These days we hear a lot about trigger warnings—trigger warnings that are designed to protect people from anything they might find offensive. The warning is there so that people won’t be triggered by something that offends them. We want to protect people from any kind of offense.
Well, I would say this passage in Mark 11 probably needs a trigger warning. It is an offensive passage. It is an offensive display of the authority of Jesus. It’s certainly offensive to those who don’t trust and love Jesus, but even to those of us who do, we can find something about this passage rubbing us the wrong way.
See, the real issue in this passage is the authority of Jesus. In this passage, Jesus asserts His absolute authority. And there’s no safe zone you can run to to get away from His claims of absolute authority—authority that covers everything, including every aspect of your life.
I think part of the problem, one of the reasons we have trigger warnings today, and one of the reasons a passage like this you could say needs a trigger warning, is it’s not just the authority of Jesus that is offensive to us; it’s the very concept of authority that is offensive to people today.
Authority means there is someone outside myself who has power over me and who has the right to tell me what to do and what not to do, and who can hold me accountable and who can punish me if I disobey. People have always known that authority could be abused, but it seems that today the very concept of authority is considered abusive.
And so what does our culture do? Our culture glamorizes rebellion against authority. We think all authority is oppressive. And so to be in authority, to have a position of authority, means you are a tyrant. And to be under authority means you are a victim. We live in an egalitarian culture that rejects authorities God has established.
It’s easy to see why we are so distrustful of authority today, why we’re so suspicious. It is because we really have seen authority abused in so many ways. We’ve seen people in authority abuse their power again and again. We’ve seen it with presidents. We’ve seen it with priests and with pastors. We’ve seen it with parents. Everywhere you turn, you see people who are in power abusing that authority. And so, of course, we are suspicious of authority.
But what gets overlooked is that authority is inescapable. Even for those who challenge authority, authority is inescapable. Even those who cast off one authority will quickly find themselves simply having created an alternative authority that they now stand under.
It’s important for us to remember that the very first rebellion against authority was led by Satan himself—Satan who sought to escape the authority of God. And then, of course, Adam and Eve joined in that rebellion against God’s authority. They, too, rebelled against God’s rule.
But what we find in these cases is they didn’t do away with authority. They cast off one form of authority, in this case, God’s good authority, and simply found themselves now under a tyrannical form of authority. They cast off God’s loving authority only to find themselves under a truly oppressive authority.
And we’ve seen the same kind of thing happen, the same dynamic at work in the modern world. We cast off one authority thinking it is tyrannical only to find an even more tyrannical authority has risen up to take its place.
Moderns can be very authoritarian without even realizing it. G.K. Chesterton said the distinguishing feature of the modern world is not its skepticism, but its dogmatism. It is dogmatic without knowing it. He says modern people assume a creed and then forget they have assumed it. We assume some authority and then we forget that it’s really an authority over us.
We have this romantic notion that we can cast off authority, that we can do without authority, that we can live without being under authority. But no, as one of your own prophets has said, “you’ve got to serve somebody” (Dylan) You cannot do without authority. We can never do away with authority altogether. Authority is inescapable.
You used to see those bumper stickers that would say, “Question authority.” And I heard somebody once say that they wanted to print a bumper sticker in response that would say, “Who are you to tell me what to question?” Why does the bumper sticker “Question authority” take authority? Or we’re told constantly in the modern world, “Think for yourself. Think for yourself.” Well, wait a second: Who are you to tell me how to think? How dare you tell me to think for myself?
See, authority is inescapable. You cannot escape it, nor should you try. God has made the world in such a way that authority is essential. It’s essential to human life. It is essential to human flourishing.
Again, it is true that authority can be abused. But good authority, godly authority, is a blessing. We need to understand, all authority ultimately traces back to God. All authority comes from God and finds God as its source. Authority is not just a social construct. Human beings don’t create authority. God has built authority structures into the world, in family, in church, in state.
God has built these authority structures into His creation. A father or a pastor or a king who abuses his authority does incredible harm. Even one bad decision on the part of an authority figure can have disastrous consequences for a multitude of others. It can have downstream effects that can really hurt people.
But loving and responsible authority figures, loving and responsible fathers and pastors and kings, do the world incredible good. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “Authority exercised with humility and obedience to that authority with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live.” Obedience to this kind of authority is the road to freedom.
C.S. Lewis says here, we were made for these kinds of relationships in which there are leaders and followers: Those who are in authority who rule and those under authority who submit to them.
And Lewis illustrates perfectly what this means in his book from the Chronicles of Narnia, The Horse and His Boy. There’s a young man, Cor, who is learning from his father, King Lune, how to be king himself. It’s kind of like a Proverbs dynamic where the father is king and he’s teaching his son, the prince, how to be king.
