at first, we may think that it is time to put Christian service on hold.

This is not the case!

Our main role as parents is to help our children be ready for Jesus' return!

I am saying this to myself as much as to you.

Do you understand this up there in the nursery?

Our main parental task is to help our children be ready for Jesus' return!

Even if you are still dealing with nappies and bottles, do not lose sight of this.

We may have many ambitions for our children. This one is the most important!

While we wait for him to return, one of the best ways to stay alert is to remain active in his service.

How should we live if we believe the end of the world is coming but don't know when?

We do everything we can to make sure we are not asleep when it comes.

Perhaps tonight we would all benefit from sitting down to reflect, or if we are married, to discuss and pray about how we are going to stay awake in the long term.

How can we keep our eyes open for the master's return?

We may have many plans in life. None is more important than this one—to stay awake.

I am grateful to my wife for her more or less subtle ways of waking me up, and I'm not talking about alarm clock failures.

Joe, I'm not sure what you're going through with God right now!

Joe, when was the last time you asked me how I was doing spiritually?

We need others to wake us up!

I dare to believe that you do too.

Let's be a church that does that.

When will the end come?

21 December 2012 was supposed to be... the end of the world.

At least, that's what some people who had spent too much time studying Mayan mythology thought.

Not everyone agreed on how the end of the world would happen.  

That didn't stop a small group from gathering at the top of a mountain in the Pyrenees, near the small village of Bugarach, which they believed to be the only safe place on earth.

They woke up on 22 December to find that the world was still there, and that they too were still there... still surrounded by a few goats.

The Jehovah's Witnesses first announced that the end of the world would come in 1878, then in 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975 and 1994.

That's a lot of mistakes!

As a result, it's easy to get the impression that anyone who talks about the end of the world must be delusional. That no reasonable person can accept this idea.  

Perhaps what gives us this impression is the fact that the world around us seems so stable and solid.

Our routine, the commute, work, sleep, everything we see with our own eyes: everything seems so permanent that it is difficult to take seriously the idea that it could come to an end.

...

This impression of permanence must have been what Jesus' disciples felt when they looked at the temple in Jerusalem.

Look at Mark 13:1

As they were leaving the temple, one of the disciples said to Jesus, 'Teacher, look at these stones and these buildings!

The temple in question was a gigantic building made of large cut stones. The temple esplanade could hold 200,000 people. Its construction had taken several decades.

Perhaps like certain Parisian monuments—the Louvre, Notre Dame—the temple exuded permanence.  

But Jesus replied, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another; everything will be destroyed."

In recent weeks in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has spoken a great deal about the temple in Jerusalem.

In Mark 11, we saw that the temple and its religion were to be judged.

In Mark 12, we saw why... the temple and its religion had to be judged.

In Mark 13, we ask ourselves the same question as the disciples: when?

"When... will this happen... and what will be the sign that it is near?"

We will see that in his answer, Jesus speaks... not of one event but of two.  

The judgement of the temple... but also... the judgement of the world.

And if Jesus speaks of these two events, it is because even though they are distinct, they are also linked.  

Jesus' purpose in this text is to show us that not everything that seems stable and solid is permanent.

This passage is not without its difficulties. I do not claim to understand everything. I would be happy to hear your thoughts. Next Sunday, we will have a question and answer session at the end of the service. Write down any questions you would like to ask!

But in fact, I feel that the message of this text is quite simple: Jesus is coming back.

We don't know when, it could happen at any time, and there is no more important event to prepare for.

Four points  

1.    Life before the end

2.    The end of the temple has passed

3.    The end of the world is near

4.    The hour of the end is unknown

1.    Life before the end

Before getting to the heart of the matter concerning the circumstances of the end, the first thing Jesus warns us about is what life will be like while we wait for the end.

He wants us to have the right expectations.

Some of you here are keen runners.

When preparing for a race, it is important to know not only how many kilometres there are to the finish line, but also what to expect along the way.

Cramps, dehydration, when it goes uphill, when it goes downhill.

You need to know what to expect so that you don't get discouraged and give up.

The same is true here.

Verse 4.  

The disciples ask: when will the end come? And what will be the sign that it is near? They want to know the timing.

But in verse 5, before talking about timing, Jesus says: be careful! Do not be led astray!

He warns them of several dangers.

First, do not be terrified by world news!

Verse 7 

"When you hear of wars and threats of wars, do not be frightened, for these things must happen. However, this will not yet be the end."

One factor that led Jehovah's Witnesses to predict the end of the world in 1914 was the outbreak of the First World War.

Throughout history, the outbreak of wars has often given rise to all kinds of speculation and hysteria that the end is near.

The danger of this type of speculation is that it creates panic, and then when the end does not come, one no longer knows what to believe.

Jesus says that these events, as terrible as they are, will surely happen, but... 

"it will not yet be the end."

In verse 8, he describes them rather as "the beginning of birth pains", and the word he uses refers to the pains of childbirth. 

Just as a pregnant woman may experience pain at any time during her pregnancy without it being time to give birth...

... wars, natural disasters and famines do not mean that the end is here.

They remind us that there will be an end. God will intervene to heal our world, but they do not tell us when.

Jesus says this so that we do not believe that God has lost control when these things happen.

Be careful... do not be terrified by world news!

Then... do not be seduced by fanatics.

Verse 5 

"Be careful that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name and say, 'I am he,' and they will deceive many."

While the first warning concerned events that could trouble us, the second concerns people who could deceive us.

Either by claiming outright to be Jesus, or by falsely claiming to speak in his name.

One could cite the denial in certain traditional Protestant churches that Jesus was truly God or truly resurrected or that he will truly return.

Be careful, says Jesus. Do not be deceived.

We could cite the idea in some evangelical churches that we can receive new revelations from God that have the same value as the teachings of the Bible.

"The Lord told me this!"

Jesus says: be careful!

Anyone who claims to represent him is not to be taken at his word.

Do not be seduced by fanatics!

Do not be surprised by hostility.

Verse 9 

"Be on your guard. You will be handed over to courts and beaten in synagogues; you will stand before governors and kings because of me, to bear witness to them."

Jesus warns us about persecution.

It has always existed. Not in the same form at all times and in all places.

But wherever we want to live for Jesus and speak about him, hostility will be present in one form or another.

You may be familiar with Open Doors, which publishes an annual list of countries where persecution is most severe. This helps us to know how to pray.

The risk, since France is not on the list, is that we think it does not concern us.

But Jesus says here that as soon as we start talking about him publicly, there will inevitably be hostility in one form or another.

I am thinking of a Christian physiotherapist who appeared in a recent report on evangelical churches... and who has just been summoned by the physiotherapists' association to explain his comments.

Personally, I would not have expressed myself in exactly the same way as he did in the news report. But it is still a case of hostility of the kind described by Jesus.

It can arise even within the same family.

Verse 12

"Brothers will betray brothers to death, and fathers will betray their children; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death."

I think of that friend with a Muslim background, disowned by his family and deprived of his inheritance because he follows Jesus.

Be careful. Do not be surprised by hostility.

When Jesus tells us these things, he is a bit like a coach at the start of a marathon who tells us: don't be surprised if at some point your legs hurt. Persevere 

He is not trying to make us anxious. He warns us out of love because he wants us to go all the way.

But perhaps you are wondering: does this mean that Jesus avoided the disciples' question? The question of timing? 

No

2. The end of the temple has passed

Let's read verse 14

"When you see the abomination of desolation [spoken of by the prophet Daniel] standing where it should not be... then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains."

Jesus is talking about a time of great distress... when it will be urgent to flee as quickly as possible.

Those who are on the roof of their house will not even have time to go down and get their belongings.

Those working in the fields will not have time to fetch their cloaks.

It is a frightening description, so much so that one might think Jesus is describing the end of the world.

But when we look at the text more closely, we discover that this is not the case. Jesus is rather talking about a specific historical event.

This event is geographically limited. It is those who live in Judea—the region around Jerusalem—who must flee to the mountains. Not everyone.

Nor is it the last event in history.

Jesus says that "the distress will be such as has not been since the beginning of the world... and never will be again," implying that history continues after that.

Jesus is not talking about the destruction of the world. Rather, he is describing the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

This took place in the year 70 when the Roman army besieged Jerusalem, killed its inhabitants, and burned the temple.

This building, which seemed so solid and permanent... was reduced to ruins... only a few decades after Jesus spoke these words.

And Jesus says that this event was preceded by a warning sign. Did you notice that?

He said, "When you see the abomination of desolation... that is when it is time to flee the region."

This enigmatic expression - the abomination of desolation - comes from the book of Daniel in the Old Testament.

It refers to an act of desecration or sacrilege committed in the temple that would be the precursor to its final abandonment.

We do not know exactly what this was.

Perhaps it was an act committed in the temple by the Romans before they destroyed it.

Perhaps something the Jews did.

We do not know, and we do not need to know.

Because it was a sign only for the people of that time – in the first century – that they should flee Jerusalem.

