When John F Kennedy was a candidate for election as president of the United States someone asked him why he wanted to be president. “Because that’s where the power is,” he replied. We live in a world where power and authority are very important. Our newspapers and TV news programmes are always very interested in those who hold power, in our politicians, in our royal family.

There is something in human nature that wants power. We see it even in our small children. They try to wield power over each other in their squabbling; they try to wield power over parents with tantrums. Men desire power, and the desire for power is very destructive. This is the subject of Tolkien’s epic masterpiece Lord of the Rings. Women desire to have power and influence too. There is an awful lot of truth in the old saying “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”.

From creation, God gave power and authority to mankind. He made man in is image and gave him dominion over creation. But the problem arose when man and woman wanted more authority than God had given them.

They had been given authority over the created world, but there was just one prohibition. There was one tree whose fruit they must not eat. But they wanted that fruit and took and ate it. As a result all was spoilt. They were now living in a fallen world. They no longer had dominion over it. “Cursed is the ground because of you,” God told Adam. “It will produce thorns and thistles for you.”

In the fallen world we see power and authority misused and abused resulting in oppression and cruelty. But Jesus came to put thing right. Jesus came to bring the good news of the kingdom. And in his teaching Jesus spoke of how authority was to be exercised in his kingdom.

Read Mark 10 v 42-45

The subject that features strongly in Mark 11 is the subject of authority. Jesus comes into conflict with the religious authorities of his day. There are lessons in the story for us about authority. We will draw lessons about authority from the four incidents recorded in the chapter.

Firstly, Jesus proclaimed his authority in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He knew the prophecy regarding the Messiah coming to Jerusalem on a donkey. In his arrival on Palm Sunday he was saying I come with God’s authority as your Messiah. He had come in peace. He had not come to impose authority as a conqueror, but come to care for his people like a shepherd cares for a flock.

He had come without an army, because he hadn’t come to impose authority. He had come to rule by consent, he had come so that men and women could freely welcome his rule. Jesus’ authority is the authority of love. There is no coercion in love. Jesus comes with an authority that God invites us to accept freely.

Secondly, we learn lessons about authority from the incident of the fig tree. In the final week of Jesus ministry when he had come with his disciples to Jerusalem for the Passover, they travelled out to Bethany each night to lodge. It is on the journey into Jerusalem one morning that Jesus goes to look for figs on a fig tree that is growing by the road. But Jesus finds no figs on the tree. Mark tells us that the reason for that was that it was not the season for figs. But Jesus curses the tree.

The next day they see that the fig tree has withered and died. Now often we take that incident to be an illustration of the fruitlessness of the religious establishment in Jerusalem. Time and again in the bible you find the idea that God expects his people to produce fruit, or in other words traits in their character such as love, compassion, holiness, a sense of justice. It is there in both old and new testaments. If that is the case, the incident serves to remind us that Jesus has the authority to pass God’s judgement.

But the account Mark gives shows us that there is more entailed than that. It is also another example of the fact that Jesus has authority over the entire created world. He can still storms, he can walk on water. When he talks to trees his word is obeyed. Jesus is one with authority and so the disciples marvel.

But then Jesus goes on to say to his disciples, “you too can have this authority. If you say to a mountain ‘move’; if you believe; it will happen.” Now Jesus was not talking literally about moving mountains. The Jewish rabbis used the expression ‘faith that can move mountains’. Jesus’ disciples would have known that saying and would not have taken Jesus words literally.

They knew that Jesus was telling them that if they had faith in God; then they would be able to overcome enormous difficulties. He is saying if you believe, you will have authority. Jesus is not saying if your faith is strong enough you can ask for anything you like. No, the important thing is whom we put our faith in. Jesus said to the disciples “have faith in God.”

I believe Jesus is teaching something very profound here. If we put our faith in God, if we accept the authority of Jesus and believe in him, then we receive back something of the sovereignty over nature that was lost at the fall. How do you look at modern technological progress?

Yes, there are some flawed aspects to it. But generally technological advance had flourished in cultures that have been influenced by the Christian gospel, spectacular advance in medicine, travel, and communications. When man with faith and in humble dependence on God attempts great things; man’s appropriate authority over creation is restored.

But that authority that Jesus promises to his disciples is linked to the values of his kingdom. In the same sentence that Jesus promises that God will answer prayer, he links the necessity for his followers to forgive others and receive God’s forgiveness. It’s only as we accept Jesus’ kingdom values of grace and forgiveness that we can know anything of the authority that he promises us.

Then the third incident that we will look at is the confrontation between Jesus and the authorities as they come to him and ask where his authority comes from. In a way it was a legitimate question. The chief priests, teachers of the law and elders were responsible for the temple and the worship that went on there.

You could even say that Jesus was off-handed in the way he responded to them. But they were already plotting to kill him. They were not asking a question that they wanted an answer to. They had already decided about Jesus and nothing would change their mind.

The chief priests and their associates are an example of people who abuse authority. When God sends his Son to those whose special task it is to mediate in worship between man and God, they crucify God’s Son. It’s a lesson all of us need to remember who have the responsibility for leadership in the church.

The chief priests had lost God’s agenda and were working to their own plans. They had a spectacular building for a temple, the had impressive organization, but the were using their authority to misrepresent God. The whole business had become burdensome to ordinary people. The ordinary worshipper was laden down with rules and regulations that were empty and meaningless.

Fourthly and finally we come to the incident where Jesus comes to the temple and stamps his rightful authority on God’s house. This is the place were Jesus is more forceful than anywhere else, in his zeal for his fathers house. Now the temple was a massive area, divided off into different courts or areas. There was the holy of holies, the most sacred place of God’s presence. There was a court for the priest, a court for Jewish men, a court for Jewish women, and a court for the gentiles.

God had called the Jewish people; his chosen people to be a light to the nations. The temple at Jerusalem was the place to which people could come from across the Roman Empire to worship the one true God. But it was a disgrace. Jesus called it a den of thieves. It seems most likely that the court of the gentiles was dominated by the pursuit of making money. Animals and birds were being sold for sacrifice. People were tramping through with goods to trade. Moneychangers were there to make a killing out of currency exchange.

Jesus showed his authority by turning them all out. “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” Jesus proclaims. The temple must be a place of prayer. God loves the world. He loves ordinary men and women and when they come seeking him, he wants them to encounter him in prayer and worship. The temple must be a house of prayer for all the nations.

That was not happening at the temple. Jesus in stamping his authority on the temple to put that right. What does it teach us? I believe it is a reminder to us, that when we meet in worship we meet under Christ’s authority. When we meet in his name he promises that he is present with us.

It is a sacred responsibility we have to not let anything distract or detract from worshipping and encountering God as he has revealed himself in scriptures, but above all in Jesus. We must never get preoccupied with anything else; be it money or activities of any sort.

We must never forget that God’s concern and care is for all, no matter what their class or race or age. By his authority this is the way it must be. In his love, Jesus invites all people to accept the yoke of his authority, and in accepting that find the freedom, the joy and the hope that comes from being God’s reconciled liberated children.

 

Amen.

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