Mark 11:12-25
Mark 11:12-25 Sermon Notes
The events of our passage today illustrate this heart-focused, worship-focused mission of Jesus.
The text is arranged in what we call a Markan Sandwich: He begins a story, then inserts another story in the middle of it, then resumes the original story. The point of a Markan Sandwich is to highlight the central theme expressed by the ‘meat’ of the sandwich.
Mark records for us an event where Jesus curses a fig tree, and later the disciples walk by and discover that it is withered up. It’s an unusual miracle that has significant spiritual meaning.
But then, in the middle of it, Mark inserts the story of Jesus going into the temple to drive out the money changers.
What’s the connection between a withered fig tree and false worship in the temple?
And if there is a connection, how does it apply to us?
As it turns out, the fig tree and the temple were both suffering from the same issue: barrenness.
They both had the appearance of fruitfulness and productivity, and yet in reality they were unfruitful and unproductive.
When Jesus curses the tree and cleanses the temple, He sends a strong signal to us that He is about the restoration of true worship and true spiritual productivity, not just outward appearances.
As we read through these two interlocking stories, let’s search our own hearts and assess our own spiritual fruitfulness. As followers of Jesus, you and I are His temple… you and I are designed to be a living, breathing, center of worship (Romans 12 “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice… this is your spiritual worship”)… and as we watch Jesus deal with the false worship of His day, it reminds us what is important to Him as it relates to our own lives.
Mark 11:12–25 (ESV):
12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.
Yes, Jesus got hungry, because although He was fully God He was also fully man.
Hebrews tell us He was tempted in every way just like we are, yet was without sin.
So take comfort in the fact that we have a Savior who understands things like human hunger pangs, and He understands the pain in your life.
13 And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it.
This tree was about to become an object lesson.
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.
Now, on the surface, this seems a little aggressive.
Critical scholars have even used this incident to contend against the sinless nature of Jesus, claiming that Jesus was being vindictive towards an innocent tree.
They say this was an unnecessary outburst of anger.
What’s actually going on here? Was Jesus just so hangry that He lashed out at the fig tree and mis-used His divine power to curse it?
He’s using this tree as a metaphor for the spiritual issues He saw in Israel.
Back in those days, there were certain types of fig trees that would bear fruit out of season. And the only way to know whether they were that sort of tree was to look at the leaves. If it was covered with leaves, it should have fruit.
This tree was covered with leaves. It had the appearance of fruitfulness. But when He approached it, He noticed that there were zero figs. Zero actual fruit.
What is Jesus getting at?
He’s getting at the sin of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is claiming to be one way, but behaving another way.
The most immediate example of this in Jesus’ day would have been the religious elite. They were what Jesus called, “white washed tombs”. That is, they were clean and pure looking on the outside, but inwardly (at a heart level) they were full of death. They had evil intent. They had pride. They had idolatry.
The whole system of Judaism had been corrupted. It looked spiritually productive on the surface, but actually it was a not honoring to God.
15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple
36 acres in area
The Temple was arranged in concentric courtyards: the court of the Gentiles, the court of the (Jewish) women, the court of the (Jewish) men, the court of the priests.
The court of the Gentiles was on the outside perimeter, which was the size of several football fields.
This was where foreigners and pilgrims could come from all over and do the tourist thing, change money, and even buy animals for sacrifice.
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. 16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.
Jesus was a strong man.
Jesus is often portrayed as this almost effeminate character with low testosterone and beta-male tendencies.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Remember, this guy could hold the attention of crowds of thousands.
This guy could go head to head with the most intimidating guys of His day.
This guy could single-handedly disrupt a bustling international market… and to give you some sense of the scope of this operation, the historian Josephus records that shortly after the time of Christ they were selling over 250,000 lambs for Passover alone. And if you figure they had one lamb per family, that’s a LOT of people.
Jesus is a powerhouse.
And yet, part of what makes Jesus the ultimate example of manliness is his ability to practice perfect restraint.
Remember, He had already visited this temple many times, including just the day before. This was not an impulsive outburst. Jesus was not flying off His handle either at the fig tree OR at the temple. He was in total control as He made a very important statement about true worship.
In verse 17 it says…
17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
We see here two primary intentions for the Temple: ‘prayer’, and a place for ‘all the nations’.
Both of these functions were stated clearly (prophetically) in:
Isaiah 56:7 (ESV): 7 these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
God’s temple was intended for prayer. It was intended to be a sacred place where people could gather to commune with the Lord and worship Him.
God’s temple was also intended to be for ‘all the nations’. God’s heart has always been for the nations.
Even back in His original covenant with Abraham, God said the plan was that through Abraham’s offspring (and more specifically through the Messiah), all the nations would be blessed.
The primary function of Israel as God’s people was to produce the Messiah who would bring salvation to all peoples of the earth, and make worshipers out of the nations.