Because God's judgement was about to fall upon Israel.

All of this is the culmination of what we have been seeing for several weeks in the Gospel of Mark.

We have seen that the people of Israel and their leaders had largely rejected God. They would go so far as to kill his son.

And so Jesus had announced that God would judge them because of this rebellion.

The destruction of the temple – the place that symbolised the special relationship between God and Israel – would be proof that this special relationship was now over.

But this event is not the same thing as the end of the world... despite what one might think...

I am going to ask you to concentrate for a moment!

When the Old Testament spoke of God's judgement, it sometimes said that this judgement would begin with the temple.

If you're interested in the reference, Malachi chapter 3 says this.

So one might think that when the temple was judged, the world would be judged at the same time.

 The disciples probably thought so.

But Jesus said that this is not quite how things will happen.

There will be a period of time between the two.

But the two events are linked, because the end of the temple is there to teach us something about the end of the world.

It serves as a kind of trailer. Like a teaser.

The end of the temple shows us how terrible God's judgement is on human rebellion.

How urgent it is to act without delay if we are warned that this judgement is coming.

And above all, and this is our third point, the end of the temple teaches us that the end of the world is near.

3. The end of the world is near!

 Verse 24. Jesus continues...

"But in those days, after that time of distress—after the destruction of the temple—the sun will be darkened, the moon will no longer give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken."

Here Jesus quotes parts of the Old Testament that speak of God's judgement on the whole world.

The world seems stable and solid today (and still). But these images show that this world is not as solid as we might think.

Even if the falling stars and the darkening sun are poetic language—and there are reasons to think so—the message is clear.

In the face of God's judgement, our world is not as permanent as we think.

In verse 26, Jesus says that it is then that we will see "the Son of Man coming on the clouds... with great power and glory. He will send his angels and gather his chosen ones from the four corners of the earth, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the sky."

This is another reference to the book of Daniel.

Daniel saw in a vision God sitting in judgment of the world, and someone described as 'the Son of Man' coming on the clouds.

And this Son of Man receives from God authority over all the peoples of the earth forever.

This vision is partly fulfilled when Jesus rises from the dead and returns to God.

Today Jesus reigns victorious at the right hand of God over the whole earth.

But as long as we still live in a broken and rebellious world, this vision is not yet fully realised.

We are still waiting.

But Jesus announces here in Mark that one day he will return in glory and be seen by all.

It will be then that this rebellious and disordered world will come to an end.

He will judge his enemies and save his people once and for all.

And the essential idea that he wants us to understand at all costs is that that day... is near.

Verses 28 - follow along with me 

Learn a lesson from the parable of the fig tree: as soon as its branches become tender and the leaves sprout, you know that summer is near. Likewise, when you see these things happening, know that the Son of Man is near, that he is at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened.

Some understood this last sentence, verse 30, as an announcement that Jesus would return during the disciples' lifetime.  

This generation will not pass away until all these things have happened.

And since Jesus did not return at that time... like many enlightened ones throughout history... he was wrong...

But... throughout this passage, the expression "all these things" refers to something very specific.

The destruction of the temple.

The disciples ask when "this" will happen... referring to the temple, for example. 

So it seems likely that when Jesus says that this generation will not pass away before all this happens, he is talking about the destruction of the temple... an event that did indeed occur during the disciples' lifetime.

But what Jesus is getting at in verse 29 is that when you see these things happening, it shows that the Son of Man is near, that he is at the door.

The end of the temple shows that the end of the world is near.

We may well ask ourselves, it has been 2000 years since the temple was destroyed. What did Jesus mean by "near"?

Obviously, he did not mean "right away," because we have been waiting for two millennia!

What does "near" mean?

When Jesus says that his return is near, it means that there are no other events that must happen first in God's calendar.

It is the next date on his agenda. Jesus is at the door, and he can come in whenever he wants.

Maybe in a long time, maybe this afternoon.

This is the meaning of the illustration of the fig tree.

When the leaves appear, it means that summer is coming. We don't know exactly when. It doesn't allow us to announce the precise date of the arrival of fine weather. But we know it is coming. It’s where we’re headed next.

The appearance of the leaves is like the destruction of the temple in the year 70. Once that has happened, Jesus can return at any moment.

If we are sceptical, we can go to Jerusalem and look at the ruins.

The temple was indeed destroyed... just as Jesus had foretold.

Now, the end of the temple and the end of the world are part of the same package.

Not everything that looks stable and solid is permanent.

But if the end of the world is 'near'... the hour of the end is also... unknown.

This is the final point:

4. The hour of the end is unknown!

Verse 32

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Sometimes we hear of Christians who think they can pinpoint the moment of the end.

Since such-and-such an event has happened in such-and-such a part of the world, the end will come on such-and-such a date. Mark it in your diary!

It is striking that these people claim to know more than Jesus himself.

No one knows the day or the hour... except the Father.

Jesus says it is like a man going on a journey.

He leaves his house to his servants.

He explains to them the work to be done, orders the gatekeeper to stay awake, and then leaves.

Verse 35

Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come: in the evening, or in the middle of the night, or at cockcrow, or in the morning.

In other words, we know that Jesus will return. We just don't know when.

His request is that we should not be 'asleep' when he returns.

Next Sunday we will have a whole sermon on what it means to be ready and not asleep when Jesus returns.

So I won't dwell on that now.

What I would like us to remember today is that Jesus' teaching on the end of the world, as we know it, is actually... very simple.

Jesus will certainly return to judge the world. x2

We do not know when he’ll return.

But we know that he’ll return.

There is nothing else on God's agenda that must come before it.

So there are two extremes to avoid.

There is a type of Christian who lives in what I would call a state of permanent 'eschatological anxiety'.

'Eschatological' simply means to do with the end.

People who live in a state of eschatological anxiety are obsessed with the question of when Jesus will return and spend their time fretting over the news to try to decipher how imminent the end is.

We saw people fall into this during the pandemic.

We see it every time there is conflict in the Middle East.

If you go on YouTube, you will always find people who live in this state of eschatological anxiety and who take advantage of situations of instability in the world to induce the same anxiety in others.

This week, I watched several rather far-fetched videos that fell into this trap.

If you recognise yourself in this profile, Jesus says: calm down.

There is a sign that his return is near. It happened 2,000 years ago: the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

But there is another extreme, which is undoubtedly more common. It is even more dangerous.
It is to ignore the fact that Jesus will return.

I wouldn't be surprised if most of us lean towards this tendency. 

If that is us, we need to heed Jesus' repeated warning in this passage.

Be careful, be on your guard, stay awake, stay alert.

The destruction of the temple in AD 70 really happened. It was a terrible event.

We have testimonies from Jewish historians who saw with their own eyes the devastation and misery of those who suffered it. When you read these testimonies you see that Jesus wasn’t exaggerating when he described it as the most awful tribulation ever.

But Jesus says that this was just the trailer.

If we know this, dear friends, it should make us tremble.

Not tremble because we are stressed out trying to figure out the date and wondering if it's time to start stocking up on tinned food and toilet rolls.

No, trembling because we understand that God is not messing around when it comes to evil in the world.

If you are like me, I imagine you have moments when you particularly want God to clean up this world.

Lord, why do you let these trials continue?

Why don't these injustices stop?

Why is there so much pain everywhere?

Lord, come and clean up!

Jesus has a word for the moment when God cleans up this world. It is the word 'judgement'.

That's what it means, God's judgement. It's when God cleans up! It's when he straightens out what is crooked, repairs what is broken, and removes from him everything that has no place in his kingdom.

A question that may trouble some of us is, "If God exists, why doesn't he put an end to evil?"

Good question!

Jesus does not dodge this question.

He answers... yes, I will put an end to evil!

The even more important question is: will we be ready for when he does that?

If Jesus is going to set right what is crooked and remove all that is evil, will I, who am stained by evil in all kinds of ways be ready?

If you cannot answer with great certainty, know that as Jesus utters these words, he is about to die so that we may be made ready, by receiving his forgiveness so that we don’t have to fear this judgement.

Have we accepted his offer of forgiveness?

This passage leaves us with a definite expectation: Jesus will return to judge.

We should tremble because we understand what is at stake

We should also tremble with joy...

The dream of a better world, free from everything that spoils it, where God has cleaned up, is not a fantasy!

God kept his promise concerning the temple – we can go and see the ruins that prove it.

We know that he will keep his promise about Jesus' return.

Talking about judgement and the end of the world as we know it can be frightening, and it should make us tremble, but it is also a way of saying that in the end, Jesus... wins!

This week I was reading an article about the increasing persecution of Christians in China.

If there is one thing these Christians pray for above all else, it is undoubtedly for Jesus to return.

Our life in this world, as difficult as it may be, as good as it may be, is not the end goal.

In the end, Jesus wins!

So, may I suggest something you can do? Take out your phone, and if you have a calendar app, create a recurring event that pops up every day: Jesus may return today! 

How should we live while we wait? We'll see next Sunday. So, if Jesus hasn't returned in the meantime, come back!

