The Gospel of Mark: Conqueror, Crucified

There are many different ways for a storyteller to let you know what’s important in his story. He can add symbolic details, he can arrange the events to point to a greater meaning, he can build suspense that leads to a certain point. As a storyteller of the ministry of Jesus, Mark does all of these, but in this last section of his gospel he chooses a different, but very effective method. He changes the pace of the story.
Jesus’ earthly ministry lasted about three years. But this third act, the final six chapters of Mark—over one third of his total gospel—covers just one week: the final week of Jesus’ earthly life. Without this section of Mark’s gospel—the section that tells us of the cross—without this section we will never understand Jesus or His ministry, we will never understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, and so Mark slows down the action to a snail’s pace. The detail is excruciating. The importance is immeasurable. This is it: the reason why Mark is bothering to tell the story at all.
It begins in chapter eleven—turn there now—as Jesus sends two of His disciples into town to get a colt on which He plans to ride into Jerusalem. Mark 11:2-3 “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.'”
Now either Jesus is using His divine omniscience or He has planned this out beforehand. Either one’s possible, but it doesn’t really make a difference which it is. The point is that Jesus is putting a series of events into place so that He can make a statement about who He is and what He has come to do. He is coming into Jerusalem, but on His own terms. His terms are that of a conquering hero.
But what happens next? Jesus enters Jerusalem, heralded by the pilgrim crowd as a conquering king, strides with purpose into the Temple annnnnnd . . . looks around like a tourist. He takes a peek at everything, but then heads back out to Bethany with the Twelve.
This seems odd, but remember that we’re on Jesus’ terms now. He’ll act when He is ready. It doesn’t matter what the crowds expect. It won’t be until the next day is when He is ready to make a profound statement.
The next day comes, and Mark relates a curious story about Jesus and a fig tree. Mark 11:12-14 reads, “12 The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. 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 it.”
At first blush, this sounds . . . well, rather spiteful. I understand Jesus is hungry, but Mark goes out of his way to say, “it was not the season for figs.” Jesus has got to understand this . . . and yet the God of all Creation curses a fig tree for being unfruitful. Is there more to the story?
Yes, of course there is! Remember one of Mark’s most interesting storytelling methods is the intercalation, the sandwiching of one story inside another. Normally it would be the story on the inside that would be the meat, but in this case the outside story, the “bread” of the sandwich if you will, the story about the fig tree that is going to tell us about the inside story. Hang on with me for just a minute.
After Jesus curses the fig tree for its unfruitfulness, He heads into the Temple. And He tears it apart. Going from one end of the temple area to the other, He throws over the tables where sacrificial animals were sold. He trashes the tables where the moneychangers had set up shop, scattering the coins over the Temple floor. He kicks over pews and tears up hymnals. He is after one thing and one thing only: kicking butt and taking names.
Now I want you to understand something. You’ve no doubt heard it said that the people selling doves and exchanging coins were greedy so-and-so’s that were only out to make a buck. That they saw only one thing the Temple was good for, and that was to turn a profit. I don’t think that’s entirely true. So let’s say—for the sake of argument—that these were honest businessmen. Does that mean Jesus is out of line? No, it does not . . . remember the lesson of the unfruitful fig tree tells us how to interpret the lesson of the Temple.
What was the Temple for? The temple defined Israel; the Temple defined what it meant to be one of God’s people. It was set up by God to be a place where sacrifice was offered so that His people could receive forgiveness of sin. It was the one place in all the world where God had promised to meet face to face with His people. But much more than that, everything that the Temple was, from it’s building materials to how it was set up architecturally, everything from the lampstands to the altar; every festival, every priest, every sacrifice pointed to something greater than itself. The Temple pointed to a greater promise that would be fulfilled by God, but it could not fulfill the promise in and of itself.
Compare that to the life of a fig tree. A fig tree would lie dormant for a portion of the year, but when spring came its leaves would sprout forth and spread out. Those leaves would then be the promise of fruit to come. And as Mark says, “it was not the season for figs.” The leaves bore promise . . . but they did not offer the fruit of that promise. Biblical scholar R.T. France says this, “A tree in full leaf at Passover season is making a promise it cannot fulfill; so, to, is Israel . . . Jesus on his initial visit to the temple has found all leaves, but no fruit.”
Even though it wasn’t the “season for figs” (even though the Temple was not supposed to be the ultimate place for forgiveness and to meet with God—that was to be Christ), Jesus curses the fig tree for it’s lack of fruit (Jesus is appalled at what the Temple has been allowed to become, and thus drives out the moneychangers). The temple was “unfruitful,” meaning the religious system of the Jews wasn’t generating what it was supposed to do.
In other words, the full green leaves of the fig tree point to something that it does not have . . . yet. The temple, by its very existence and the sacrifices that happen there point to something it can’t do . . . but Christ can. The full leaves promise figs, but it has none. The temple promises forgiveness of sins and friendship with God, but it cannot give that. The figs will come later, and then no one will care about the full leaves, they were only the promise of figs. Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, being hailed as the Messiah proclaims a bold new truth: True fellowship with God comes from Christ who has now come, and therefore no one need care about the Temple any longer.
