Sunday Sermon, Sunday September 27, 2026 - Gospel of Mark 11:12-19 - The Cleansing

 Jesus has made His entrance into the city as the Messiah, He made no attempt to hide it from anyone. The shouting from the crowd, Hosanna Save Now, deliver us now from the Romans, remove them, that is why you are here is it not? Well no, but they do not know that and our Roman reader is not sure what to think of any of this. But Jesus is now in Jerusalem and after going to the temple, Jesus heads back to the Mount of Olives to camp out for the night, and will be heading back at first light.

Mark 11:12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.

Mark 11:13 And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.

Mark 11:14 And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

Now our Roman friend is going to read this with a lot of confusion. What is the big deal, lot of trees do not have fruit on them, and they are not cursed and it is not the tree’s fault that Jesus is hungry, so what is all the hate about being directed towards this one plant? After all it is just a plant, if functions not like a person, it does not decide when it wants to bear fruit. And this Jesus guy, he made food appear pretty much anything, could he not make this plant productive? Or He could just kill it right then.

So, what are we supposed to take from this? One, Jesus is once again getting the attention of His disciples, when He suddenly stops and curses a fig tree they are going to pay attention. Let’s remember that the disciples get caught up on talking about themselves, rather that focusing on what Jesus is trying to show and teach them. Here Jesus gets there attention, by talking to a tree. Now later as they are leaving the subject of this same tree is going to come back, as they pass by it again on the way out of town, which shows that they were indeed paying attention.

For our Roman reader, if he would ask us, what is this all about, this cursing of the tress, we simply should answer that sage old advice, keep reading.

Mark 11:15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

Now our Roman reader is seeing a totally different Jesus, even when talking about His own death, he has never mention or shown any type of violent behavior, but now, he is running people out of the temple, the tables that they use to exchange money as we discussed last week, Jesus throws them over and the money which is all coins goes flying and the poor people in the temple rush cover trying to scoop up as many coins as possible and run out of the temple. There are bird flying, goats running about, it is nothing but utter chaos.

All due to this Jesus, before now has never shown any type of violent behavior, until now, the guy has snapped. Why? What triggered Jesus into walking into the temple and start smashing up the tables of commerce? Keep reading.

Mark 11:16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.

Jesus even seeks to restrict the carrying items into the temple as people are using the open space to buy and sell items, the temple has become an open air market and that is not it’s purpose.

Mark 11:17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

Look Jesus scolds people for simply carrying something in the temple, why. Well it is simple when it all stops to calm down, and the crowd gathers around Jesus to seek to understand what this lunatic has done. Jesus quotes from the Old Testament, once again, we are going to need to help our Romans friend understand what the purpose and teachings in the Old Testament is. We have heard from people today, that Christians today need to unhitch themselves to the Old Testament. Allow me to inform you that if you have unhitched yourself from the Old Testament, nothing in this verse is going to make any sense.

Jesus is quoting from the prophet Isaiah one of the great prophets of Israel.

“these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” Isaiah 56:7

This is the purpose of the temple, but it is not that, it has become a place where one can attempt to purchase forgiveness. Let me repeat that it had become a place where a person comes to purchase forgiveness. And the people selling forgiveness were the Jewish leaders. You see they controlled the temple hence they controlled who could come and go in the temple, and they controlled who could exchange money in the temple, and they could control people who sold the animals to be sacrificed. The Jewish leadership was enriching itself through this commerce that was taking place in the temple. The affect was that people believed that forgiveness of sin could be accomplished by purchasing the proper animal to be sacrificed, or by paying their temple tax. The purpose of the sacrificial system was that a person would lose something very important to them. Animals were extremely important to having the ability to live. So having to give up an animal as a sacrifice was a big deal. Well over time, rather than sacrifice their animals, they would purchase an animal and over time, people started to cheat by purchasing lesser animals that were to be reserved for poor people, well then everyone just started purchasing animals according not to their level of ability to pay, but according to the sin they felt they had violated. A bad sin, well I need to sacrifice a goat or a sheep, not just a bird. The sacrificial system had turned into a transactional system, by which people paid off their sins with money. Yes sometimes money is a sacrifice, but most of the time when people deal in money they want to most for less. The system was corrupt, and had been corrupt for a long time.

