Serendipity Blog: fig tree

April 15, 2014 by Justin Taylor and Andreas Köstenberger Topics: The Life of Christ

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-escalating-conflict-tuesday-of-holy-week

It is now Tuesday morning, March 31, A.D. 33. The disciples point to the withered fig tree that Jesus had cursed the day before. Jesus gives his disciples a simple lesson from it: have faith in God. In particular, he says, if they have undoubting faith they can throw even the mountains into the sea.

Now if the disciples had ears to hear they would recognize that Jesus is talking about more than seemingly magical powers that can curse trees and crumble mountains. He is talking about realities bigger than this.

Note that he closes this mini-lesson on mountain-moving, undoubting faith by saying, “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” (Mark 11:25). Jesus is reminding them that failing to forgive looms as a bigger obstacle to answered prayer than a mountain. The disciples will soon face great challenges to their faith and their ability to forgive. Will they remember this withered tree on the road from Bethany?

As they approach the Holy City, the events from the day before could not have been far from their minds. As Jesus enters the Temple Mount, crowds gather to hear him teach (Luke 21:38), and the chief priests, scribes, and elders waste no time in making their move. They will try to lay four traps to ensnare their adversary.

Trap One: Whose Authority?

By whose authority, they demand to know, had Jesus carried out his actions the day before (Mark 11:28)? Jesus doesn’t take the bait. Instead, he turns the tables on them with a question of his own: “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” (Mark 11:30). If they respond “from heaven,” the next question is obvious: Then why don’t you believe the one about whom John testifies? If they retort “from man,” they risk alienating the crowds that hold John in high esteem as a prophet.

Jesus then offers three parabolic stories (about two sons, murderous tenants, and guests at a wedding feast), all driving home the point that they are rejecting grace and truth in the service of hypocritical self-righteousness.

Trap Two: Whose Allegiance?

The leaders try a new tactic. They send Pharisees (a Jewish sect known for its zeal for the law) and Herodians (those loyal to Herod’s dynasty) to ask him a question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” (Matthew 22:15–22; Mark 12:13–17; Luke 20:20–26). If he answers “yes,” he shatters people’s expectations of him as a Messiah who will overthrow Roman rule. If he says “no,” he can be arrested for fomenting revolt.

But Jesus deftly evades the either-or dilemma: the denarius has Caesar’s image on it; as long as Caesar is in power, it is appropriate to pay taxes to him. And we are also to give God the things that are God’s; since we are made in God’s image, we owe everything — all that we have and all that we are — to him. Pay your taxes and worship God.

Trap Three: Whose Wife in the Resurrection?

After Jesus has silenced the Pharisees and Herodians, the Sadducees (a Jewish sect denying the end-time resurrection of the dead) try to ridicule Jesus’s belief in resurrection by asking a trick question about marriage in heaven (Matthew 22:23–33; Mark 12:18–27; Luke 20:27–40). Jesus tells them they do not understand the Scriptures (there is no marriage in heaven) or the power of God (God’s self-affirmation in Exodus 3:6, 15–16 shows that he is a God of the living, not the dead). Like the others, their smirk turns to marvel as they grow silent.

Trap Four: Which Commandment?

Now the Pharisees send forth an expert in the law to question Jesus: Which of God’s commands is the greatest (Matthew 22:34–40; Mark 12:28–34)? Jesus summarizes his answer in a word: love (to God and for neighbor: Deuteronomy 6:4–5; Leviticus 19:18). But Jesus discerns something different from this questioner, so he commends and implicitly invites him: “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34).

Now it’s Jesus’s turn to initiate some questions with those who are trying to trap him. When he asks them a question about Psalm 110:1 and how the Messiah can be David’s Lord, “no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions” (Matthew 22:46). Jesus then launches a lengthy, scathing critique of the scribes and Pharisees, pronouncing seven woes of judgment upon these “hypocrites” and “blind guides” (Matthew 23:1–39; Mark 12:38–40; Luke 20:45–47).

This full-scale verbal assault removes all doubt concerning Jesus’s intentions, agenda, and aims. He has no desire to ally himself with the current leadership. He has come to overthrow their authority. There’s no way both sides can survive the escalating conflict. Either Jesus will assume power, or he must die.

Grace and Truth in Every Trap

With another tension-filled day behind them, Jesus and the disciples begin to head back to Bethany. They stop on the Mount of Olives to rest, giving them a wonderful view of Jerusalem as the sun begins to set behind it in the west. The disciples marvel at the size and the grandeur of these impressive buildings, but Jesus tells them that a day is soon coming when not a single stone will be left upon another. He goes on to explain that his followers will experience increasing persecution and tribulation, leading up to the final Day of Judgment. But their task is to remain vigilant and persist in faith.

Tuesday is now done. But Friday is coming. This is not the flannel-board Jesus some of us learned as children. This is the real, historical Jesus: fully in control as he responds with grace and truth to traps on all sides. He knows what he is doing. And he knows what is coming. Every word and every step is for the fame of his Father’s name and the salvation of those willing to pick up their cross and die with him.