So Jesus, not spitefully but deliberately, blasts the fig tree as an example of how He has come to nullify the earthly Temple’s existence. Jesus Christ is now the way, the truth, and the life. The old Temple system is no longer valid. The new way is, as Jesus will reveal, the way of the cross.
Now, this is only the first chapter in the final act of Mark, and it is nothing less than groundbreaking! Remember who Mark is writing to: Gentiles. Mark is making a deliberate point of telling them, “Through Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God is now open to you, too.” Jesus is making a radical statement. Is it any wonder, then, why the Jewish leaders try so hard to trap Him? Look at the following chapters: they question Jesus’ authority in 11:21, but Jesus stumps them. In 12:13 the Pharisees and Herodians try to trick Him into denying either God or government, but Jesus shuts them down again. The Sadducees ask a calculated question that tries to deny the reality of the coming resurrection, but Jesus flatly informs them that they don’t even know the Scriptures or they wouldn’t be asking the question at all
But let’s keep moving. Notice that in the coming chapters Jesus is moving away from the crowds. He is reducing the size of people He is talking to little by little, until the point finally arrives in chapter fourteen, verse twelve that He is alone at a table with His disciples.
Remember that all throughout Mark we’ve seen a repeated theme. Crowds often get taught in the mysterious code of parables, but the disciples receive Jesus’ teachings in plain, simple words. It is in these private, intimate moments that Jesus teaches His disciples what it means to say that He is the Christ. It is in these private, intimate moments that Jesus teaches His disciples what it means to follow Him. And it is in these private, intimate moments that Jesus connects “cross” and “Christ.”
Does it come as any surprise, then, that He would choose this setting to sit with His disciples, break bread, and say in 14:22, “This is my body”? Using plain, simple language Jesus tells His disciples, “This my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” No parables, no cryptic language, just straight talk on what His mission is and how we are to follow Him.
Do you understand? When Jesus gets alone with His disciples, He points them to the only place that they look to for a true relationship with God. Don’t look to the Temple, don’t look to a building—it can’t save you. Don’t look to government—it can’t save you. There is no sacrifice that you can offer, there is no gift you can give . . . just look to Jesus. Receive Him. Take His body . . . drink His blood. Repent and believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of David, the Messiah, the Savior. In this, His final meal, Jesus again connects “Christ” and “cross” . . . and bids us to be joined with Him by receiving His broken body and drinking His blood that was spilt for us. This is a profound moment. This is a cross moment.

For the past few weeks I’ve been talking about how Jesus makes every effort to make people understand that “cross” and “Christ” are inseparably connected. I think that, for Mark, the cross is the central message of Jesus. It is the rallying point around which he would have us gather. And as we prepare to close his Gospel he leaves us with two final examples of just how important the cross is.
Here’s where it gets a bit tricky. The Gospel of Mark traditionally closes with twenty verses of chapter sixteen. But you may notice in your Bible—as I have in mine—a strange note. The note in my Bible says, “The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.” In other words, the best evidence that we have to look at indicates that Mark did not write the resurrection account that we have in the final verses of Mark.
This is not to say your Bible has errors, this is not to say we can’t trust our Bibles fully—we can! But understand how we got our Bible. Mark wrote his gospel, and somebody thought it was so good that they copied it and gave it to a friend. That friend thought it was so good that they copied it . . . and so on and so forth until we have hundreds, possibly thousands of copies of Mark being passed around. Since the oldest copies that we have of Mark—those copies that are closest to Mark’s original writing—do not have verses nine through twenty, we must assume that some well-intentioned copyist decided to tack on bits and pieces of the resurrection that were written in Matthew, Luke, and John. But no . . . Mark himself did not write those verses.
Without verses nine through twenty, however, Mark’s gospel ends not with a glorious and triumphant bang, but with a subdued thoughtfulness. In 16:6 a “young man”—probably an angel—proclaims to the women at the tomb that Jesus has indeed risen from the dead. They are to go back to where it all began, they are to go and tell the disciples and return to Galilee, where they will see the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. But instead, verse eight—the end of Mark’s writing—reads, Mark 16:8 8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”
Why does Mark end his writing this way? Why not tell of the awe-inspiring events of the resurrection, as John does, for instance? I think it is because Mark wants to leave us meditating on the cross.
Remember that Mark is writing to Gentile believers. They no doubt already know of the resurrection. Mark doesn’t neglect the resurrection; he is careful to mention that it is true! That it did happen! But he doesn’t dwell on it because he chooses to leave us pondering on the cross. The weight of it. The enormity of it. The price of it. Mark wants to be sure that “cross” and “Christ” stay firmly connected in our minds and in our hearts, to know that to understand the cross is to understand Jesus Christ.
All throughout the Gospel people have misunderstood who Jesus was and what He came to do. They named Him as one of the prophets, they considered Him a teacher. Even if, as Peter did, they call Him “Christ” they do not fully understand what that means.
But now look back to the cross in chapter fifteen verse thirty-nine. Jesus has been tried. He has been executed. He has called out to God and with a loud cry breathed His last. His beaten, broken, bleeding body hangs limp from the cross . . . and at this sight a Roman centurion—a Gentile—believes with his heart and confesses with His lips, “Surely, this man was the Son of God!” At the cross, and only at the cross, does everything about Jesus finally become clear. Only at the cross do we finally understand what it means to say Jesus is the Christ.