Nothing Less Than Everything (Mark 12.28-44)

When I was about seventeen years old, my friend Emily told me she had a friend named Paige, and she wanted to introduce me to her. Paige lived in a nearby town, so I’d never met her, but Emily thought Paige and I would get along really well, and that we’d be a good match for one another. She showed me a picture of Paige that she had brought just for the occasion, to give to me.

I took the picture home, and I can still see it in my mind. It was a simple photo—she was just sitting on a hill in jeans and a t-shirt, smiling at the camera—but I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.

So I called Paige, and we decided to meet up for an actual date. We planned it for the Friday of the following week, so I had about ten days to wait. For those ten days, I carried that picture with me everywhere, and I looked at it often, because I was totally convinced that when I looked at that picture, I was looking at the face of my future wife.

Ten days later, we finally met for the first time in person for our date. I remember that date far less vividly than I remember the photograph; the one thing I do remember clearly is that after the first five minutes of figuring out what we wanted to do, we realized we had nothing to say to each other. We didn’t have anything in common, it was really awkward, and the entire evening was one attempt after another to fill the silence so we didn’t have to sit in how weird it felt.

For over a week, I had walked around convinced I was in love with this girl. But of course I wasn’t, because I didn’t actually know her.

That is the dynamic at work in this text. The first part speaks of the love God deserves from us; the second part speaks of the impossibility of loving a God we don’t know.

The text we just read—Mark 12.28-44—comes as a bit of a relief—to me, at least—because Jesus has just spent basically a chapter and a half getting pushback from the religious leaders, responding to multiple attempts to trap him. 

But at the beginning of this text, we see something different. We see one of the religious leaders, a scribe, come to Jesus and ask him an honest question—not a trap, not an attack, but a real, genuine question. 

This question opens the door for Jesus to give one of my favorite of his teachings recorded in the gospel of Mark, because it’s so simple, and yet if we take it seriously, it changes everything. 

The Greatest Commandment (v. 28-34)

When we pick up the text in v. 28, we’re still in the middle of this day Jesus has spent in the temple. He has just spent a lot of time—all of chapter 12 so far—facing challenge after challenge from the religious leaders. They keep trying to ask him questions that will trip him up, that he won’t have answers to, or that will expose him as a fraud in front of the people. And every time, Jesus brilliantly evades their attacks and points out the flaws in the religious leaders’ thinking.

So the atmosphere in this place was tense, to say the least. The religious leaders are angry, Jesus is calmly defending himself, and the people are on the edge of their seats, listening to everything he says.

Which makes the next exchange we see all the more surprising.

V. 28: 

28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”

This question, from this scribe who remains unnamed, could have been a trick question. Every question directed toward Jesus so far has either focused on his identity, his theology in general, or his interpretation of the law of Moses. This question could fall into either of the latter categories. It could have been a trap.

But as we saw last week, in v. 15, Jesus knows what’s going on in the hearts and minds of the people asking him these questions. So instead of answering the question with another question, or with a parable, Jesus gives a straight answer. V. 29: 

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 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.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Jesus isn’t extrapolating here; he’s quoting from the beginning of Deuteronomy 6 and from Leviticus 19. Even so, his answer sounds a bit simplistic—there are so many commandments in the Old Testament that were really important, to the point where there were very serious consequences if people didn’t follow them. All the commandments about sacrifices and purity and worship were what you might think of first, because they’re things you do—they’re easy things to wrap your mind around.

But to his credit, the scribe talking to Jesus sees what he’s saying, and he agrees. V. 32: 

32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

It’s not hard to see the meaning behind this exchange. There is only one God—so he should be our primary focus. And this commandment to love God and to love others is the most important commandment because it summarizes the goal of all the others. God gives his law to display his character to his people, and that character will manifest itself in love.

But it’s really important to see that Jesus isn’t just saying, “Love God.” It’s easy for us, as modern readers, to conflate this command to love God with the emotion of love. When we love someone, there is emotion that comes with it, of course, but Deuteronomy 6 goes further than that: it describes the love that God demands. 

He says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” To put it simply, we are commanded to love God with everything we are. There should be emotions involved, yes—we love him with all our heart and with all our soul.

But there is also calculation: we love God with all our mind. We spend time thinking about God, considering who he is, and recognizing why he is worthy of our love. 

And there is also strenuous effort: we love God with all our strength. We’ll work hard at loving God. We’ll make choices that are thoughtful, choices that are coherent with our understanding of who God is and who we are, even if those choices are difficult.

How many of us have had the experience of going away for the weekend, going on vacation, and not opening our Bibles the entire time? How many of us have had the experience of feeling like we need a “break” from God?

This temptation comes to all of us at some point or another, and we give in to that temptation when our love for God, and our understanding of God, are unbalanced.

The person who loves God the way Jesus describes here does not partition off his life into categories, some of which include God and some of which exclude him. There is no “time off” from this. We don’t take vacations from God, and we don’t want to, because God is good.

God doesn’t deserve a part of me; he deserves all of me. 

And Jesus adds that the second most important commandment is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” When God gets everything—when we love him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength—that love will overflow into love for those around us. When we understand who God is for us, the love and grace he has shown us, it becomes unnatural and unthinkable to not extend that love to others. We don’t deserve God’s perfect and unlimited love, but we have it—and the person who withholds their love from others shows that they don’t understand what they’ve received.

When the scribe responds to Jesus, he repeats what Jesus has said, but he adds one little thing that shows he really does understand what Jesus is saying. He says in v. 33 that loving God with everything we are, and loving our neighbor as ourselves, “is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” This was a daring thing to say, because much of the life of the religious leaders was centered around correctly performing these rituals. These things were really important to them, because they were really important in the law of Moses.

But without this all-consuming love for God that overflows into love for one’s neighbor, all these sacrifices and burnt offerings mean nothing.

And Jesus answers him by saying, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

The Poor Widow (vv. 41–44)

Let’s go down a little to v. 41—we’ll come back to the in-between part in a little while. Jesus describes what true love for God is in v. 28-34. But naturally we may have a hard time seeing what loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength looks like in practical terms.

We don’t need to figure it out for ourselves. We already saw one example of what that looks like in v. 31: love your neighbor as yourself. In v. 41-44, we see another, even clearer picture. 

V. 41:

41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Jesus never tells us what this widow’s motivations for giving were, and he doesn’t comment directly on her faith. She serves a similar purpose as the fig tree back in chapter 11: Jesus is using her as a living parable, a picture, of what he said earlier—what it looks like to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Several rich people come and put large sums of money into the offering box. Jesus doesn’t condemn them for doing this—he doesn’t say anything about their motivations. He only mentions them to highlight the contrast between them and the poor widow. The rich people gave out of their abundance, he says, while this poor widow gave everything she had. And, Jesus said, she gave more—not because of the actual amount she gave was bigger, but because of what the gift cost her.

Of course this passage isn’t really about money at all—Jesus isn’t saying you have to empty your bank accounts every time you go to church. 

He’s saying that our love for God cannot be measured by how we feel. True love for God can only be measured by how we live. True love for God will necessarily drive us to action—we love him with all our heart and soul, yes, but also with all our mind, and with all our strength. To put it another way, there is an inevitable link between “inside love” and “outside love”—between orthodoxy (knowing the right things about God) and orthopraxy (doing the right things for God). 

In the context of what we saw before, and in what Jesus says about the widow, he makes this point abundantly, uncomfortably clear, because he puts us before a very simple question: What is the cost of our obedience?

There are some commandments that are relatively easy for me to obey, because of my personality. I’m naturally a pretty understanding person, so I can be fairly patient when people don’t do what they ought to do. When I obey in that way, it’s a good thing, sure—but it doesn’t cost me much, because it comes naturally to me.

However, other commandments are a lot more difficult—for example, the commandment to call a brother to repentance if I notice sin in his life. That’s hard for me, because I hate conflict. I have no problem doing it from up here, because I’m speaking to all of you. But when I’m face-to-face with one person… Every bone in my body fights against that, because I hate conflict, and I hate uncomfortable situations.

Do you see what Jesus is getting at? You say you love the Lord—and that’s wonderful. But the question is worth asking: What does your love cost?

That’s how Jesus measures the widow’s love. “This poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box,” he says, “for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had.”

The Son of David (vv. 35–40)

So we have what true love for God is, and what true love for God looks like in practice. If that is all we had, this would be a pretty straightforward passage.

However, in between these two sections comes a moment of teaching that, at first glance, seems unrelated to the other two.

But if you’ve been with us in this series since the beginning, you know how Mark loves to structure passages like a sandwich—he’ll talk about one subject, then move on to something that seems different, then come back to the initial subject to show that the middle part actually is related.

So let’s look at this middle part, starting in v. 35.

Remember the context: after his exchange with the sincere scribe, Jesus is still in the temple, still teaching, and he brings up the question of the identity of the Messiah. The Messiah—also called “the Christ”; both titles mean the same thing—was the Savior whom God had promised to send to save his people. 