Cor is going to be king over Archenland after his father. And Cor wonders, can a king do whatever he wants including casting off the office of king if he so desires? And he’s told, no, the king is under the law for it’s the law that makes him a king. And he can no more cast off his office than a soldier can desert his sentry post.
And then his father explains what true kingship means. He says, “For this is what it means to be king, to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat. And when there’s hunger in the land, as there must be now and then in bad years, to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land.”
See, King Lune there is describing for his son what good authority, good leadership, looks like — what it looks like in times of war, what it looks like in times of famine. Leadership that is sacrificial, that is accountable, that is responsible. Leadership that is servant-oriented, exercised for the good of those being led.
Think of the difference that good authority makes in our everyday lives. Authority helps us to work together in community as a team. Authority brings out the best in us and helps us to use our gifts to their full potential.
Imagine a world without authority. Imagine a football team without a coach — a team with no coach so there’s no authority to tell the players what play to run or how to run it. It would be a disaster. That’s a team that’s not going to win a game. What makes a team successful is obedience to a wise authority.
Football teams in our state have demonstrated what a difference good coaching can make. Or think about an orchestra. Without a conductor in charge of all the musicians, exercising authority over all them, what happens? Each musician is going to play his own chosen song in his own chosen way, at his own chosen tempo. It’s going to be a cacophony. It’s not anything you would pay money to go hear. But a good conductor will get them all playing off the same sheet of music in the same way, so the instruments come together in this beautiful, harmonious way. See, the authority creates something beautiful, something wonderful. It brings out the best in each player, in each musician.
Authority truly is crucial to human well-being.
What we have in this passage in Mark 11 is a contest of authority. What’s at issue here is the authority or the kingship or the lordship of Jesus. Is Jesus a rightful authority? Does he have authority over Israel, over Jerusalem, over the temple? Is he Israel’s rightful king?
Repeatedly in this section, the authority of Jesus will be questioned and challenged. It is as if Jesus is being put on trial. His authority is being put on trial. Jesus is being tested and tried, but what’s really being tried and judged here is the authority of Jesus.
The chief priests and the teachers of the law and the scribes come to question him. This seems to be an official delegation of the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was the highest court in Israel. The Sanhedrin was made up of the chief priests and the experts in the law and the scribes. Together they composed this court that had the highest rank in Israel.
And a delegation from this court comes to test the authority of Jesus, to challenge that authority, to question him. This continues on in 12:13-17. The Pharisees and the Herodians come to challenge the authority of Jesus and put him on trial. In 12:18-27, the Sadducees come to put his authority on trial. In 12:28-34, a scribe comes to Jesus seeking to judge him and his claim.
So you have all these different authorities in Israel who come to test the authority of Jesus. They come to challenge that authority and question that authority. But what we’re going to find this morning and actually in the weeks to come is in each of these trials, as Jesus and his authority is put to the test, Jesus is acquitted and vindicated in every instance. his authority stands.
In fact, in each case, he turns the accusations back on his accusers and indeed silences them. They come making accusations, he confounds them and silences them, and of course a silenced accuser is a defeated accuser. In each trial, Jesus is justified and his accusers are actually the ones who end up condemned. Jesus is vindicated, they’re condemned.
In fact, this whole section ends in 12:34 with the words, “No one dared ask him any more questions.” He has silenced their questions, he has silenced their accusations. They questioned his authority and that authority has stood firm.
Let’s look at this story here at the end of Mark 11 in a little more detail. This story is worth a closer look. Where are we in the sequence of things? This is the third straight day Jesus has come into Jerusalem and into the temple. And each day he’s put on a display of his authority. He puts on a grand display of his authority.
The first day he came into Jerusalem was his triumphal entry. When he rode into the city like a king and basically acted like he owned the city of Jerusalem, like he was lord of the city, like he’s a new Davidic king.
The second day he went into the temple and he drove out those buying and selling there. He shut down the temple services momentarily. He acted like he owned the temple. Like it was his own personal possession. Like he was a new chief priest with authority over the temple.
This is the third day and he makes a third visit to the temple. And now the authority he has exercised the previous two days will be tested. He has to answer for what he’s done.
What the representatives of the Sanhedrin want to know is this: By what authority, Jesus, are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority? In other words, what they’re really asking is, Jesus, just who do you think you are? Who do you think you are to do these things?
They want to know his credentials. Where did he get his degree? Who licensed him to come into their temple and overturn the tables? What degrees does Jesus have? What titles does he possess? Who backs him up? Where did he get the right to act this way?
In fact, I think it’s especially interesting to look at the second part of the question they ask. They want to know who gave Jesus this authority. Who authorized Jesus to say what he’s saying and to do what he’s doing? What is the source of his authority?
They know that authority is a grant. They know that authority must be granted. It can’t be self-authorizing. It has to be bestowed. And actually I think in this particular point Jesus and the Sanhedrin are in agreement. Every time Jesus talks about authority he basically talks about it in the same way, as something given or bestowed by one to another.
When Jesus a little bit later stands trial before Pontius Pilate he’s able to say (in John’s account), “You would have no authority over me unless it had been given to you from above.” Authority is a grant. It’s a bestowal. It’s a gift.
In the Great Commission, the last words of Jesus to his disciples before he ascends into heaven, he says to his disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. So therefore go and baptize the nations making them my disciples.”
So Jesus agrees that authority must be bestowed. It is a grant. Authority is given. In fact I’d say we all know this. It’s just the way authority works.
Think about this. What’s the difference between a fake ID and a legitimate ID? Well, both cards may have all the same information. They may have even the same picture. What’s the difference then? What makes one fake and the other legit? The difference is who gives the card, who issues the card.
If you make your own driver’s license it has no authority because you’re not authorized to issue licenses. Nobody has given you that authority. You can’t self-authorize a driver’s license. You’ve got to go through the properly authorized channels. Your card has to be given to you by the right authoritative department.
Sometimes we hear stories about people who impersonate police officers — they put lights on their car and put on a uniform and they act like they’re police officers, pulling people over. But actually they’re not making traffic stops to write people tickets like a police officer would do. They pull the person over and then they actually end up robbing them.
But we might ask what makes one traffic stop legitimate and the other not? What makes somebody a real police officer who has the right to pull you over and another person just an imposter who doesn’t have that authority? Again, it’s a question of where the authorization comes from. We have to ask who authorized you to make a traffic stop? Who gave you your badge?
Legitimate officers are those who are authorized by the government, by the civil magistrate, those to whom God has entrusted this kind of authority.
And so that’s really the issue here in Mark 11. The Sanhedrin wants to know what official authority Jesus has. The Sanhedrin wants to know if Jesus is just impersonating a king or if he’s the real deal. Did Jesus create a fake license for himself that says, “I am the Messiah” or is he really the Messiah? Is he an imposter claiming authority for himself or has he really been granted true authority? That’s their question.
Now how does Jesus deal with their question? He does not give them a direct response. Jesus does not give them a straight answer. He’s not evading their question, but he is going to expose their false motives in asking this question. They’re not asking this question in good faith.
And so what does Jesus do? He asks a question of his own. He will answer their question if they will answer his. He gives them a riddle of sorts. A riddle they won’t be able to solve. A riddle that is going to silence them. And this in itself should have shown them something. Who speaks in riddles like this? You’ve got to go back to the wise men of ancient Israel, kings like Solomon. Solomon spoke this way. Jesus is a greater Solomon. He’s doing the kind of things Solomon did.
They have asked about his authority. They are thinking to themselves, “If he says that he’s acting on his own authority, we can accuse him of being a megalomaniac. After all, no one has the authority to shut down God’s temple on his own. No one can shut down God’s temple on his own authority. So if he claims his authority is self-authorizing, we’ve got him. And if he says his authority comes from God, then we’ll accuse him of blasphemy since it would be blasphemous to attack God’s temple in God’s name.”
Now, behind their question is really a deeper issue. They’re not so interested in Jesus’ authority. What they’re really interested in is their own authority. They see themselves as the authorities in Israel, in Jerusalem, and over the temple. They see themselves as being in charge of the temple. And so they see Jesus as invading their turf. He has invaded their sacred turf. They think, no, we are in charge here. And that’s why they’re challenging Jesus.
Sure, they have a question for Jesus. But really, what they’re most interested in is not discovering the source of His authority, the origin of His authority. It’s more about protecting their own authority. We’ll see that as we go.
They think they’ve set the perfect trap for Jesus. But Jesus is not going to fall into their trap. Instead, Jesus sets His own trap with a counter-question. He asks a question of His own. This is Jesus’ kingly way of taking control of the situation. The one questioned becomes the questioner.
And He says, I will answer your question if you will answer mine. And so He gives them a counter-question, concerning John’s baptism. Where did John’s baptism come from? Was it from heaven or from man? Was it a heavenly baptism or an earthly baptism? Was it authorized by God or authorized by humans? That’s his question.
Well, let’s think about this for just a minute. John was a priest who was also a prophet. And so as a priest and prophet, he was authorized by the law. He had an official office. An office that included performing various baptisms. In fact, there were many baptisms prescribed in the Old Testament law, the Old Covenant law. Torah authorized baptisms that John as a priest would have had authority to perform.
And think about the temple. The temple had these great bronze lavers, pools, for performing baptisms. But John did something unique. Yes, he was authorized by the law to perform various baptismal washings. But John did something out of the ordinary. The washings prescribed in the law were in one way or another connected with the temple and the temple system. But John’s baptisms didn’t seem to have a link to the temple.
John, in fact, seemed to start a kind of counter-temple movement. With his baptisms, he seemed to be bypassing the temple. He didn’t baptize people at the temple. He didn’t send people to the temple for cleansing. No, he went out into the wilderness. He acted as if there were no temple in Israel. He acted as if Israel was in exile. And he acted as if people could receive the forgiveness of their sins away from the temple, apart from the temple system.
There in the wilderness, away from the temple, he baptized people who came to him. He baptized them in the wilderness as if Israel were starting over with a new exodus. That’s really what John’s baptism is about. John was the forerunner. He expected Jesus to bring in that promised new exodus and with it a new kingdom and a new temple.
John was authorized by the law. He had a lawful office. But there was a twist in the way he exercised that office. And so Jesus rightly raises the question, where did John’s authority come from? Did it come from God or from man?
Well, now the Sanhedrin is really stuck. They’re the ones trapped. And they know this, so they huddle up to confer with each other. And they speak amongst themselves. They say, well, if we say John’s baptism was from heaven, he’s going to ask us, why didn’t we believe John?
Believe what, we might ask? Well, believe John’s testimony about Jesus, that Jesus is indeed the promised one. He is the true king. He is the Messiah. And if they say John’s baptism was legit, from heaven, Jesus is going to want to know why they didn’t believe John’s testimony.
But if they say that John’s baptism was from men, they’re going to have another problem on their hands. The crowd is going to be really upset with them. The crowd is going to turn on them because John, like all prophets, was persecuted during his lifetime, even imprisoned and then beheaded. But like all prophets, after his death, he had become a hero to the people.
And so they know that if they don’t recognize John as a prophet, if they say that his baptism was just from men, they’re going to have a big problem on their hands with the crowd because John was a lot more popular after his death than he was during his life.
And so they come back to Jesus and basically say, “No comment. No answer.” They say, “We do not know.” And it’s true. They don’t know. They are stuck. They are truly clueless.
Now, if this was a game of chess, this is where Jesus would say, “Checkmate. Checkmate, my friends.” Jesus has now won. And thus is fulfilled the proverb of Solomon from Proverbs 26: Whoever digs a pit for another will fall into it himself.
The Sanhedrin thought they were digging a pit for Jesus, but they have fallen into that pit themselves. They had hoped to trap Jesus and to silence Jesus. Instead, they are the ones trapped and silenced.
And so the story ends with Jesus telling them, “Because you won’t answer me, I won’t answer you. I will not tell you by what authority I do these things.”
The Sanhedrin doesn’t deserve an answer. For Jesus to give them a direct answer would have been casting pearls before swine because that’s what these members of the Sanhedrin have become. They didn’t come asking their question in good faith because they really wanted to know. It is obvious here they are not really interested in the truth. They’re interested in power. They’re interested in their own power. Preserving their own power. That’s all they really care about.
And so they’re going to do whatever they can to maintain their power. And so we see here in their private conference, they are expedient, they are calculating, they are political pragmatists, they will gladly sacrifice truth if it means preserving their status. All they’re concerned with is power, popularity, prestige, position.
Their problem with Jesus’ authority is they want to continue in their own authority. And so no, they weren’t really worthy of an answer. They weren’t truly seeking to know. They weren’t really interested in truth. They weren’t seeking truth.
All this applies to us today. If you refuse to believe the teaching of Jesus you have been given, no further teaching will be given. The criteria for receiving further truth is to believe the truth you have been given already. And if you won’t believe that truth and put that truth into practice and submit to that truth, then Jesus doesn’t owe you any more truth. He doesn’t owe you answers.
If you want to get answers from Jesus to your questions, you better believe and obey the things He’s already given you. The things that you do know. The things that are clear. See, really, obedience is the great opener of eyes. Obeying the truth leads to greater knowledge of the truth. But disobedience is always blinding.
The Sanhedrin disobeys Jesus and so they find themselves descending into deeper and deeper darkness. Because they won’t believe the truth they have, they’ll lose even that. Even that truth will be taken from them.
Now what does this whole story mean for us today? I think people today ask the same question as the Sanhedrin. If we don’t hear this question in the church, we certainly hear it in the world. But I think our hearts ask this question because we’re still sinners and we don’t always want to do what Jesus tells us to do.
And so there’s this question: What authority does Jesus have? What right does Jesus have to tell me how to live my life? Why should I bind my life to this book (the Bible) and submit my life to this man, Jesus? Why should I let Jesus reign over me?
By what right does Jesus have authority to tell me what to do? Why shouldn’t I be distrustful and suspicious of His authority just like people in our culture are distrustful and suspicious of every other authority? Why listen to Jesus? Why submit to Jesus? Why submit to His Word? Why make Jesus and His Bible my authority?
See again, the absolute authority of Jesus and His Word will always be offensive to us because we are sinners. And because Jesus asks us to do hard things. And because we are sinners, we will quite frankly do just what the Sanhedrin does here. We will always look for ways to avoid the authority claims of Jesus and His Word.
And we will do this because we want to remain our own authority. I want to be in charge of my life. I don’t want anybody else telling me what to do. I don’t want to have to submit to an ancient book or an ancient Jewish man who claimed to be the Messiah.
We find all kinds of ways to evade the authority of Jesus and His Word. Some do this by denying Jesus is who He said He was. Others do it by attacking the Bible and trying to undermine the Bible. Or if they say, “I’m going to take the Bible seriously,” they will then twist its interpretation so that it makes no real demands on them.
Whatever the case, one thing all sinners have in common is we want to rule ourselves. We want self-rule. We want autonomy. That’s the way it’s been ever since the Garden. That’s what Adam and Eve went for in the Garden. Autonomy. Self-rule. Let’s cast off the oppressive rule of God. We’ll be our own authority. That’s what we want.
The philosopher Nietzsche said, “If there were a God, how could I stand to not be that God?” And that is the cry of every fallen human heart. And so we can get just as pragmatic and just as expedient as the Sanhedrin. We will do whatever it takes to preserve our power and our popularity and our prestige. We want to be our own gods, our own authority.
But Jesus’ response to the Sanhedrin challenges us today just as much as it did the Jewish leadership back then. In fact, I would say here, I don’t really think Jesus was being all that evasive in His response to the Sanhedrin. I think in His response to the Sanhedrin, He gave them the clue that they needed to answer their question.
Where does the authority of Jesus come from? Go back to John’s baptism and you will find the answer. Go back to Mark 1. Mark begins his Gospel with John’s baptism. For Mark, the beginning of the Gospel is the baptism of Jesus by John. In fact, what the Sanhedrin would have seen as bad news, Mark sees as the beginning of the good news.
John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan is good news. It’s Gospel for us. Why is it good news? Remember what happened when John baptized Jesus — and if you get this, you will see why the authority of Jesus and His Word actually is good news and why Jesus is worth surrendering to. Why He is worth submitting to? Why He’s worth giving up your would-be autonomy in order to follow? Look at his baptism.
When you look at His baptism and you see what it really means, you see He is worth serving, worth trusting, worth loving. You see He is a worthy and rightful King.
So what happened when John baptized Jesus in the Jordan? Several things happened all at once. First, Mark tells us that God the Father spoke from Heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Those are words taken from Psalm 2 and from the prophet Isaiah. They indicate Jesus is the King, appointed by the Father. He’s the true Son of God who has been appointed by God as King. And He is the One in whom the Father delights.
And so if you want to know the pleasure of God, if you want to know the delight of God, the baptism of John tells us, get near Jesus. Because all the Father’s joy has been poured into Jesus. Jesus is the One in whom the Father delights. This is His eternal Son. His promised King. The Father delights in Him and so the Father also delights in all who trust Him and all who obey Him and all who become like Him.
If you want to know the Father’s good pleasure, then serve Jesus. Get near to Jesus. Get next to Jesus. Be like Jesus. The Father says to the Son, “You are My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” All those who are united to Jesus by faith and by baptism share in that same fatherly, divine pleasure. That’s the first thing that happens.
The second thing that happens when Jesus is baptized by John: The heavens are torn open and the Spirit descends like a dove upon Jesus. The Spirit comes upon Jesus. The Spirit moves from heaven to earth, from the Father to the Son.
Just as the Spirit was breathed into man to make Him a living being in the beginning, and just as the dove fluttered above the floodwaters in Noah’s day to mark another new beginning, so Jesus comes to inaugurate a new humanity. The Spirit is poured out on Him that He might inaugurate a new way of being human. Humanity 2.0, you might call it. The upgraded and improved version.
Humanity 1.0 crashed in the garden and got a fatal virus that destroyed the operating system. And now Jesus comes to inaugurate a new humanity. Jesus receives the Spirit in His baptism so He can give that same Spirit to all who follow Him.
The Spirit flows from the Father to the Son and then flows from the Son out to you. The Spirit gives you new life and new powers and new gifts and new direction and new likes and new loves. The Spirit gives you a submissive heart. The Spirit makes you willing by God’s grace to follow Jesus as your King.
The Spirit gives you eyes to see your sin. To see how you make a mess of things when you try to live autonomously. When we try to do life our own way, when we try to do it on our own, we wreck things. We weren’t made to live that way. We weren’t made to live apart from God’s authority. And when we try that, we wreck our lives. We destroy our lives.
The Spirit comes to straighten what has been made crooked. To restore us and remake us. To teach us to live a better way. The Spirit comes to teach us to live under the authority of Jesus because that’s what we were made for.
And then finally, in His baptism, Jesus becomes King. This is obvious from everything that went before, but we need to single this out too. His baptism is really an anointing ceremony. An inauguration. Or a coronation, you could say.
See, John was a prophet. And prophets in the Bible are kingmakers. Prophets are the ones who anoint kings. Samuel the prophet anointed Saul and David, Israel’s first two kings. Jeroboam was anointed by a prophet. Jehu was anointed by Elisha. And on and on we could go. Prophets make kings. Prophets anoint kings. They crown kings.
John’s baptism tells us Jesus is a king. John’s baptism tells you where Jesus gets His authority, where His authority comes from. It comes from His Father. It is a gift. It is a grant. It is a bestowal. And Jesus is worthy of it. The Father declared Him to be king. And the Father has given Him authority over all.
And this is why Jesus’ baptism by John really is the beginning of the Gospel. The beginning of the Good News. This is why John’s baptism really serves as the launching pad for Jesus’ whole ministry. It’s the beginning of His ministry.
And if you look at the whole arc, the whole trajectory of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is going to move from this baptism by John in the Jordan to ultimately being seated at His Father’s right hand in heaven. That’s the movement of Mark’s Gospel.
But you know, a funny thing happens to Jesus on the way to the throne. A funny thing happens to Jesus as He moves from the baptism of John to being seated at His Father’s right hand. Something interesting happens. And this shows us the authority bestowed on Jesus is a different kind of authority than the world has ever known.
What happens between His baptism in the Jordan and His ascension to the Father’s right hand, is the cross. And what the cross shows us is ultimately this is an authority not based merely on sheer power, but an authority based on sacrificial love.
Oh yes, Jesus has absolute power. But He uses that power in absolute love. In Jesus, absolute power and boundless love are united. Love without power cannot help us. Power without love is cruel. But Jesus has both love and power. He uses that power, that absolute power, in absolute service and in absolute humility and in absolute wisdom. He uses His authority not to just boss you around as a tyrant would. He uses His authority to serve you. He uses His authority to take responsibility for you. He uses his authority for our good, in love.
This is a way of thinking about why Jesus came into the world and manifested Himself to Israel and to the nations. He came to claim a bride for Himself, but to have that bride He had to die for her. He had to take responsibility for her debts and pay them off. That’s what His death is all about. It’s His way of claiming a bride for Himself, winning His bride, cleansing His bride.
See what does Jesus do as your ruler? As your ruler, He doesn’t punish you for your sins. He takes responsibility for your sins. He takes the punishment you deserve because of your sin. He’s the kind of king who takes the sins of all His people onto His back and suffers and dies for them so we as His subjects could be forgiven and free. But we cannot separate having his forgiveness from living under his reign. Just like Jesus’ authority and love are bound together, so receiving his salvation and living in obedience to his reign go together.
All through Mark’s Gospel, we’ve seen Jesus talking about how He’s going to go to Jerusalem and what’s going to happen when He gets there. And now He’s in Jerusalem and what’s happening? Why did Jesus go to Jerusalem? Jerusalem was the city of David. It was the royal city. Jesus went there to be crowned king. That’s where you go to claim your throne.
But how is He crowned? Through His cross. His coronation is on a cross with a crown of thorns. Why did He come to the kingly city? To be crowned and to be crucified. His cross and his crown are inseparable. He was crowned precisely by being crucified. He came to sit on the throne in Jerusalem, but that throne took the shape of a cross.
Now this is true authority. This is authority, but it is an authority that bleeds. We should be willing to yield our lives to the authority of Jesus because He bled for us. Why follow Jesus? Why submit to His authority? Because He bled for you. He is worthy. He is oh so worthy — to be your coach and to be your conductor and, yes, to be your king.
Authority that is willing to bleed — that’s right at the heart of the gospel. Authority that bleeds for others is authority you can trust. And so you can trust Jesus in His authority to tell you what’s best for your family and what’s best for your marriage and what’s best for your work and what’s best for your body and what’s best for your money. Jesus tells you what is best for you right here in His Word. And you can know they’re trustworthy and they’re for your good. Why? Because Jesus is a king who suffered and bled for you. What more could you ask? What more could you ask of a king?
Living life under His authority leads to flourishing. Indeed, it’s the only way for us to flourish. Rejecting His authority, fighting with His authority, can only lead to frustration and futility.
Jesus shows us good authority. He shows us what good authority looks like. What authority looks like when it’s exercised for the good of others. He shows us what happens when absolute authority and absolute love come together and are perfectly aligned — because that’s what happens at the cross.
The cross is all about authority. Bad authority figures came together to crucify Jesus. The Jewish and the Roman leadership, leadership in church and in state, came together to kill Him. It was the ultimate abuse of power on the part of the chief priests and Herod and Pilate.
But when Jesus willingly died that death, it was the ultimate exercise of good authority. Don’t be fooled — when Jesus died, He was still in charge. He was every bit as in charge then as at any other time. In fact, in John 10, He says, “No one takes My life from Me. I lay it down of My own authority.” And He says, “I have authority to take it up again.”
I started out this morning talking about trigger warnings and talking about how modern people are always suspicious of authority. And perhaps we do have good reason to distrust authority because we’ve seen so much abuse of authority. That’s why so many in our day are anti-establishment.
But all our questions about authority are answered at the cross. All our suspicions about authority come to an end at the cross. Indeed, the cross turns our tables on our suspicions. The cross gets you questioning your own claims to authority, to autonomy. Why trust yourself and your own wisdom more than Jesus’ authority, wisdom, and love for you?
See, you really can’t be suspicious of a king’s authority when that king has already died for you. When that king has already taken your sins upon himself in order to rescue you from death, he has done everything needful to show you why he is trustworthy. This is an authority you can trust.
Let’s pray together. Father, we do thank You for giving us Your Son, a king who has all authority, who has all authority in heaven and on earth. A king who wields that authority in perfect love and service and wisdom all for our good. He is a king who never makes a bad decision or gives a bad law. Everything He does is for our flourishing. He’s always the first to attack and He never has to retreat because He has already won the battle for us. Father, we thank You as our king, as our authority. He has taken responsibility for our sins and He has the authority to declare us forgiven. So we embrace His authority. We see it as good news by Your Spirit. Help us to live joyfully and gladly under His authority. This we pray in His name. Amen.
Follow up notes:
In this passage from Mark’s gospel, Jesus shows his solidarity with John. Just as John straddles the old and new covenants, with one foot in the old creation and one in the new, so he also is both an insider and an outsider. As a priest and prophet, he holds recognized offices within Israel and thus his authority is official. At the same time (like a lot of prophets), he exercises his ministry in an anti-establishment kind of way. God often works from the margins, rather than from the center, and John is a textbook example. He carries out his ministry to Israel as far away from the temple as he can get, out in the wilderness, in exile. John is the last of the old covenant prophets, so he is taking Israel back to her founding moment, heralding a new exodus, which Jesus will inaugurate. To be baptized by John, the Israelites had to admit that the nation was functionally under the curse of exile; they had to go out of the land (across the Jordan) and then re-enter in a kind of exile/exodus re-enactment. They also had to admit they were lepers in need of cleansing (since the baptismal washing from leprosy was one of the few that had to be administered by someone else, rather than being self-administered). In short, John’s baptism required the people to admit they were unclean and unfit to meet God; in John’s baptism, they were being cleansed and prepared for the coming of their God.
When John baptized Jesus, it was not necessarily identical to the other baptisms John performed. John baptized for the forgiveness of sins. But Jesus had no sins to forgive, so what’s going on when he gets baptized? Jesus is being numbered with the transgressors (cf. Isa. 53). He is showing his willingness to be identified with sinners precisely so he can rescue sinners. He becomes a sinner (representatively) so we can be become righteous (representatively). He becomes one of us so we become like him. Think of the parable in Luke 18, where the Pharisee thanks God he is not like other men. In his baptism, Jesus delighted to become like other men. In his baptism, he became our head in an official way, so he could bear our sins and atone for them. Baptism unites him to us and us to him. In his baptism, he came to stand in our place, so that in our baptisms, we might stand in his.
It is interesting that Jesus (in a roundabout way) ends up grounding his authority in the baptism of John. As I pointed out in the sermon, this drives us back to the beginning of Mark’s gospel. Certainly, John’s baptism of Jesus was not just another Johannine baptism; it was unique in many respects (e.g., it was not for the forgiveness of sins since Jesus had no sins that needed forgiving). At the same time, Jesus’ baptism, as Calvin pointed out, was a model or template for what happens in our baptisms. Jesus was baptized in the wilderness, the place of curse and exile because he would endure curse and exile for his people. In his baptism, he received the Spirit, that he might share the same Spirit with his people in their baptisms. In his baptism heaven was opened and the Father spoke words of live; likewise, in our baptism, we are qualified to enter heaven (Heb. 10) and adopted as beloved children of the Father (Gal. 3). In his baptism he inaugurated the new age and the new humanity; in our baptisms, we enter the regeneration as well (Titus 3).
