Mark 11 — The King Has Come to His House

Today’s Passage: Mark 11

Jesus comes down from the Mount of Olives toward Jerusalem, sends two disciples ahead for a colt, and rides into the city while the crowds spread their cloaks and shout Hosanna. He goes straight to the temple, looks around at everything, and then, because the hour is late, quietly leaves. The next morning He passes a fig tree covered in leaves but bearing no fruit, and He speaks a word against it. In the temple courts He drives out the sellers and overturns the tables, quoting Isaiah and Jeremiah as He goes. By the following day the tree has withered from its very roots. When the leaders come demanding to know by what authority He does these things, He answers their question with a question they will not face, about John. The entering, the inspecting, and the judging are all one movement. The King has come to His house, and He looks for fruit.

As you read, hold this: The King has come to His house, and He looks for fruit.

Mark 11:1–11 (BSB)

¹ As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent out two of His disciples ² and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as soon as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. ³ If anyone asks, ‘Why are you doing this?’ tell him, ‘The Lord needs it and will return it shortly.’” ⁴ So they went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. They untied it, ⁵ and some who were standing there asked, “Why are you untying the colt?” ⁶ The disciples answered as Jesus had instructed them, and the people gave them permission. ⁷ Then they led the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, and He sat on it. ⁸ Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut from the fields. ⁹ The ones who went ahead and those who followed were shouting: “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!” ¹¹ Then Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, He went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

“The Lord needs it,” the disciples are to say, and there is a sovereign quietness in the words, as though the whole city and everything in it were already His to ask for. The colt has never been ridden, which is fitting, for an animal set apart to sacred use should carry no other burden first. The people throw down their cloaks and cut branches to make a carpet under Him, and the air fills with the Hōsanna (ὡσαννά) hōsanna, pronounced ho-san-NAH. Strong's G5614, save now, a plea for salvation turned shout of praise. It comes over from the Hebrew of Psalm 118:25 and means “save, we pray.” It began as a plea and became a shout of praise, a cry of “save now!” lifted into worship. The crowds are right, more than they know, to bind Jesus up with the hope of David, and yet they do not yet see that this King will save them by a cross and not by a coup. The word is exactly right, but it is aimed as yet at a picture that is only half drawn. of Psalm 118. Yet Mark closes the day on a quiet note. Jesus enters, looks around at everything, and goes back out. The King surveys before He acts, and all the celebration in the world does not stand in the place of His inspection. He has come to His house.

Mark 11:12–19 (BSB)

¹² The next day, when they had left Bethany, Jesus was hungry. ¹³ Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if there was any fruit on it. But when He reached it, He found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. ¹⁴ Then He said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And His disciples heard Him say this. ¹⁵ When they arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began to drive out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves, ¹⁶ and He would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. ¹⁷ Then He began to teach them and declare, “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.’” ¹⁸ When the chief priests and scribes heard this, they looked for a way to kill Him. For they feared Him, because the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching. ¹⁹ And when evening came, Jesus and His disciples went out of the city.

There is hunger, and there are leaves, and there is no fruit, and the disciples hear the word He speaks over the tree. Mark is careful to tell us that it was not the season for figs, so that we will not read this as a matter of horticultural fairness. The point is prophetic. A tree that advertises fruit by its full green leaves and then offers nothing has become a sign, and the sign points straight at the house Jesus enters next. There He drives out the traders, overturns the tables, and will not even allow the courts to be used as a shortcut for carrying goods, and then He begins to teach. Isaiah and Jeremiah are the two prophets who interpret what He has done, setting a house of prayer for all the nations over against a den of robbers. The leaders’ answer to all this is not repentance but a plot to kill Him, for holy zeal is a threat to every system that has learned to profit from an unholy normal. Evening comes again, and again He leaves the city. The King has looked for fruit and found only leaves.

Mark 11:20–25 (BSB)

²⁰ As they were walking back in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from its roots. ²¹ Peter remembered it and said, “Look, Rabbi! The fig tree You cursed has withered.” ²² “Have faith in God,” Jesus said to them. ²³ “Truly I tell you that if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and has no doubt in his heart but believes that it will happen, it will be done for him. ²⁴ Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ²⁵ And when you stand to pray, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your trespasses as well.”

Now the two halves of the story close together. The tree is withered from the roots, dead at its very source, and Peter’s startled exclamation becomes the occasion for a lesson in the kind of faith in God that prays with confidence. When Jesus speaks of moving “this mountain,” He may well be glancing at the temple mount rising in front of them, a reminder that the purposes of God outweigh even the most solid and permanent-seeming religious structure. And notice how quickly the boldness of prayer is yoked to forgiveness, for a praying house that will not forgive has misunderstood the very God it is addressing. Fruit, it turns out, is never merely foliage. The fruit the King looks for is faith, and prayer, and a grudge finally let go.

Mark 11:27–33 (BSB)

²⁷ After their return to Jerusalem, Jesus was walking in the temple courts, and the chief priests, scribes, and elders came up to Him. ²⁸ “By what authority are You doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave You the authority to do them?” ²⁹ “I will ask you one question,” Jesus replied, “and if you answer Me, I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ³⁰ John’s baptism—was it from heaven or from men? Answer Me!” ³¹ They deliberated among themselves what they should answer: “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will ask, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ ³² But if we say, ‘From men’…” they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John truly was a prophet. ³³ So they answered, “We do not know.” And Jesus replied, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

The whole span of the leadership comes out to meet Him now, chief priests and scribes and elders together, and they demand to know the source of His authority. His answer ties His own claim to John’s, for a forerunner sent from heaven can only mean a Messiah sent from heaven as well. Their private huddle is pure calculation, a matter of managing the crowd rather than seeking the truth, and their “We do not know” is really a refusal dressed up as honest uncertainty. He will not explain Himself to men who will not deal honestly with the light they have already been given. The King has come to His house, and they will not receive Him, and from here the conflict is locked in.