The religious leaders at the time had various views about what the details, but what everyone agreed on was this: the Messiah—the promised Savior—would be a human deliverer from the line of the great King David. They expected the Messiah to be a man, empowered by God, a warrior-king belonging to the family of David. So a great man, absolutely, a man sent by God—but still, just a man.

The problem Jesus highlights here is that these religious leaders have their hopes set on only part of what is actually promised. 

V. 35: 

35 And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?”

Let’s stop there for a second, because that’s a weird question. “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David (that is, a descendant of King David)?” Well…because the prophecies said he would be! The scribes are right when they say that, and Jesus knows it.

So why ask the question? It’s not to say the scribes are wrong about the Christ being the son of David, but rather to show that their beliefs around the Messiah are only half-complete; they’re leaving out one really glaring fact about the Messiah—a fact that comes from David himself.

V. 36:

36 David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared,
                  “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
                  “Sit at my right hand,
      until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’
37 David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly.

This can be a little confusing at first, because you have one Lord talking to another Lord, and without context you don’t know who is who. In v. 36, Jesus is quoting Psalm 110, which nearly all Jews at the time accepted as a prophecy about the Messiah. And in the context of the psalm, it’s clear that the first “Lord” is God himself, and the second “Lord” is the promised Messiah. (We know because the words in the original language are different.) We could reword this verse by saying, “The Lord God said to Christ, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”

David gave this prophecy, in which God himself gives the Messiah a place at his right hand: the place of highest honor and power—a place normally reserved for someone of equal nature and authority.

Jesus quotes this psalm to point out the glaring omission in the religious leaders’ thinking, despite the fact that they knew this psalm really well. In this psalm, David puts himself in a place of submission: he places himself under God, obviously—but also under the Messiah; he calls him “my Lord”. This was a very odd thing for David to do, because the Messiah was going to be one of David’s own descendants—one of his great-great-great (and so on) grandchildren.

And at this time, in this culture, the patriarchs of a family were the ones who received the honor. If anyone in a family line was to be called “my Lord,” it would be the father, not the son. That’s how it worked in ordinary human families. 

But David treats the Messiah, the Christ, who would be his own descendant, with even more honor and more reverence than he reserved for himself. In no conceivable human family would the son be called “lord” instead of the father.

The point is, this Messiah is a human being, yes—but he is much more than that. The Messiah is of the line of David, yes—but he is much more than that. According to family lines, he’s the son of David; but really, miraculously, he is the son of God—sitting at God’s right hand, equal in nature.

You see, Jesus is showing that for everything the scribes know about Scriptures, their conclusions about God’s plan are wrong. No one at the time believed the Messiah would be anything more than a human being. A great man, a great warrior, a man sent by God—but still, just a man. The idea that the human Messiah would claim to also be divine was blasphemy; it was unthinkable.

But it shouldn’t have been, because it was right there, in Psalm 110. “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand…’” A human being, given divine authority. It was there in Psalm 110, and it was there in Daniel 7, and elsewhere. They should have known better, but they didn’t—either because they didn’t understand about the promises they say they believe, or because they just couldn’t bring themselves to accept what Scripture says.

Now, in itself, what Jesus says here is interesting, but it might seem as if it has little to do with us, or what we saw earlier. Not many people in our churches today will think about the Messiah the same way the religious leaders did; not many of us would deny the idea that Jesus is both the “son of David” and the son of God.

In reality, though, what he says absolutely applies to us. Look at what Jesus says next, in v. 38: 

38 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces 39 and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, 40 who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

It’s strange, isn’t it? He’s talking about the Messiah’s identity—David’s descendant, yes, but also David’s Lord, the Son of God—and in the same teaching, he speaks of the scribes and their hypocrisy and pride: how they do a lot of the right things on the outside, and they love the recognition it gives them, but in reality, behind closed doors where the crowds can’t see, they’re hurting the people they’re meant to serve. 

Why does Jesus put those two things together? 

In the two bookends of this text, we saw Jesus expose what true love for God is, and then show what it looks like in practice. And in this center section, he does the same thing. He exposes the fact that the scribes refuse to accept what Scripture actually said about the Messiah, and now he shows what their deficient theology of Christ looks like when it’s lived out. It’s not just a question of intellectual understanding—it’s a question of pride, keeping them from accepting what’s right in front of their eyes.

And although it may look different today, this problem is still very present.

It’s pretty frightening to see how many Christians today say that Jesus is Lord, without actually giving him what he deserves as Lord. They say he’s the Son of God, but they accept him mainly as their ticket to heaven, or the person they can turn to when they’re feeling lonely, or the one they pray to when they need to get out of a painful situation.

Most of us wouldn’t say that Jesus, the Messiah, was just a human being descended from David. But we might well be living as if it were true. We might well be living in a way that says, “Jesus is my Savior…but he’s not my Lord. Jesus is my helper…but I decide what I do with my life. Jesus is my friend…but I’ll decide whether or not to do what he says.” 

Our theology of the Messiah may not be the same as the religious leaders’, but all too often, it’s just as shallow, just as deficient.

And what happens when we live according to such a view? 

We keep Jesus safely in the category that’s most convenient to us—he is always our helper, but rarely our Lord. If Jesus is just David’s son—just a human deliverer—or if he is just a helper, just a friend, then we can go to Jesus for help, but we don’t have to submit to him. We can admire Jesus, but we don’t have to bow to him. 

We keep Christ small, so we can stay big. We can keep Christ on the sidelines, so that we can stay central.

And when we stay big, when we stay central, pride is inevitable. When Christ is not seen and acknowledged as supreme in our lives, the vacuum of glory has to be filled. And every time, there we are, ready to fill it.

We keep Christ small, so we can stay big.

A small Messiah doesn’t demand much of us. A small Messiah doesn’t take up much room. He can be conveniently slotted into the few empty spots we have left in our calendar; he doesn’t have to define our lives. 

Our pride loves a small Messiah, because a small Messiah lets us “manage” our faith instead of being mastered by Christ. A small Messiah submits to us, instead of demanding we submit to him.

Loving a God Worthy of Love

Do you see where Mark is going with this—where Jesus is going?

When we allow ourselves to settle for a small vision of who Christ is, our lives might become easier, sure—but they’ll also be emptied of the one thing that actually makes life worth living: access to the one true God, who alone is worthy of the love he commands.

Think about that for a moment. The command Jesus repeats in verse 30 is astonishingly bold:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

You shall love him with everything you are, everything you have, everything you desire.

A commandment that all-encompassing can only mean one of three things.

Either it means God doesn’t exist and humans made him up to gain power—in which case, we should run for our lives.

Or it means the God who gave it is a tyrant—an egomaniac who needs our total approval to prop up his own fragile sense of self. If God isn’t actually worthy of the love he demands, then he’s completely unhinged—and again, we should run for our lives.

But of course, we don’t believe either of those things, because we’ve come to know God. Which leaves only one possibility: that our God really is worthy of that kind of all-consuming love—that he truly is worthy of our whole lives.

And if he really is worthy of every aspect of every life of every person who belongs to his people… then how good must our God be? This commandment should set our imaginations on fire—because how good, how glorious, how powerful, how breathtaking must he be to deserve that kind of love?

The command to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength is, in reality, an invitation to spend our lives contemplating the one being who is so good and so glorious that such love will never be wasted on him. He deserves it—because he really is that good.

Of course, loving God as he deserves isn’t easy. There’s nothing wrong with finding it hard to give God all that we are. No one does it perfectly, because we’re still imperfect human beings.

What scares me, though, is how many Christians don’t even think to ask the question.

Why do we live the way we live? Why do we make the choices we make?

Maybe we live the way we do out of pride. We know what people will think of us if we don’t act a certain way—and we know what they’ll think if we do. We know which mask to wear, and we know how to make sure no one sees us take it off.

Maybe we live the way we do simply because we want to chase our dreams. When we were younger, we had a picture of what we wanted our life to look like—and now, as adults, we’re just making decisions that help us get there. A lot of what we do as adults is really just us keeping promises we made to ourselves when we were kids.

Or maybe we don’t even know why we do what we do. We just act on instinct, on desire, on impulse.

All those motivations for living the way we live are perfectly normal—and utterly deadly.

The only truly good motivation for everything we do is a genuine love for God, expressed in action.

And so he calls us—to come to Christ as he truly is (not the little “Messiah” so many people try to make him into), and through him to know God as *he* truly is.

He calls us to grow in our love for him.

And he calls us to work hard to cultivate that love—in every decision we make, in every opportunity to obey, no matter how costly that obedience may be.

He calls us to know and love Christ—because he loved God with all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, and all his strength… and he lived it out so perfectly that he gave himself for us.

So then—what are we going to do?

How will we live?

How will we love our God?

That’s the question he puts before us today. So let’s take a few moments to stand before him—and ask him to help us answer it.