Ironically, when Messiah shows up on the scene, to the center of worship, He finds that Israel has become a place where the nations are taken advantage of, and swindled out of their money, and held at a distance from God.
So Jesus, filled with righteous indignation, makes a statement to reinstate the heart of true worship.
Again, we have to appreciate how surprising this would have been, even for Jesus’ closest followers.
Who were they expecting Him to drive out of Israel? The Romans. The civic authorities who had taken advantage of Israel on a political level.
Who does He actually drive out? The Jewish merchants in the temple who had taken advantage of Gentiles on a spiritual level.
Almost everything Jesus did in this final week is in fulfillment of prophecy, and this event is no exception.
Zechariah 14:21 (ESV): 21 And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day.
In John 2, John applies Psalm 69 to Jesus where it says, “zeal for [God’s] house consumes me”.
18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.
So Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple becomes the catalyst for His imminent death.
What happens next will further emphasize the impending judgment on the current religious system.
19 And when evening came they went out of the city. 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.”
Based on the context, what do you think this symbolizes?
The skewed, perverted religious system led by the elite––the system that had hypocrisy at its very core–– was going to wither away.
This very temple (Herod’s temple) would be completely destroyed in 70AD, not one stone would be left on top of another, just like Jesus elsewhere predicted.
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.
Remember, in the context we’re talking about bearing true fruit… So here, Jesus is talking about how we are to remove any hindrance to true fruitfulness in our lives. It’s only by faith in God.
Moving mountains was a metaphor in Jewish culture of doing the impossible.
So the message is clear: if we want to rid our lives of all hypocrisy and all unfruitfulness, the only way to remove that proverbial mountain is by calling upon the Lord. We can’t do it ourselves.
How do we call upon the Lord? What does that look like concretely? Prayer.
24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Be careful not to detach this verse from the context. We’re not talking about believing in ourselves, or manifesting, or the power of positive thinking… that’s new age, not Christianity. We’re talking here about believing what God has already promised to do if we will call out to Him.
God says, “draw near to me, and I will draw near to you”.
God says he “rewards those who earnestly seek Him”.
God says if we ask anything “according to his will, He hears us”.
We should have the same perspective that Jesus modeled for us: “all things are possible for you, God… nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done” (Mark 14:36).
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.”
So here we have two conditions, two heart postures, for successful prayer: a posture of faith, knowing that God can do anything. And a posture of forgiveness, proving that we have truly embraced the grace of God in our own lives.
Let’s summarize.
Jesus assesses the temple, and is not pleased with what He finds. The religious leaders have twisted God’s intention for worship, and they have created obstacles for the nations to come to God. So Jesus turns a fig tree into an object lesson of God’s displeasure. Then He goes into the Temple and makes a statement by bringing the commerce to a halt. Then He resumes with the fig tree and foreshadows the destruction of Jerusalem and the need for people to have true faith.
In order to apply all of this in a meaningful way, we need to zoom out and ask an important question:
If the temple is no more, what is the new temple-equivalent? Where does God’s presence dwell?
There are really 3 correct answers to this question.
Jesus is the Temple.
Jesus is called Immanuel (God with US) Matthew 1:21-23
Colossians 2:9 says in Christ all the fullness of God dwells in human form”.
Jesus is called the complete image of the invisible God (Colossians 3:15).
Jesus said, “if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father” (John 14:9).
In fact, once Jesus even referred to His own body as the temple (“destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days”, He said of His crucifixion and resurrection in John 2:21).
So it is completely true to think of Jesus as the true temple.
And yet, that’s not the whole story.
Because according to scripture, we as the Church are also the temple of the Lord.
In Ephesians 2 it says as the church we are being built together to become “a dwelling place in which god lives by His Spirit”
1 Corinthians 3:16–17 (ESV): 16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
That word “you” is plural. In other words, the collective church of Jesus, comprised of all true believers, is now the equivalent of the Jewish temple.
Just to be clear: Not the physical church building where the people meet… the people who comprise the church.
It’s also true that you and I as individual followers of Jesus are the temple.
If you are a true believer, you have received His Spirit and your body has now become the temple of God Almighty.
1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (ESV): 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
So, WE are the temple… which means:
WE are to be sanctified.
WE are to be a people of prayer.
WE are to be cognisant of the fact that Holy God dwells in us.
WE are to be non-hypocritical (unlike the fig tree).
We are to bear true fruit for the gospel.
If we claim to have the Holy Spirit within us, the product of our lives should be the fruit of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.
AND, just like the original intent for the temple, God wants to use us to draw the nations to Himself.
Matthew 28 (“Go therefore and make disciple of all nations”)
2 Corinthians 5 (“We are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us”).
Herod’s Temple 3D walkthrough!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfjLSaGbrNs