Mark chapter 11- it was the last week of his earthly life and Jesus spent time on social media of his day. He’s teaching in the temple but rather than authentic interaction he ends up getting a ton of silly questions that aren’t real questions - they are just meant to trap him. Tweets about authority, taxes, marriage, etc.
I saw these words in Mark 12:6 and I was gripped: “They will respect my son” It’s heartbreaking. It’s words in the parable of the tenants of the father sending his son to the people. But they say, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.”
The religious leaders knew exactly what this parable meant. They were rejecting God’s plan A. That’s why they wanted to see Jesus thrown in prison and eventually dead. They wanted him done with, because they understood he was talking about them. He’s the son that they aren’t listening to - they’d rather kill him than listen.
How do you get to that spot? Especially if you are a religious leader of some sort. You’ve given your whole life to studying God’s Word, to being pleasing to God and then you end up saying, “here’s the son - let’s kill him.” How does that happen?
They recognize the Son. They see that he comes from God but they don’t like him and so they want to have him done away with. What is happening is that their foolish hearts are being darkened. They actually think they can trap Jesus because they’ve convinced themselves that they are more “in the know” than the Son of God. Their quest isn’t about finding truth - it’s about escaping God’s ownership of them. It is unbelieving-doubt.
Barney Piper says this:“When unbelieving-doubt poses a question, it is not interested in the answer for any reason other than to disprove it. Unbelieving-doubt is on the attack. It is much more interested in the devastating effect of the question itself to erode the asker’s belief and hope in what is being questioned. The asker is not asking to learn; she is asking in order to devastate. She does not want to progress to an answer. She wants to show that there is no answer. Unbelieving-doubt is not working toward anything but merely against belief.”
And this is the kind of thing we see played out on social media, in the news, in a Senate commission etc. on a daily basis. Truth doesn’t matter as much as “gotcha” questions.
Jesus’ last week as the Man from Nazareth is consumed with unraveling all these “gotcha” questions. Jesus masterfully navigates the questions and pulls believers back to the kingdom of God. This too is part of His mission of making all things new.
The Good Question in the Midst of Noise. I think there is one more person that Mark wants us to notice in this narrative. In the midst of all these dumb “gotcha” questions is a scribe who actually asks the important question. “What is most important, the greatest commandment?”
Jesus answers by combining Deut. 6:4-5 (the Shema) with Leviticus 19:18 and essentially says the Law comes down to loving God perfectly and loving others totally. His answer puts him in a unique camp because there is no evidence that before Jesus these two commandments were combined. Jesus, as usual, is in his own camp.
The scribe affirms what Jesus says and even adds a bit of his own flavor saying that Jesus is correct that love is more important than sacrifice and burnt offerings. Which is essentially saying that relationship matters more than the religious practices and rituals of his people. And Jesus tells this guy that he is not far from the kingdom. He’s not saved yet. He doesn’t fully understand that to love God means to embrace Jesus. But he is at least walking down the correct road.
This special season, are you walking down the correct trail or the unbelieving-doubt highway?
