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09/06/2009 - Who Do You Think You Are?, Mark 11:27-33

In his excellent commentary on Mark's gospel, author N. T. Wright tells the story about a typical Friday afternoon traffic jam in a busy downtown intersection. It's a hot day and everybody's tired and wants to get out of the city and on their way home or to the beach or to a ball game. But traffic is gridlocked and nobody can move and the police are content to just stand by and let it run its course. But in the meantime, horns are honking and people are swearing and everybody is angry and frustrated. I'm sure you can relate because we've all been there.

But then, all at once, out of the shadows, steps a young man. He walks right out into the middle of the intersection, dressed in street clothes, and begins directing traffic. At first, everybody is shocked and wonders what in the world is going on, but then the drivers start to listen to him and follow his directions and before long traffic is moving again. The gridlock's over, people are happy, and they're thanking the guy as they drive on their way.

And just when the young man's about to melt back into the crowd and go his way the police confront him. They're embarrassed. They've been upstaged. This guy did what they weren't able to do. He got the traffic moving. And they want to know who is he? And why he did that? And who gave him the right to stand out in the middle of a busy intersection and take over like that? They're not happy about what just happened and so they take him in for questioning.

In our passage today Jesus gets taken in for questioning and some people want to know who he thinks he is and what gives him the right to do the things he's doing. If you have a Bible turn with me to Mark 11:27.

Last week, in the text that Scott taught Jesus was the young man who stepped out of the shadows of the Jewish Temple and took control of a chaotic situation. He did what no one else was willing or able to do and committed the final act that would get him killed on a cross by the end of the week.

Jesus cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. He turned over the tables of the money changers and drove out those who were ripping off the people by selling defective sacrifices at exorbitant prices. He condemned a religious establishment was taking advantage of it's worshipers, especially the poor, by picking their pockets twice, first to exchange their local currency into temple currency and then to purchase an animal to sacrifice.

Jesus was angry that God's Temple which was supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations, not just for Israel, had become an oppressive place of corruption and injustice, a place where Gentiles and widows and orphans were excluded and devalued and taken advantage of.

Many scholars believe that this was the second time that Jesus had done this. In John 2, we read that Jesus cleansed the Temple at the beginning of his public ministry. At that time he made a whip out of rope, drove out the sheep and cattle that were being sold there, and created a stampede. He was ticked off!

In John 2:16-17 we read, To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father's house into a market!"¹⁷His disciples remembered that it is written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." That's a prophetic quote from Psalm 69:9.

So this wasn't the first time that Jesus took issue with Temple. He was passionate that the worship of God should be open to all people, but instead it had degenerated into a business that took advantage of the poor and froze out all those who weren't part of Israel. And nothing had changed in the last three years.

This is a picture of what the Temple looked like in Jesus' day and you can see this outer courtyard which was the Court of the Gentiles. If you were not an Israelite you couldn't go any closer to the main Temple building then this courtyard. But that was never God's intent.

In the original Temple that Solomon built there was no separation between Jew and Gentile when it came to proximity to the altar and to the priests. Everyone was to be on equal footing. But in Herod's Temple there was. Gentiles were kept at a distance and were not being invited to get closer to God. Instead, they were forced to worship in the area where all the buying and selling took place. It was a giant bazaar out there. As Scott mentioned in his teaching, it was like trying to worship God in a flea market that had gone totally corrupt and out of control.

And so when Jesus looks at this mess he takes over. This time it doesn't say he makes a whip, but he does start chasing people out and cleaning it up quoting the great prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah when he says, "Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'"

And after he said that we read in Mark 11:18, The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.

What Jesus saw in the Temple that day broke his heart and then it made him angry which shouldn't surprise us because all through Mark's gospel we've seen how God's heart goes out to the poor and the oppressed, the widow and the orphan, the stranger and the alien. God is for the underdog and he wants us to be too. That's a big part of how we as God's people today can be a blessing to this world. It's God heart of compassion that drives all the ways that we try to show compassion individually and collectively as a church community.

God always intended his people to be a welcoming people and to have their arms open wide to anyone and everyone who would seek him. God is a welcoming God and he wants our arms to be open wide as well. After all, he's welcomed you and he's welcomed me. He wants Valley View to be a compassionate community that cares for the poor and that's open and receptive to all kinds of people.

Now all this took place on Monday of what we call Passion Week or Holy Week, the most important week of Jesus' life. Sunday was the triumphal entry or what we call Palm Sunday. Monday was the cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the Temple. And Tuesday was the day of questions. On Tuesday Jesus is asked his opinion on whether we should pay taxes or not, on whether we'll be married in the resurrection or not, and on what's the greatest commandment.

But before we get to all those interactions Jesus' authority comes into question. Just like the young man who stepped out of the crowd and broke up the gridlock, the leaders who were supposed to keep things under control want to know, "Who is this guy and where does he get off doing this?"

Look at Mark 11:27-28, They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. ²⁸"By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you authority to do this?"

At this point Jesus was taking his life in his hands every time he stepped out in public. He is a marked man. But as I mentioned a few weeks ago he's still in total control of the whole situation and knows that his time is not up yet. So he confidently leaves Bethany where he's staying with Lazarus' and his disciples, walks up to Jerusalem, and climbs the steep steps to the temple courts.

Now the Temple was huge. It took up 35 acres or 1/6^th of the entire city of Jerusalem dwarfing everything else. This Western Wall or Wailing Wall is all that's left of the Temple today. But in Jesus' day, the Temple and the sacrificial system were at the heart of Judaism. We have to understand that.

