Five Encounters on Tuesday of Passion Week
Listening to Conversations With Jesus in Mark 11:27–12:37
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When the Four Gospels reach the Passion Week of Christ in their storytelling, the pace of their narratives slows down. This decreasing pace is understandable, because Passion Week is where their narratives were heading all along.
On Sunday of Passion Week, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. On Monday he cursed a fig tree and turned over the tables and chairs in the Jerusalem temple. And on Tuesday there was a lot of temple activity. According to Mark 11:27–12:37 there were five encounters in the Jerusalem temple we should know about.
“By What Authority Are You Doing These Things?”
While Jesus was in the Jerusalem temple, chief priests and scribes and elders came to him with a question: “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” (Mark 11:28). Answering their authority question was important because it would signal to them something about Jesus’s self-understanding.
They didn’t like his answer. He answered their question with a question: “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me” (Mark 11:30). If John’s ministry (which Jesus referred to with the phrase “the baptism of John”) was endowed with heavenly significance and authority (“from heaven,” 11:31), then the religious leaders would have been wrong to ignore where that ministry pointed. If John’s ministry was simply man-originated and man-driven, then the religious leaders couldn’t claim such without provoking the people who believed John to be a prophet (11:32).
What a predicament! So the leaders said, “We do not know” (Mark 11:33). If the religious leaders admitted an inability to discern the truthfulness or fraudulence of John’s ministry, the admission struck at the core of their credibility. And then Jesus refused to answer their question: “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things” (11:33).
“Is It Lawful to Pay Taxes to Caesar, or Not?”
Mark’s Gospel records a second scene (Mark 12:13–17) where some Pharisees and Herodians approached Jesus with the question, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” (12:14).
The groups who brought this question would not normally be hanging out together. The Pharisees were anti-Rome, and the Herodians were sympathetic toward Rome. But they asked their question hoping to trap Jesus by forcing him to provoke one of the groups. If he said paying taxes was lawful, he’d upset the Pharisees and those who supported them. If he said paying taxes was unlawful, he’d upset the Herodians and those they represented.
Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). His answer threaded the needle of their question. He identified the hierarchy of authority. While people should recognize an earthly authority and what would be appropriate to it, they should also recognize the reality of divine authority and discern what belongs to God.
The answer did not alienate either group. In fact, they marveled at him (Mark 12:17). In the face of their trap, Jesus demonstrated superior wisdom.
“Whose Wife Will She Be?”
The third scene in Mark 12 (found in 12:18–27) was prompted by the Sadducees who had a question about the resurrection of the dead. Their question, however, didn’t come from genuine curiosity. Sadducees thought that bodily resurrection was absurd. Their plan was to lay out a scenario that made resurrection sound absurd, and, in doing so, embarrass Jesus for believing in it.
The Sadducees spoke of a woman whose husband died, and so she married the deceased’s brother. But then that brother died and so she married the next sibling—and eventually she had married all seven brothers (Mark 12:20–22). The Sadducees asked him, “In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife” (12:23).
The error of the Sadducees was that they truly didn’t understand the Scriptures, and they wrongly assumed that the future life would be like the present one (Mark 12:24–25). Jesus told them that people would not be married in heaven, so the question—“Whose wife will she be?”—was moot. The Sadducees thought they were so clever with the scenario they concocted, but they simply displayed their ignorance and misunderstanding. Besides, the very Scriptures they affirmed—the Torah—contained the hope of bodily resurrection (Mark 12:26–27).
“Which Commandment Is the Most Important of All?”
The fourth scene in the temple (Mark 12:28–34) involved a scribe who asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” (12:28). There were many laws in the Old Testament, so hearing Jesus’s answer would be illuminating as it showed how he understood and prioritized the divine commandments.
Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy 6:4–5 and Leviticus 19:18, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29–31).
The truthfulness of Jesus’s answer was obvious to the scribe. He told Jesus, “You are right, Teacher” (Mark 12:32). And Jesus responded, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (12:34).
“So How Is He His Son?”
The fifth scene in the temple is found in Mark 12:35–37. And it involves a question that Jesus asks the people. This is the reverse of what we’ve seen so far, because others have approached Jesus with the questions in the previous four encounters. But now he has a question for them.
Jesus’s question is about the connection between 2 Samuel 7:12–13 and Psalm 110:1. The scribes teach that the Christ is David’s son (Mark 12:35) because that descent is what 2 Samuel 7:12–13 affirms. David would have a son, a descendant, who would reign on the throne forever, and that promised king would be the Christ, the Messiah.
Then Jesus draws attention to the fact that when David wrote about the future Messiah, David didn’t refer to him as son. He referred to him as Lord (Mark 12:36, quoting Psalm 110:1). According to David’s psalm, God told the Messiah (the second “Lord” in the quotation), “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.” The royal tone is clear: the Christ would reign. But Jesus told the people, “David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” (Mark 12:37).
Jesus’s question pulls together two notions about the Christ—he is David’s son and David’s Lord. How can the Christ be both? How can the Messiah be a descendant of David (“son”) yet also greater than David (“Lord”)?
We don’t have a response from the people in the text. And Jesus himself doesn’t answer the question. But, Mark tells us, the throng of people heard him gladly (Mark 12:37),
Conclusion
The five temple encounters in Mark 11:27–12:37 occurred on Tuesday of Passion Week. And during these encounters, Jesus displayed his wisdom over against the skeptics and critics. Whether dealing with scribes or Pharisees or Herodians or Sadducees, Jesus handled their questions and avoided their traps. When all was said and done, he could answer their questions, but they couldn’t answer his.