But this also means that in some way Jesus shares his authority with those baptized into union with him. We are untied to Christ in his death and resurrection (Rom. 6) as well as his present reign (Eph. 2). In other words, your baptism is not from men but from heaven. You were baptized by God, not by men, even though God used a man to administer your baptism. In your baptism you became an ambassador and representative of Christ. You became a prince, a king in training. And now you have authority to speak to the world on Christ’s behalf. To be sure, your authority as Christ’s representative and spokesman is conditioned on your obedience and your faithfulness to Scripture. It is, as Presbyterians like to say, a ministerial and derivative power. Thus, you are not to deliver your own message, but his! But properly understood, baptism serves as a launching pad for your personal ministry. It gives you an office in the kingdom of God, it gives you certain powers, roles, and responsibilities.
What does your baptize authorize you to do? Many things, of course. In the medieval period, a whole tradition of civil disobedience arose out of the doctrine of baptism. Christians could disobey kings when those kings called on them to sin in some way because in baptism we were made citizens of a higher kingdom with loyalty to a heavenly king. The right of godly defiance was grounded in baptism. Today, we often hear Christians challenged, ‘Who do you think you are, judging others and telling others how to live?’ This is especially true when it comes to sexuality issues, where our culture has most consistently cast off any external authority for the sake of personal autonomy. But our baptisms give us a right to tell others what Jesus has communicated in his Word. I’m not saying you need to appeal to your baptism when an unbeliever challenges your truth claims – that probably won’t make sense to him. But your baptism should give you confidence, since in your baptism God clothed you with Christ and in so robbing you, vested you with official authority as a member of his royal priesthood. God’s activity in our baptisms is crucial to understanding our mission.
The question, of course, is how we will use the powers and privileges granted to us in our baptisms. Some Christians go on to compromise – to become pragmatic, or politically expedient, or focused on preserving popularity, like the representative of the Sanhedrin in Mark 11.
The unique authority of Jesus is on display throughout the gospel. He has authority to do miracles, to forgive sins, to teach (and even his teaching style had a unique authority, unlike the scribes, as noted at the end of the Sermon on the Mount). But it was when he struck at the heart of the temple system that the Jewish leaders finally decided they had enough of the rogue rabbi and decided to challenge his authority openly. The attack on the temple was the last straw because the temple was a source of power, prestige, and yes, a steady income stream, for the Jewish leadership. When Jesus threatened their power and their money, they couldn’t sit by idly. They had to act to stop him.
The Sanhedrin was the highest functioning authority in Israel. The members of the Sanhedrin would have traced their authority back to the law, and thus claim it came from God himself. They were also recognized by and underwritten by the Roman Empire, which used intermediate authorities like the Sanhedrin to keep order amongst their subjugated peoples. Thus a challenge to the Sanhedrin was going to also, by extension, be a challenge to Rome, on whose power the Sanhedrin rested.
Mark 11:27 mentions the three groups that made up the Sanhedrin. In Jesus earlier passion predictions in mark 8, 9, and 10, he has already said he would be handed over to these groups in order to be crucified. The fact that these members of the Sanhedrin are now trying to trap him (and then judge him and condemn him to death) shows us we are arriving at the climatic moment of Mark’s gospel. The showdown is here.
Chief priests were not only in charge of the temple liturgy and sacrifices, they were also teachers and judges in Israel. It was their job to hear cases and render verdicts. Because they were in charge of the temple, they believed they had a right to take on Jesus after he had momentarily shut down the temple the day before. Jesus had encroached on their turf when he started turning over tables.
The scribes were experts in the law, sort of the theology PhDs of their time and place. Their expertise was supposedly going to useful in trapping Jesus with questions from the law.
The elders were the shepherds and representatives of the people and were involved in rendering judgments in various types of cases. They were social authorities in Israel. As such, they could after Jesus for being a “disturber of the peace.”
In this whole section in Mark, Jesus is being put to the test. He is on trial. His authority is on trial.
The Jewish leaders believe they are in charge. But they are about to find out there is a new sheriff – that is, a new king and new chief priest – in town. The messianic King has arrived. Instead of testing him, they should submit to him. Instead of challenging him, they should trust and follow him.
It is interesting that in challenging Jesus’ authority, they take their own authority for granted. They never consider to question themselves and ask where they got their authority. We might ask: What right did they have to question Jesus? Who authorized them to challenge the messiah?
If they claim that their authority was linked to the law and to Rome, Jesus can trump them. His authority comes from heaven, directly from the Father who sent him.
Contrast Jesus’ authority with that of the members of the Sanhedrin. The members of the Sanhedrin act as if they are above the rules (kind of like Uncle Andrew and Queen Jadis in The Magician’s Nephew). They are grasping and selfish. They seek to seize authority for themselves like Adam in the Garden. They make decisions based on their hunger for power. By contrast, Jesus acts in self-giving love.
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