The Temple was central to the people's relationship with God. It was at the Temple that sacrifices were made and forgiveness was granted. Right through those doors was the altar where the priests made the sacrifices. You couldn't be rightly related to God without going to the Temple. The people who didn't live in Jerusalem attended synagogues in their towns or villages on the Sabbath Day, but no sacrifices were offered there. There were no priests and altars in the synagogues, just rabbis who read and taught the Scriptures. The Temple was where you had to go to get right with God.

And when rabbis visited the Temple they often taught and met with their disciples in one of two porches. There was a porch to the east of the main Temple building and a porch to the south. The one to the east was called Solomon's Porch and was supported by beautiful Corinthian columns that were three stories high. You can't see Solomon's Porch in this picture, but it's on the left of the screen.

The porch to the south that you see here on the top of the slide was called the Royal Porch. It was a magnificent area supported by four rows of white marble columns. There were 162 of them and they were all six feet in diameter and thirty feet high.

Most of the great ancient cities had colonnaded areas like this that provided shelter from the elements and were the primary place where religious and philosophical teaching was done. In fact, the Stoic philosophers got their name from the word "stoa" which means porch in Greek.

So this is where Jesus spends his Tuesday walking and teaching and answering questions in one or both of these two porches. And that's where the temple officials find him. And the religious leaders confront him. They want to know, "Who gave you the right to shut down the flea market yesterday? Who do you think you are?" What Jesus had done the day before was staggering. It was an embarrassment to those in charge and they wanted answers ... fast.

"By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you authority to do this?" They think they have Jesus on the horns of a dilemma. If he says, "I did it on my authority," they were ready to arrest him as a criminal before he did any more damage. If he says, "I'm acting on the authority of God," they were prepared to arrest him on the charge of blasphemy on the grounds that God would never give any one the authority to create such a disruption in the courts of his own house. But Jesus saw it coming and instead impales them on the horns of a dilemma.

Look at verse 29, Jesus replied, "I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

Jesus says, "I'll answer your question, but only if you answer my question first. And here it is."

Look at verse 30, John's baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin? Tell me!" ³¹They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Then why didn't you believe him?' ³²But if we say, 'Of human origin'...." (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.)

Jesus asks them a zinger. He says I'll answer your question if you can tell me if John the Baptist's work was human or divine. In other words, was John speaking for God when he was calling you to repent and prepare for the coming Messiah or was he just some crazy man living out in the desert with his own wild ideas?

Remember that's how Mark begins his whole gospel. In Mark 1:7-8 John the Baptist says, "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. ⁸I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

John pointed to the coming of Jesus. John baptized Jesus. Jesus was anointed with the power of the Holy Spirit when he came up out of the water and God's own voice thundered from heaven and said in Mark 1:11,"You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

Jesus was the promised King, the Son of David that Israel had prayed for and longed for and waited 1,000 years for. If the chief priests knew what was going on at John's baptism, their question would have answered itself. And what Jesus did at the Temple on Monday was just the outworking of the authority God gave him at his baptism. As the Messiah, Israel's coming King, he was the one in charge of the Temple.

But they couldn't say "John was speaking for God," because they hadn't responded to John's message. If John was speaking for God then why hadn't they repented and believed his words, recognizing that Jesus was the promised Messiah? Why hadn't they embraced John's message and followed Jesus?

On the other hand, if they said that John's work was only human they were afraid of the people's reaction. The crowds had believed that John was not only a prophet of God, but had also become a martyr for God. So they couldn't say that his work was human in origin unless they wanted to cause a riot and lose all their influence with the people. They were in a classic no win situation. So what do they say?

Look at verse 33, So they answered Jesus, "We don't know." Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."

The religious leaders didn't know who Jesus was or where he got his authority because they hadn't read the gospel of Mark. It hadn't been written yet. But we've read Mark's gospel and we know that his authority came from God the Father himself. God affirmed him at his baptism and then Peter announced in Mark 8:29, the turning point of the book, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

That's who this young man was who came out of the shadows and cleansed the Temple. And he had every right to do so. And in the story that N. T. Wright tells the young man who came out of shadows to direct traffic in that gridlocked intersection was none other than the newly appointed chief of police that the officers on duty hadn't met yet. He may have not looked like a cop or dressed like a cop, but he had every right to do so as well.

As Christ followers we've been given the authority by Jesus to speak and act in his name. Where are the traffic jams in our world that are waiting for people to quietly step forward and take charge? What are the Temples that need to be challenged and warned? Where are the people who will know how to give wise answers to the question, "Who do you think you are?"

This morning we come to the Lord's Table. And we're reminded of another thing that John the Baptist said about Jesus. He called Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. There is no Temple in Jerusalem anymore. It was destroyed in A.D. 70 and was never rebuilt. In fact, today there's a Muslim mosque standing on the site where the Temple once stood.

But we don't need to go to a Temple anymore to have a relationship with God. We have a relationship with God through faith in his God's Son Jesus Christ. In fact, Paul says our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are the house of God.

And we don't need to go to a Temple anymore to make a sacrifice for our sins. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice when he went to the cross and died for our sins. He was the final sacrifice. He was the sacrifice that all the sacrifices of the Temple pointed towards. He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And if you've put your faith in Jesus and believed his claim to be the Messiah, the Son of the Living God then you are welcome to remember his death at this table.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Valley View Community Church, feel free to contact us at info@valleyviewseek.org or call 610.631.2707.