This is the third post in Desiring God’s 2014 Holy Week series “The Final Days of Jesus,” inspired by the new book of the same title by Justin Taylor and Andreas Kostenberger. Holy Week illustrations provided in partnership with Crossway Books and Adam Greene. More on Holy Week:

Justin Taylor is Vice President of Editorial at Crossway Books and an elder at New Covenant Bible Church in St. Charles, Illinois. He blogs at Between Two Worlds and is co-author of the newly released The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived.

Andreas J. Köstenberger is Senior Research Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He is co-author of the newly released The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived.

No Turning Back (Monday of Holy Week)

April 14, 2014 by Justin Taylor and Andreas Köstenberger Topics: The Life of Christ

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/no-turning-back-monday-of-holy-week

The sun rises just before 6:30 A.M. in Bethany, the small village on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives, just a mile and a half east of Jerusalem. It is Monday morning, March 30, A.D. 33. Jesus of Nazareth is staying in the humble home of his friends Martha (whose anxiety-driven hospitality had received his gentle rebuke), Mary (who chose the good portion), and Lazarus (whose body would still be in the grave apart from the wonder-working of the Christ).

Just the day before — the first day of the last week of his life — Jesus had made his Triumphal Entry into the Holy City, riding on a donkey over a royal “red carpet” of palm branches and cloaks, hailed by his disciples and the Galilean pilgrims as the messianic king.

But Monday would be different than Sunday. Jesus knew the heart of man (John 2:24–25). He knew the acclaim of the disciples and the crowd was built on a messiah of their own imagination. Despite his many efforts at teaching them otherwise, they couldn’t shake their wrong expectations. They were excited about a national savior who would overthrow the despised Romans once and for all. They had no categories for the idea that victory would come through experiencing, rather than inflicting, wrath and degrading shame.

Judgment Begins at Home

As Jesus and the Twelve awoke the next day, gathering at their appointed meeting place in Bethany to make their short trek back to Jerusalem, Jesus’s agenda was the same as it remains today: to strip away misunderstandings of who he was and what he was going to accomplish so that our expectations could be confounded. This was not going to be a meek and mild Monday. Jesus was about to show them that judgment begins at home, with Israel.

As they walked together over the rocky terrain of the Mount of Olives, and as the hunger in Jesus’s stomach grew, he spotted a fig tree off in the distance. From external appearances, it looked healthy, the perfect place to grab some fruit and to meet his need. But on closer inspection, the tree was barren of fruit, with nothing on it but inedible leaves.

The disciples could not have expected what Jesus did next. He called down a curse on the fig tree, declaring that it would never bear fruit again (Matthew 21:18–19; Mark 11:12–14). Jesus would expound on this visual parable tomorrow. But if the disciples were viewing the tree through spiritual eyes, they would remember that in the Old Testament Israel was often referred to as a “fig tree” (Jeremiah 8:13; Hosea 9:10, 16; Joel 1:7). Judgment must begin at home.

Cleansing the Temple

They continued walking, the disciples undoubtedly unnerved by this unexpected behavior. But Jesus was just beginning.

When Jesus entered the Temple Mount later that day, he was surrounded by pious Jews who had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover. Not only would they have to pay the Temple tax (a Tyrian shekel), but they would also have to purchase an unblemished sacrificial animal in the Court of the Gentiles. As Jesus looked at the moneychangers and merchants, a holy zeal and righteous indignation welled up within him. They were turning his Father’s house of prayer for the nations (Isaiah 56:7) into a den of thieves to prey upon the poor Passover pilgrims and to pervert true worship (Jeremiah 7:11). Jesus began overturning the tables and chairs of the moneychangers, throwing out the merchants and their scurrying customers, refusing entrance to any who carry goods for sale.

Face Like Flint

From the perspective of the chief priests, scribes, and Jewish leaders, it was one thing for this teacher from the backwaters of Nazareth to share his stories and make his claims and do his miracles with his followers. But now he was inside the Holy City. He had entered the gates like he was the new David or the new Solomon. And now he has the audacity to declare that the Temple in essence belongs to him and his Father? Who is he to suggest that the Jewish system was enabling sin rather than worship? And how dare he argue that the Jewish authorities were ignorant of true godliness and piety?

From this point forward, there would be no turning back. Jesus is not shrinking back. In fact, he is accelerating the sentence of death.

Evening approaches. The sun will set around 7:00 P.M., beginning the new day according to the Jewish calendar. Jesus and his disciples make their return to Bethany. Tomorrow will be a new day to confound, to turn things upside down, as Jesus continues to fulfill the eternal plan that will take him to Calvary.

This is the second post in Desiring God’s 2014 Holy Week series “The Final Days of Jesus,” inspired by the new book of the same title by Justin Taylor and Andreas Kostenberger. Holy Week illustrations provided in partnership with Crossway Books and Adam Greene. More on Holy Week:

Friday, April 18, 2014

The Escalating Conflict (Tuesday of Holy Week)