Sunday Sermon, Sunday September 20, 2026 - Gospel of Mark 11:1-11 - Then Messiah Enters Jerusalem

 After Jesus heals Bartimaeus He and the crowd continue towards Jerusalem. For our Roman reader, this is the first time he is seeing Jesus enter the city the center of Jewish worship of the One True God. The Roman has most likely heard of this Jewish God that delivered them from slavery under Pharoh in Egypt, and had them establish a nation in this land under David, and then Solomon, but that it did not last long, but the elements of that nation are still here, just under the control now of the Roman Empire.  Now the Roman has read of many coming from Jerusalem to see and hear the teachings of Jesus. He has seen the Jewish leadership who’s center of power is Jerusalem coming to interact with Jesus. So, when Jesus said that He must be rejected by the elders, and the chief priest and be killed. Frankly Jesus has been very specific about what is about to happen to him.

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles.”

Mark 10:31

What the Roman is reading here, that if Jesus knows all of this is going to happen to Him, and it is going to happen in Jerusalem, then why the blazes are you still going to Jerusalem? It would seem like the most sensible thing to do would be avoid going there. But Jesus is committed to this, this what seems like a plan in some way. Like He is going there to actually fulfill a purpose, and that purpose is His death? Why? Well, our Roman reader would remember this of what Jesus said.

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:45

Is this the purpose of His death, this ransom? That seems to make sense, but who is the ransom being paid too? So many questions our Roman reader has, but Jesus has not changed course, He continues on to Jerusalem, to what seems is a certain death, and Jesus seems ok with that. Strange is it not.

Mark 11:1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples

Mark 11:2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it.

Mark 11:3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’”

Now Jesus is just on the outskirts of the city, a grove of olive trees known as the Mount of Olives, and it is here that Jesus sets up His base camp for the next several days. The first thing that is required is a certain entrance into the city. Now Mark leaves out a lot of details here, that we will need to fill in for our Roman reader. One how does Jesus know that there is this colt in this village just ahead. See during this time, most cities themselves were walled forts, and most of the people lived outside of the walls in small villages. If an attack came everyone would seek safety within the walls of the city. So from the Mount of Olive is one of these villages, and in that village is a tied up colt. Now the Roman may think that this is a young horse, but in fact it is a donkey. Horses were rare in Israel, and the primary method of animal travel would be a donkey. And this donkey seems to be the property of some other person, but that person is willing to lend it out. But Jesus knows that the donkey is there, He knows that the donkey is available, and He knows that the donkey has never been ridden. This seems like a lot of detail for a guy who just came into town. But hey maybe Jesus set all of this up? Maybe he had arranged for this a long time ago? Is that possible? Not really, how would he had really known that the colt had never need ridden, and the person could have gotten a better deal than the one Jesus offered to use the colt. To many variables in play for Jesus to have set this up, this seems to be knowledge that only God could have, seeing things from a far, knowing things about a creature.

Mark 11:4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it.

Mark 11:5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?”

Mark 11:6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.

So everything Jesus said was so, there was a colt, it was in the village not far from the entrance, they united it, when they did some asked them they told him what Jesus had said and they allowed them to go on his way. When the disciples came with said colt there must have been more than a few surprised looks from the crowd that had been following Jesus. And they knew what the significant of this moment was. They knew of the Messianic prophecies

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Zechariah 9:9

While Mark does not recorded the meaning of this because of who he is writing to, the Roman reader is asking himself, why? Why this colt, what is it needed for?

Mark 11:7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.

Mark 11:8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.

Mark 11:9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

So they bring the colt to Jesus and they place their coats on top of the colt, and Jesus gets on and rides the colt into the city, and while He is riding in, people are throwing their cloaks in the road for the colt to walk over, and if they do not have cloaks, they take branches that have lots of leaves on them, and they throw those in the road, in as so much that the animal’s feet do not touch the ground as it enters the city. And as Jesus is walking into the city the crowd who had been following, walks in front of and behind Jesus shouting Hosanna Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. This Hosanna’s meaning? Save Now it was not a celebration it was a command.