Jesus’s Authority to Judge (Mark 11.27-12.27)

I would like to tell you about a conversation I had with a colleague at my job before I became a minister.

She had just learned that an acquaintance of hers had gone on a missionary trip abroad.

"I thought it was so arrogant," she said.

"What right do you have to go to another country and tell them to change their religion and believe in Jesus?"

"How arrogant and intolerant!"

Being a bit slow on the uptake, I didn't really know how to respond at the time.

At Connexion Church, we are preparing for a missionary trip.

To those of you who are going, may I ask you a question? What gives you the right to do that? What gives you the authority to go to a country that is not your own, call on people to change what they believe, perhaps for centuries, their religion, perhaps certain aspects of their way of life, and to accept the Christian faith?

By what authority are you going to do this?

This afternoon, some of you will go out into this neighbourhood to try to share the good news of Jesus with passers-by who may have very different beliefs from your own.

By what right?

What gives you the right to say that people must believe in Jesus?

Perhaps you are here this morning because you have questions about the Christian faith.

Perhaps you are interested in the person of Jesus Christ. What you don't want is to become arrogant and intolerant.

Is that what happens when you embrace the Christian faith?

Hence our question this morning: what right do we have to insist on the need to believe in Jesus... alone?

By what right does Jesus demand that we believe in him... even if it means rejecting other belief systems?

This is the question posed to Jesus in verse 28 of Mark chapter 11, which we have just read.

Jesus is walking in the temple in Jerusalem. The leaders of the people challenge him:

"By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you the authority to do them?"

The context behind the question is what we saw Jesus do last Sunday, if you were there.

He arrived in Jerusalem, and the crowds hailed him as king and saviour. Then the first thing he did was to go to the temple, the historic house of God and the centre of Israel's religion, to announce... that it was over for the temple.

Finished.

It's as if he went to Notre Dame Cathedral, not just to chase away the tourists and close the souvenir shop so that people could concentrate better during services. No, it's as if he entered the cathedral to chase away the clergy, lock the doors and throw the key into the Seine.

He compares the temple to a fig tree that had not borne the expected fruit, and he curses it.

He says that what matters now is no longer the religion of the temple, but faith in him.

No wonder the leaders ask him: by what authority are you doing these things? What gives you the right to take our religion, our temple - which God himself established - and say, "It's over; believe in me now"?

By what authority do you judge us in this way?

This is what we see in this morning's passage.

Jesus' authority to judge

The reasons that attract his judgement...

And the need to believe in him to escape judgement.

Three points:

1. The judge's accusation presented

2. The judge's accusation confirmed

3. The judge's victory assured

The judge's accusation presented (11:27-12:9)

The title of the first point is deliberately ambiguous.

It could either mean the trial brought against a judge or by a judge.

This is what we see in the exchanges between the Jewish leaders and Jesus.

They attack his authority to judge. But in doing so, they show why Jesus must judge them.

This is the first thing to understand: God is good, God is patient, but at some point, Jesus judges those who rebel against his authority.

Mark 11:27:

"They went back to Jerusalem, and as Jesus was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes and the elders came to him and said, 'By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you the authority to do them?

At first glance, the question seems perfectly legitimate.

If I went to Notre Dame Cathedral to chase away the clergy and lock the doors, those in charge would be entitled to ask me who I think I am.

But I am not Jesus!

And in the mouths of the leaders of Israel, this question is anything but sincere, for several reasons.

First, they saw with their own eyes what Jesus' authority was. They saw his miracles. They heard his teaching. They contemplated his character.

They know his authority.

Second, in their mouths, it is a trick question.

Last week we saw that when they saw Jesus judging the temple and how the crowds were nevertheless glued to his words, they were looking for a way to kill him.

So they tried to trap him. If he answered that his authority came from God, they could accuse him of blasphemy.

If he answers that it comes from men, he loses all legitimacy.

Jesus' answer is a stroke of genius.

Verse 29

Jesus replied, "I will ask you a question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was John's baptism from heaven or from men?"

John is John the Baptist, someone who had been immensely popular among the people.

Above all, he had testified about Jesus just before he began his ministry.

Now the leaders were stumped!

"If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say, 'Why then did you not believe him? Why did you not accept his testimony about me?

And if we say, 'From men...'" They feared the people's reaction, for they all truly regarded John as a prophet.

They risked losing popular support.

So, like good politicians, they avoided taking a position.

"We do not know."

Jesus' response: Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

Jesus exposes their true motives.

Holding on to power.

Popularity is more important to them than the truth.

They fear men more than they fear God.

Isn't that so typically human?

We don't like to relinquish control.

We, too, often care more about what people will say than what God will say.

For us too, the approval of others often matters more than God's approval.

When my colleague told me about her friend's missionary trip, what probably prevented me from responding appropriately was my greater concern for popularity than for truth.

It's so human!

But their question, "By what authority do you judge us?", may be a trick question in the mouths of the leaders, but it remains an important question for us.

We need to know what gives Jesus the authority to take an entire religious system and throw it in the bin!

Because if he can do that to the religion that God himself established, how much more so can he do it to any other belief system?

We need to know why Jesus the judge is conducting his trial.

So Jesus tells a parable to explain.

Chapter 12, verse 1

And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. 6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.

In this story, the owner of the vineyard is God.

The vineyard represents the privileges granted to the people of Israel.

The tenants are the leaders of Israel.

The servants are the prophets whom God sent to Israel.

The owner's son is Jesus.

Let us remember the purpose of parables.

The purpose of parables is to harden those who have already decided that they do not want Jesus, such as the religious leaders, and to enlighten those who belong to Jesus.

How does this parable enlighten us?

First, it shows us God's immense generosity towards Israel throughout its history.

The vineyard is of the highest quality. It has all the necessary equipment.

It is not a small vineyard that only produces cheap wine at €1 a bottle. It is Château Margaux.

An image of God's overflowing generosity towards Israel. The abundance of their country, protection from enemies, the privilege of being the only people in the world to have God dwelling among them.

God had spared no expense.

The parable also speaks of God's patience with Israel.

The vineyard is leased to the vinedressers so that they may enjoy it and also produce fruit for the owner.

That's normal. It belongs to him.

But when the owner sends a servant to collect his share, they beat him and send him away empty-handed.

If I were the owner, I would have stopped there.

I would have called the police to remove them by force.

Not this owner.

He sends a second servant, a third, a fourth.

Some are beaten, others killed. He continues to give them chances.

Immense patience.

But this immense patience only serves to highlight how immense their sin is.

They did not listen to the servants.

The owner sends his beloved son; surely they will respect him!

But the vinedressers said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.'

This answers the question: by what authority does Jesus do these things?

The authority of a son sent to recover what is due to his father.

This is the great shock of this parable.

Why do the vineyard workers kill the son? Is it because they do not know who he is? No.

Is it because he did not prove his identity? No.

Is it because they doubt his authority? No.

On the contrary, it is precisely because they recognise who he is and know his authority that they decide to kill him.

They act deliberately, to take advantage of what has been entrusted to them, without submitting to his authority.

Imagine that you invest money in an apartment, rent it out to tenants, and move to another city.

Then the rent doesn't come in.

You send messages – no reply.

You ask friends to go and talk to them. They slam the door in their faces.

Finally, you send your son to beg them to use common sense.

But when they see that he is the heir to the flat, they kill him, thinking they can keep it for themselves.

It's horrible.

But this is Jesus' indictment of the leaders of Israel.

In fact, it is the indictment he brings against the whole world.

The history of Israel is a microcosm of the history of humanity.

God had given Israel a vineyard full of good fruit.

He had given humanity a garden full of good fruit.

Israel wanted to steal the vineyard from its owner.

Humanity tried to steal the earth from its owner.

Everyone in this room and everyone on this planet has enjoyed the good things given by God without giving back what is due to God.

The gratitude and obedience He deserves.

If He then sends us His Son, but we reject Him... we are guilty.

This is how I should have responded to my colleague.

Is the Christian faith arrogant and intolerant?

The world belongs to God!

It is full of good things – think of the diversity and beauty of his creation! God wants us to enjoy it, but it is his world, not ours.

If we live in it like squatters who refuse to pay rent, it's only natural that he would disagree.

If he calls us to give his son what is due to him, it is not arrogance. It is a sign of his patience.

If we continue to refuse, if we reject this Son, it is only natural that He will not tolerate this rejection forever.

God is good, God is patient, but at some point, those who reject his authority must be judged.

Perhaps we are not convinced by the accusation.

Perhaps we find Jesus too harsh.

But what follows shows that this rejection of God's authority can take very mundane forms.

This is the second point...

The judge's accusation confirmed (12:13-27)

One skill we develop when caring for children is the ability to discern their true motives.

You walk into the kitchen and there's the little one, standing on a stool next to the cupboard where the biscuits are kept.

"What are you doing?"

"Actually" — that's how the answer usually starts — "I wanted to wipe the sponge."

We are perceptive enough to discern the real motive.