In 1 Samuel Eli the high priest sons took bribes as a way for a person not to carry through with a sacrifice, they took extra for themselves of the sacrifice and the grain offering. This practice was continued by Samuel sons as well, in fact it was one of the reasons that the elders of Israel would ask Samuel to give them a king.

But this is why Jesus says that they have made the temple a den of thieves because they had turned a system from one that called on personal sacrifice, to one of transactional sacrifice. And from there transactional sacrifice turns into transactional salvation. The thought that one gives something and gets something in return. Transactional salvation is easy to fall into, because out society is based on an economic transactional system, which there is nothing wrong with, but theology and economics are not the same thing. So we have to be extremely careful not to fall into that trap. And the trap is this, I do, I get. I do good works I get salvation, I do things, I it proves that I am saved. And then this moves into check box Christianity where we check off things to ensure that we are saved, or to earn that salvation.

Here allow the Apostle Paul to explain it.

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in¹ him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, Romans 4:4-5

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord Romans 6:23

Transactional salvation negates grace. Grace is the gift that God gives to the unworthy, but if you set your mind to make yourself worthy through doing and earning, then there is no grace it none of God and all of you.

And seeing Jesus’ reaction to this practice one would think that Christians would get a clue, that pay for forgiveness of sin was a non starter. And yet the Catholic church in the 16^th century started a practice called indulgences. indulgences which is a way to pay the church so that they will give you forgiveness. This is the reason that Martin Luther would write is 95 Thesis and nail them on the door of the Wittenberg Castle. In 1517. A certain catholic priest who was prolific at the sale of indulges crossed Luther’s path by the name of John Tetzel. Tetzel’s primary job was raising funds for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Tetzel has a saying that sparked Luther’s outrage

“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs”.

This set Luther into searching the Bible for Biblical defense for indulgences he never found one, but what he did find that salvation was a work of God, not a work of man, and that it was faith in Christ that saved one’s soul. This was one of the 95 issues that Luther wanted to discuss. Luther was not seeking a fight with the Catholic church, he was seeking a discussion on what he had found in his studies of the Bible and the practice of paying for forgiveness of sin.

By the way, the Catholic Church still does indulgences.

And the practice comes through those who practice prosperity gospel. Those who teach the God gives blessings to those who give this again is transactional.

Hence when Jesus says that they had turned the temple into a den of robbers, what was being robbed was not money but salvation.

Mark 11:18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.

What was so astonishing about Jesus’ teaching? He had simply quoted scripture in defense of his behavior, this is what most people did. What was astonishing is that he did this after he had already exposed himself as the Messiah, and now he is putting himself in the cross hairs of the the Jewish leadership, not only has he challenged their false interpretation of the Old Testament, but he has disrupted the entire system of commerce that is feeding the Jewish leaders income.

If you poke the bear you will get it’s attention. Jesus is openly poking the bear, he is challenging the system and the status quo. He has enter Jerusalem to the calls to overthrow the system, and now he goes to the temple, and does that, but not to the ones they thought. The people who cheered thought he would be going after the Romans, not the Jews

Mark 11:19 And when evening came they went out of the city.

Now for the second day in a row, Jesus has sought to get the attention of the Jewish leadership, first by His entrance into the city riding in as the Messiah was prophesied to do, and now He comes in on the second day and causes chaos in the temple, turning over table, chasing out the animals and boldly teaching of the evils of this transactional religion that the Pharisees have produced.

Now if you believe that this is all by chance, that Jesus is just winging it, please stop, there is a purpose in all of this. Jesus is seeking all the attention because in order fulfill the plan of salvation, the cross has to come by the end of the week. Jesus just doing his normal healing and teaching is not going to attract the ire of the Jewish leadership, but coming into the Jewish center of religious activity as the Messiah is going to get their attention. Now cleaning out the temple is really going to get their attention. So far so good, the path to the cross has been established.

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