Now the Roman reader does not fully understand what is taking place here, but here is one thing he knows for sure. The Roman, has seen more that his fair share of leaders enter the city of Rome to the cheers of the people, whether it be a general who won a great victory, or a political leader like the Caesar, men have entered Rome to much fanfare. So that part he understands, Jesus is being celebrated as some sort of hero, or leader. Now normally people do not go out of their way to celebrate a great teacher or one who does lots of miracles they tend to just want to use them for knowledge and healing, but celebration of this size is normally given to political or military leaders. Jesus is neither, from all accounts.

But, He has had run ins with the Jewish leadership, and some believe that He is the Messiah, the one who has come to free them from Roman oppression. Is He that Messiah well this crowd thinks so, hence why they are cheering. How can we gather that well the next verse seems to indicate that.

Mark 11:10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

Remember that Blind Bartimaeus called Jesus Son of David, the Messianic title of royalty. These people are cheering about a kingdom that has long ago stopped functioning, and yet they are cheering for this Jesus, this Son of David. Is He the one that is going to set them free? The crowd is hoping for that, they want to be their own people again, controlling their own destiny, but that is not God’s plan.

Mark 11:11 And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

After Jesus enters the city and most of the crowd breaks away, Jesus goes to the temple, it is late in the day, He most likely is going there to do two things.

One is to see the layout. The temple was to have a purpose to be a place by which man can reach God. But there are things there, that should not be, and there is something there that is not.

What is there that should not be? Tables that are used for commerce the selling of birds and animals for people to sacrifice. The selling is not a problem, it was where it was being sold, within the walls of the temple. There was also money exchanging, a practice of having Roman coinage but needing temple coins to pay their temple tax, one could not pay the temple tax with a pagan culture coin, so you needed to exchange that Roman coin for a temple coin, of course for a small fee. Both of these programs were overseen by the Jewish leadership who were no doubt getting their cut of the profits. Jesus is not just looking at tables, he is looking at how corruption has entered the house of God.

What was not there that should have been? The Ark of the Covenant. At some point the Ark was taken and not returned. Many of the treasures of the temple would be returned after the exile by the Persians but some were not, because they had been destroyed, had the gold melted down for the Babylonian king. Jeremiah remarks that he Ark is something that should never be rebuilt.

“And when you have multiplied and been fruitful in the land, in those days, declares the LORD, they shall no more say, “The ark of the covenant of the LORD.” It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again.” Jeremiah 3:16

The focus of the temple itself was the Ark, and now the Ark is not there, and Jeremiah says that it shall not be made again, well if you need to make something again, that means the first one is no more, and no it is not in a storage facility under the control of the US Army.

So the tables should not be there, and the Ark that should be there is not there.

But the other thing that Jesus came to the temple to do, was pray. Pray in the inter court Jesus would have come to pray. What was He praying about. The last three years, the ministry that he had undertaken, the healings, the casting out of demons, the rising from the dead, the feeding and the teachings. All of which has lead up to this moment, this week, now he stands in the temple in Jerusalem, as place that He purposefully came, not to overthrow the Romans, but to overthrow sin and death.

And at this moment, He is the only one who knows that, and so He prays, that others may have their eyes opened their hearts changed, and the strength to endure that which by the end of the week is to come.

A cross.

Darin Bracy is the pastor at Yorktown Baptist Church in Yorktown Virginia. He is a graduate of Veritas Baptist College with a BA in Ministry and a minor in History. He has a wife Stacy, two daughters, Ashlynne and her husband Justin, their daughter Harper Darin's other daughter Aftyn, and her two dogs, Eddie and Lulubelle.

You can reach Darin at his email address, Darinbracy@gmail.com and you can see his video content on YouTube – Basic Baptist Guy