The irony in this passage is that when the leaders hear this parable accusing them of wanting to kill Jesus, they want to kill Jesus even more!

But they cannot because of the crowd.

So they send two delegations to trap him.

Each time, Jesus proves that their real motive for attacking him is to live for themselves rather than for God.

Mark 12:13:

13 And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. 14 And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?”

• Relativised repentance

The Pharisees were a popular movement that sought to encourage the people to adhere more strictly to Jewish law.

The Herodians were supporters of King Herod.

What they had in common was their concern about how to relate to the Romans, who occupied Israel.

Hence their question. Is it permissible or not to pay taxes to the emperor?

This was another trick question.

If Jesus answered that taxes should be paid to Caesar, he risked being seen as a traitor in the eyes of the people. A collaborator.

If he answered that they should not pay, he would be denounced to the Romans as a rebel, and they would come and execute him.

In both cases, the goal is to eliminate Jesus.

Once again, Jesus finds a brilliant answer.

He takes a coin. Whose image is on it?

"The emperor's."

Then, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."

In other words, if the coin bears the image of the emperor, Caesar, it belongs to him. It is his currency that you are using. So pay your taxes.

But also give to God what belongs to God. And what bears the image of God?

You! You human beings! You bear the image of God!

What God really asks is that you give yourselves to him! Your whole life. Not just part of it.

What you are guilty of is limiting God's authority to only a few narrow areas.

Your tax return, as important as that may be.

We often do the same thing.

Limiting God's authority to a few moments of the week, or certain areas of life.

But God asks us to surrender ourselves to him completely.

Like the Pharisees.

Then come the Sadducees.

Eternity ignored (12:18-27)

The Sadducees recognised only the first five books of the Bible and did not believe in the resurrection from the dead.

Like many of our contemporaries.

Today, many people believe that we only have this life, that by striving for heaven, we miss out on earth. Let's enjoy the present moment without worrying too much about the hereafter.

Jesus, however, taught that he would die and then rise again.

If there is indeed no resurrection, his teaching falls flat.

The Sadducees try to trap him with an imaginary case.

A man dies and leaves behind a wife but no children.

According to Jewish law, the man's brother had to marry the widow to give his first husband descendants.

But let us imagine that this brother also dies without children. Another brother marries her and he too dies without children, and so on until the woman has been married seven times.

In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.”

And Jesus’s scathing reply in verse 24:

“Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?”

He gives two examples to prove that they are mistaken.

First, the Sadducees did not understand how different life after the resurrection will be from life here and now.

In particular, they did not understand that marriage here and now is only a picture ... of the relationship between the church and Jesus in the new world that God is preparing.

Marriage as we know it now will no longer exist.

Their argument does not hold water.

Secondly, God affirms that there will be a resurrection when he presents himself in the book of Exodus as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob four centuries after their death.

God had made promises to these three men that were not fulfilled during their lifetime.

There must be a day when they will be resurrected to receive what was promised.

We cannot close our eyes to life after death without closing our eyes to what God has revealed in the Bible.

But that is what the Sadducees do, so that they do not have to take Jesus seriously.

If this seems complicated, here is the gist of it.

The leaders confirm that they have a problem with authority—the authority of Jesus.

Far from discrediting Jesus, their questions and arguments just show that they want to live for themselves and for the present.

Once again, this is so human!

I have a brother who is not a Christian.

We have discussed the arguments for and against the Christian faith at length.

But I remember a very telling remark he once made.

Even if the Christian faith were true, I wouldn't believe in it because I don't agree with the Bible on sexuality.

In other words, whether it's true or not doesn't matter. I don't want it to be true!

So... we have the right to ask questions!

If you have questions or even objections, ask them! This is the place for it.

But let's be clear about what Jesus is revealing here.

Our difficulty with Jesus is not fundamentally a question of arguments or facts.

Not fundamentally.

The leaders saw that Jesus had the arguments on his side. That did not mean they believed in him.

Because behind the mind that does not believe, there is a heart that does not want to.

We have a problem with Jesus' authority... as good and benevolent as it may be.

But if we persist in our stubbornness, the stakes are enormous. That is the final point.

The judge's victory assured (12:9-12)

By what right do we insist on the need to believe in Jesus?

It is because, in the end, the judge Jesus will have the final say over everyone.

We may not realise this today. One day it will be obvious.

Let us return to the parable of the vineyard workers. Mark 12:9.

The owner was patient, he sent his servants, he sent his son... whom they killed... just as the leaders are preparing to kill Jesus.

Verse 9:

What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

The idea of God's judgement is not a very popular one.

Deep down, we all want it.

Does Jesus not convince us in the parable that the punishment of the labourers... is just?

Imagine that it was your son. Wouldn't you want justice to be done?

If, despite God's immense patience and repeated calls to change, we persist in our rejection, what more can he do?

The only option left is judgement.

It is as if God were saying: OK. You don't want my favour? You won't get it.

There comes a time when God must judge, or God is not just.

And if we turn our backs on him despite all his goodness...

Having food to eat every day...

Enjoying His creation...

Having His Son come into our world...

If, despite all this, we reject him, what can we say in our defence when we stand before him?

Not ignorance.

If we reject Jesus, all that remains is the prospect of judgement.

We don't need to have killed Jesus ourselves to be in the same situation as the leaders of Israel.

As long as our attitude is like theirs, we too are exposed to judgement.

God rejects those who reject the authority of his Son.

But there is a more joyful alternative.

Mark 12:10: Jesus said to the leaders,

10 Have you not read this Scripture: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’”

Imagine you are walking past a building site.

Workers are mocking the architect's plans, and in contempt for his project, they take a piece of concrete and throw it into a skip. Pffff! Pathetic!

When you walk by the next day, the labourers are gone. They have been replaced, and the piece of concrete has been taken out of the skip and laid as a foundation.

Jesus says he is like that piece of concrete.

Rejected.

But in the end, resurrected, victorious and the foundation of a new temple, not made of stones but of people who believed in him.

When we talk about Jesus as a judge, we might form too negative an image of him

As if what he wanted most of all was to punish.

Jesus is the judge.

But the ultimate goal of his judgement is to build.

To build a house for the glory of God made up of people who have built their lives on him.

It is possible that there are people here who have not yet made that choice.

Building their lives on Jesus.

You have to take a stand.

We can either continue to live as our own masters, with the serious consequences that entails, or we can base our lives on Jesus, who will have the final victory.

We must choose.

Perhaps this is a choice you need to make today.

If we have already made this choice, this text should give us great confidence if, despite the rejection it may provoke, we choose to live for Jesus and bear witness to Jesus.

Being a Christian today sometimes means feeling like you are the laughing stock of the world.

Sometimes it means being labelled intolerant or arrogant.

This week, I watched the Envoyé Spécial report on evangelical Christians in France.

It is a report that highlights real problems in some evangelical churches, it must be acknowledged.

But something that the report seemed to find particularly absurd was the idea that some people might still believe in 2025 that there are eternal stakes involved in believing in Jesus or not.

How can anyone still be so arrogant?

That is the message of this text, that there are eternal stakes involved in believing in Jesus!

Granted, this idea is not popular today. Nor was it popular with Jewish leaders 2,000 years ago.

But that doesn't make it false.

To be on Jesus' side is to be on the side of the one whose authority generates hostility.

'By what right do you say such things?', we will be asked.

But being on Jesus' side also means being on the side of the judge who will have the final say.

If we believe in him and invite others to believe in him, with humility, knowing that we are no better than anyone else... we do so with all the authority of the judge... whose victory... is assured.

Those of you who are leaving for Togo, may I ask you to remember that yes, Jesus is the gracious Saviour, yes, Jesus is the majestic King... but he is also the judge of all people?

Those of you who are going out to evangelise this afternoon, may I ask you to remember the same thing?

Jesus is the gracious Saviour, Jesus is the majestic King... He is also the judge of all?

Whatever we think of him today, he will have the last word.

Fruit or leaves? (Mark 11.1-26)

We are very happy to resume our series on the Gospel of Mark after the summer break. We expect to finish this series before Christmas.

To illustrate the central message of today’s text, I'm going to tell you something that some of you already know. I haven't mentioned it to the whole church so far, because most of the time it's not relevant.

This time, I think it may be useful.

Generally, I like myself. I like how God created me.

But when I was a teenager, I started to develop...the best way to explain it is a feeling of inevitable failure. Not for big things, but in very ordinary situations. I always feel like there's something missing that prevents me from understanding very basic things or social situations. And so, you make a lot of mistakes in very ordinary situations, and you get used to that feeling: you feel like a failure even though you haven't failed.

My whole adult life has been like that.

To be clear: I have prayed a lot about this, and again, I love how God made me. There is no identity crisis in what I am saying. It is simply the feeling that in many situations in life, I am missing something. Like, "You're a really good guy, Jason...it's just that you're very shy, and not very smart. And that's okay: there are things you do very well. But in most ordinary areas of life, you're a little dumb, that's all."

That's what I thought.

But in February, I was diagnosed with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and a fairly aggressive form of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—not physical hyperactivity, of course, but mental). I don't like those terms (I prefer to call them "challenges" rather than "disorders"), but more importantly, they are not illnesses that can be cured; they are simply part of the way God formed my brain.

This diagnosis explains so much, both to the people who know me and to myself. But the biggest thing it explains is that the things I used to think about myself are not true. I am not "a little stupid": I simply lack the tools I need to process certain information. I am not "socially awkward": I simply lack the tools I need to decode certain elements and know how to respond to them. What I used to think about myself was not true. I was wrong in my assessment of myself.

And knowing what is true about myself—that this difficulty stems from the way God created my brain—is a huge gift, because it gives me the opportunity to understand these things and learn how to manage them.

I have said all this to illustrate a very simple but very big problem that goes to the heart of this passage in Mark 11. And the problem is the same one I just mentioned: what we think about ourselves is not always true. We are sometimes wrong in our assessment of ourselves, and especially of our faith.

Many Christians think about their faith in a way that does not correspond to reality.

So in today's text, Jesus helps us to "diagnose" our faith. He helps us to see the truth about the state of our faith...which allows us to finally begin to live out what we say we believe.

But before we go any further, let's quickly review what we've seen in the first ten chapters of Mark's Gospel.

Mark encountered Christ through the apostle Peter; in his Gospel, he recounts what Peter saw during his time with Jesus. Mark's main purpose in this book is to show us who Jesus is, what he did, and how he calls us to live as disciples. A disciple is someone who follows and learns from a teacher; and the Teacher we follow and learn from is Jesus Christ himself.

Mark presents Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah whom God promised to send to the people of Israel to save them. At that time, Israel was living under Roman occupation, the people were oppressed, and naturally thought that this promised Messiah, when he came, would free them from this oppression.

And Mark immediately begins to show us that Jesus possesses absolute, perfect, universal authority. He is the Savior the people need, and therefore the people must follow him.

In chapters 1 through 7, Mark shows us Jesus' authority through his ministry. First, he acts in Galilee, among the Jews. He calls his disciples, teaches through parables, heals the sick, casts out demons, and demonstrates his power over nature. The religious leaders cannot tolerate him because they see him as a threat, and they begin to plot how they might eliminate him.

Even more surprising, after ministering among the Jews, Jesus leaves Galilee, goes to the Gentiles, and there too he teaches and performs miracles.

Then, in chapter 8, things take a different turn: Jesus heads for Jerusalem. He begins to explain to his disciples what it really means to be disciples, what it will cost them. He is transfigured before three of his disciples, proving that he is truly the Son of God. Everything seems to be going in the right direction: Jesus is walking toward victory.

But—and this is troubling for the disciples—Jesus repeats three times that he is going to Jerusalem, but that he is going there to die.

And that is where we are in the story. In today's text, which we have just read, we see that Jesus finally arrives in Jerusalem.

The triumphal entry (vv. 1-11)

Verses 1 to 11 serve as a kind of introduction to what we are about to see. Jesus told his disciples that he was going to die in Jerusalem, and yet what is about to happen here seems to contradict that idea.

Jesus and his disciples arrive in Bethany, on the Mount of Olives, just east of Jerusalem. First, he sends his disciples ahead of him and tells them to go into the village, where they will find a colt that no one has ever ridden. He tells them to bring it to him, and if anyone asks them what they are doing, to say, "The Lord needs it."

So the disciples must have wondered: How does Jesus know there will be a colt there? Why would someone we don't know let us take the colt just because we say the Lord needs it? If I were them, I would have some questions.

It's amazing, but it works—everything happens exactly as Jesus said it would. Even though he is coming to Jerusalem to die, he is in control of what is happening.

So they arrive in Jerusalem, with Jesus riding on the colt, and he is welcomed in spectacular fashion. This moment is called the "triumphal entry" for good reason. The people spread their cloaks and branches on the road, as if rolling out the red carpet for him. The crowd cheers him, shouting in verse 9:

“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

There is a lot of symbolism here, which tells us a lot about who Jesus is. By riding on a donkey that no one has ever ridden before, Jesus fulfills a prophecy about the Messiah found in Zechariah 9. The Messiah is the one who would come to save God's people, and the people know it—the word "Hosanna" they shout literally means "save." They also speak in v. 10 of "the kingdom that is coming, the kingdom of David, our father!" David is the idealized king of God's people, and everyone knew that the Messiah would be of his lineage—and that Jesus is too.

It is not just a teacher who is coming to Jerusalem. It is the Messiah, the Savior, the King of God's people. These people respond to Jesus exactly as they should.

The fig tree and the temple (vv. 12-21)

After visiting Jerusalem, they return to Bethany to sleep. The next day, they take the same route back to Jerusalem. And we see something really strange. V. 12:

12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. 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. 14 And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

At first glance, it's a little hard to know what's going on here: Jesus curses a tree because it has no fruit, even though it's not even fig season.

In our family, two people are early risers (Loanne and Jack), and two others are definitely not. Zadie and I need a lot of time to wake up in the morning; for a good half hour (or more), we're both pretty grumpy.

So... did Jesus have a rough night? Hasn't he had his coffee yet? Why is he so grumpy?

Of course, that's not what's going on. As Mark says, it wasn't fig season, and Jesus knew it. When he went to see the fig tree, he didn't really expect to see fruit on the branches.

Jesus does what he does for a reason that the disciples would not immediately understand. So we'll wait a little while too.

After this somewhat strange moment on the Mount of Olives, Jesus and his disciples return to Jerusalem. They enter the temple, and there, the grumpy Jesus seems to reassert himself. V. 15:

15 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.

What Jesus does seems extreme—but again, it's not that Jesus is in a bad mood. What he does is very calculated and appropriate.

Historically, the temple was the place where God's presence resided. It was there that God's people gathered to worship Him. Jesus himself says this when he explains why he is doing what he is doing in verse 17: he quotes Isaiah 56, where God says, "My house shall be called a house of prayer" ( Is. 56:7 )... and the people who are there have turned it into a place of commerce, a "den of thieves."

What's more, all this business was taking place in the outer court of the temple, which was the only place in the temple where non-Jews were allowed to go: they were not allowed to enter the inner court. Essentially, the place of prayer for non-Jews had been stolen to be used for commerce.

But, Jesus says in verse 17 (quoting from the book of Isaiah), God's house was not only meant to be a house of prayer, but "a house of prayer for all nations." As R.C. Sproul says, "The Jews hoped that the Messiah would purify the temple of the non-Jews, but Jesus purified the temple for the non-Jews."

Jesus "cleansed the temple" because these people—and the religious leaders who allowed this to happen—had turned the temple into something it was not meant to be.

We see in verses 18-19 that the religious leaders are furious at Jesus' actions and are looking for a way to destroy him, because the people are actively listening to him. Jesus now a real and imminent threat to them.

So Jesus and his disciples leave, returning to Bethany via the Mount of Olives, and the next morning, they take the same route again.

And what did they find? Verse 20:

20 As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. 21 And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”

Let's go back a moment. If you participated in the co group this week, you probably talked about this.

All the authors of the Gospels are excellent theologians. They often structure their stories, and sometimes even rearrange the chronology a little, in order to show us a deeper spiritual truth.

Mark, in particular, likes what I call the sandwich: he starts with one story, moves on to another, then returns to the first story to show the connection between the two.

That's what he does here:

A) The fig tree (vv. 12-14)

B) The temple (vv. 15-19)

A) The fig tree (vv. 20-21)

This is not just a matter of chronology: Mark deliberately structures his passage in this way.

The question is: what does he want us to understand?

Why did Jesus curse the fig tree?

This kind of thing is not unprecedented in the Bible. God often told the Old Testament prophets to use objects or images to illustrate their point. Amos used a plumb line. Jeremiah used a yoke. For Hosea, it was his own marriage, poor man.

Jesus does exactly the same thing here: he uses the fig tree to present an image.

And the image was not new either. The fig tree is a frequent image in the Old Testament to refer to the people of Israel.

So what is so special about this fig tree? Not much, except that, as we see in verse 13, from the outside it looks like a tree that could bear fruit—its leaves are still visible. But there is no fruit.

And that is what we see in the temple.

The temple was a place that should have produced one thing, but it produced another. Because of the self-centeredness and hypocrisy of the leaders of the people, the whole purpose of the temple is obscured. There should be fruit here, but all we see are leaves: a place that looks like the house of God, but from which God has essentially been banished.

The fig tree, which looks healthy but bears no fruit, is a perfect picture of the temple and the people of Israel who turned it from a house of prayer into a den of thieves. This miracle, the only miracle of "destruction" performed by Jesus, is a warning. Just as Jesus "judged" the fig tree, God will judge his people who have the appearance of piety but bear no fruit.

The fruit of true faith (vv. 22-25)

Jesus could have stopped there—the symbolism behind his action was already clear enough. But he continues and gives his disciples an explanation of everything they have seen. An explanation that may be a little difficult to grasp, but one that will become clearer as we move through the next chapters.

Peter is surprised that the fig tree has withered: Jesus' curse the day before has worked.

And what Jesus says in response is, at first glance, just as surprising. Mark 11:22-24 (S21):

22 And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 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. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Verses 23-24 are well known. They are often used to defend the so-called "word of faith ministries." The idea is simple: if you have enough faith, God will do what you want. At the beginning of his book Your Best Life Now, Joel Osteen recounts how, when he goes to the mall, he often prays that God will give him a parking space near the entrance. And, he says, because he prays with faith, a space opens up right in front of him!

"Jesus showed his power with the fig tree, then told us that if we have faith, we can do even more incredible things, even move mountains! So if we really believe, what we pray for will surely happen."

At first glance, that's what Jesus seems to be saying. But we must always read verses in their context: in their immediate context and in the context of the entire Bible.

Look closely at what Jesus says. He does not say—as is often quoted—“by faith, you can move mountains.” He says, “If anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and cast yourself into the sea’…”  He seems to be talking about a specific mountain, not just any mountain.

And in fact, if we remember the context, it makes sense. When Jesus said this to his disciples, they were on the road between Bethany and Jerusalem, which placed them on the Mount of Olives, outside Jerusalem, just to the east.

From that vantage point, there was one building in the city that would have been visible above all others.

You guessed it: it was the temple, which was built on the highest hill in the city—a bit like Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre. Even today, this hill in Jerusalem is called the Temple Mount.

So which mountain is Jesus talking about? It is either the Temple Mount or the Mount of Olives, where Jesus and his disciples are standing. And in both cases, what he says makes sense.

Why? Because Jesus had just cursed the fig tree.

We remember that the cursed fig tree was a living parable of the judgment that God would bring upon a people who did not bear fruit.

In the year 70, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army, and the temple was destroyed. Most theologians consider this event to be the beginning of what Jesus called "the last days." The temple disappeared—today, in its place stands the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

As for the Mount of Olives, in Zechariah 14, God speaks of the day of Christ's return, when Jerusalem will be judged. This prophecy says (perhaps figuratively) that on that day, the Mount of Olives will split in two, and the faithful who are in Jerusalem will escape through the valley created by this fissure—like an emergency exit opened by God Himself to allow them to flee judgment.

In both cases, the message is clear: Jesus tells his disciples that God's plan will be fulfilled. Soon, all of this—all of these manifestations of pride and hypocrisy on the part of a people in rebellion against God—will be judged.

But you, my disciples, will be spared, because you will be different. You will not be like the fig tree that looks healthy but bears no fruit. 

Do you see what Jesus is doing? In the context of this entire discussion, Jesus distinguishes true faith from hypocritical faith. He contrasts Jerusalem—a city that resembles a people who worship God but bear no fruit—with those who will truly be his disciples, those who will bear fruit.

And he gives them two concrete ways to recognize this fruit—and thus, Jesus summarizes the entire spiritual life of a true disciple, represented by an inner aspect and an outer aspect of the life of a faithful disciple.

The internal act is prayer: he tells them to pray with faith.

Those who bear fruit for God have an intimacy with God that compels them to pray, and to pray in a certain way.

There are two traps we can fall into when we pray. The first is the "word of faith" mentality we talked about earlier: believing that God will do whatever I say just because I have faith. I don't think Jesus encourages us in this way, and I think the rest of the Bible makes that pretty clear. (See Paul’s prayer to God in 2 Corinthians 12 if you doubt me. If we take this verse out of its context and read it in its most literal sense possible, the only conclusion we can make is that Jesus is lying when he tells us we will receive whatever we pray for. When we keep it in its context, Jesus’s words are still difficult to understand, but we can at least see that he’s aiming for something deeper than God-as-divine-vending-machine prayers.)

But there is also a second trap we can fall into, and that is praying because God tells us to pray…but without much hope that it will change anything, because in any case, God will do what He wants.

We must be careful how we apply these words of Jesus—they can easily be twisted and cause a lot of damage. But what is undeniable—and impossible to miss when reading this text—is that in these verses Jesus encourages his disciples to pray with confidence, to expect that God will truly answer their prayers.

I bake really good cookies. When my kids ask me for one, I want to say yes, because they really are very good. But what do I do if they ask me for a cookie for breakfast? Then I say no. Not because the cookie isn't good, but because it's not good for them at that particular moment. When I say no, they'll be disappointed... but not disillusioned: they know I love them and that I have a good reason for saying no. My relationship with them isn't affected.

Those who truly know God, who have a real relationship with Him, know that God hears their prayers and answers them—even if sometimes the answer is no. As John Piper said, "God always gives His children exactly what they ask for in prayer...or something even better. " He doesn't always give us what we want, but He always gives us what is good for us.

And so we pray with confidence in the goodness, wisdom, and power of our God. We expect him to answer our prayers. In fact, the most fundamental prayer we can offer is that God will fulfill his plan: that he will judge sin, return to raise up his people, and take them to eternal life with him—exactly what Zechariah 14 announced, and what Jesus refers to here.

So how do we pray as disciples of Christ? We pray with confidence and hope, wherever we are, because we know our Father. Our intimacy with him gives us confidence in him.

That is the internal aspect. But there is also an external aspect to true faith, which Jesus summarizes in verse 25.

25 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.

I want to be sensitive here, because I don't know what you're all going through. Forgiving is never easy, and the degree of difficulty increases with the severity of the hurt. It's hard, and recovering from such a hurt often takes time to heal. We don't necessarily feel full of grace.

That is not what Jesus is talking about; he is not talking about a feeling.

He is talking about a deliberate refusal to forgive others.

It's hard to hear, and I don't want to be too harsh, but it must be said: anyone who prays to God while refusing to forgive those who have wronged them is committing a deeply hypocritical act. (Again, I'm not talking about the emotion of it, but the decision not to forgive.)

When we come to God in prayer, we know that the only reason we can approach him without being judged on the spot is because Christ was punished in our place for our sins on the cross. We have access to this intimacy with God because our sins have been forgiven.

So how can we, who have been forgiven, refuse to forgive others? How can we claim that our faith is real if our response to the sins of others is deliberately opposed to God's response to our sin?

You see, here Jesus gives only two examples of what the “fruit” of our salvation looks like. If our faith is real, there will be an inner change—in our spiritual life and our intimacy with God—and there will be an outward change—in the way we behave and treat the people around us.

There are attitudes and actions that simply make no sense to someone who has understood and accepted the gospel of Christ.

Those who bear fruit for God are not those who perform the right rituals or who are content to "obey" on the surface. Those who stop at superficial obedience will be judged as the hypocrites that Jesus denounces in this passage.

In contrast, those who have true faith are transformed. We are different. We are "new creatures," as the apostle Paul said. And this change is visible.

Conclusion

I mentioned my diagnosis at the beginning. Others have had similar experiences, where a diagnosis like this is truly life-changing. It changes the way we look at our whole life. It helps us see things as they really are. And it helps us know how to move forward. This text should have the same effect on each of us.

Some of you think that everything is going well in your Christian life, when in fact it is not. "Look at everything I do, all the Christian activities that fill my schedule." Yes, you are doing all the "right" things, but if we pay attention to the "fruit" that, according to the Bible, true faith bears in us, we see that these "right things" are not the things that God really wants to produce in you. You are playing a role, but you do not know God—or you know Him as you know that distant uncle you see once in a while. You don't trust Him. You don't depend on Him. You live your life as if God were involved, but in reality, you keep Him at a distance, because you know very well what He will expect of you if you really give Him access to the deepest corners of your life.

Others among you feel that you have a hard time living for Christ. You struggle, and so you tell yourself that you are doing something wrong. But you pray. You implore God to help you, and you depend on him, trusting him as best you can to bring you where you need to be. And the people around you—even if you have a hard time seeing it—are edified by your presence in their lives. You are bearing fruit, even if you don't feel like it. This text helps us to know what is true about ourselves, and thus to grow.

In any case, this text invites us to examine ourselves seriously. What kind of Christians are we becoming? Are we like fig trees covered with leaves but without fruit? Do we only give the appearance of being disciples of Christ, without the inner and outer transformations that He works in us?

On our own, we are incapable of bearing fruit. But thanks to what Christ has done in us, we can now do so, with his help. It is not an easy change—this transformation is as difficult as telling that mountain to move and throw itself into the sea.

But Jesus tells us to have faith in God: to trust that all the power he possesses is at our disposal so that we may be transformed—so that we may not be content with superficial obedience, but bear true fruit. He will do it: the King who was welcomed in Jerusalem with cries of “Hosanna” is the same one who lives in us today.

So let us examine ourselves. Let us ask God to show us the areas of our lives where we are content with a mere appearance of faith. Let us ask him to convict us by his Spirit, so that we may return to him and submit every area of our lives to him, even if it requires radical change.

And let us trust that if we come to him in faith and ask him to bring true faith to life in us, he will do so.