11. Clashes in Jerusalem and announcement of the grand finale

After Jesus enters Jerusalem, Mark recounts a day when Jesus does practically nothing except a significant action. The evangelist mentions that they were in Bethany and in the morning Jesus and his disciples went on foot to Jerusalem. While walking, Jesus sees a fig tree full of leaves, approaches it to pick some fruit, but there are none. Jesus utters a harsh word of condemnation against the fig tree; the disciples hear and do not react.

In the temple, Jesus sends away those vendors selling animals for sacrifices. It is an act of aggression against the structure of the temple. It's not just about cleaning or condemning corruption. There is precisely the intent to challenge the temple, which had become a market, corrupted. The religious practices corresponded to buying and selling. Giving something to God to obtain something else from God is the usual commercial religious thought bargaining for salvation.

Jesus returns to Bethany at night after creating confusion in the temple. In the morning, following the same route, they pass near the same fig tree which was completely dry. The disciples point it out to him: “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” It is an important symbolic prophetic action. Jesus' word is efficient. It works against the fruitless fig tree. It is a prophetic sign that should make us understand the tragic validity of Jesus' word against the fruitless temple.

The problem is there. It is the problem of infertile religious structure that does not bear good fruits that God expected. Arriving in the temple, Jesus is immediately questioned by the authorities: “By what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority to do them?” They all had all the authorization to do this trade. And here begins a series of dialogues or controversies with the various representatives of the temple's religious groups.

Regarding authority, Jesus does not answer, but asks a counter-question: Why did you not accept John the Baptist? According to you, did his baptism come from God or from men? Those authorities are afraid to compromise. They don't want to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and Jesus, in front of undecided people who cannot take a stand, says that he does not answer them either.

And he tells the parable of the murdering tenants. An image cleverly prepared by Jesus because the religious authorities of the Jerusalem temple were wealthy landowners and they had many vineyards in Galilee; and in those years, there had often been peasant uprisings against their masters. They probably imagine that Jesus, with that story, wants to tell them that it is necessary to be patient with the peasants, that they have to help them, have to meet them and forgive them, even if they don't want to deliver the harvest. And facing the story of a vineyard owner against whom the peasants turned against, who have mistreated and killed the servants and after the owner sent their son, they killed him. Jesus asks them: “What then will the owner of the vineyard do?” Putting themselves in the place of the owner of the vineyard, they tell him harshly: ‘Those criminals must be eliminated. The master will have to punish them severely.’ And Jesus discovers the cards and reverses the situation by telling them: ‘You have judged well, only that you are not the owner of the vineyard, you are the rebellious peasants. The Lord is the owner. You are those rebels and you have shot yourself in the foot; you have formulated your own condemnation. You said they deserved serious punishment.’

Then the Pharisees ask him if it is legal to pay taxes to Caesar. It is a misleading question. If he says ‘yes’, he goes against the religious Pharisees; if he says ‘no’, it goes against those in favor of the government of Rome. And Jesus wisely says neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’, but being shown a coin he returns it saying to then: “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God,” that is, everything. Everything comes from God and the whole person must be His.”

The Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, ask for his opinion. And they tell him a joke story about a woman who had had seven husbands, and one after the other had died. And to follow an ancient rule of Moses, the brother of the deceased had married the widow and so on. At this point, they ask him –as if they had created an extraordinary story of theology– In the resurrection of the dead, whose wife will she be if the dead are raised? Seven brothers come to see each other who have all had the same wife. What do a family with seven husbands and one wife do? And they smile as if to say, ‘We have cornered you, Jesus.’ He answers decisively, ‘Are you not misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God?’ You have no idea what resurrection is because it will be something completely new and different. You think of transposition to another dimension of the same earthly life, but with the resurrection we will be completely new and the family relationships will be the same, but completely transfigured. And he mentions a quote from Exodus that God is the God of the living and not of the dead. “You are greatly misled.”

A Pharisee asks him what the first commandment is, and Jesus calmly shows him the coherence between the love of God and the love of neighbor; and puts these two projects together by quoting Deuteronomy and Leviticus to indicate how this is the right way. In turn, Jesus asks a question about Psalm 109, which begins: “Oracle of the Lord God to my Lord the Messiah.” Tradition attributed the ancient poem to David. King David presents an oracle of God addressed to the Messiah, but David calls him ‘Lord, the Messiah’. And Jesus asks why the scribes say that he is the Son of David when David calls him Lord. It means that the Messiah exists before David and is Lord of David, The Messiah exists before David and is the Lord of David. It is an important exegetical reflection on a biblical text with which Jesus shows not only his messianic conviction, but also the conviction that the Messiah is the Lord of David, not simply an inferior descendant.

“The great crowd heard this with delight.” Jesus sits in front of the temple treasure and warns the disciples: “Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets. They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers.” It is a very strong rebuke against these Jewish temple authorities. And a big accusation that Jesus does: to devour the widows' goods, that is, to use systems by those who seize the goods of the poor, for example, of a widowed woman, therefore, without social protections, without defenses that are exploited by this religious structure.

And just as he is speaking, he sees a woman throwing pennies into the temple treasury. In general, preachers praise this widow and say that Jesus compliments the woman. In fact, it doesn't seem like praise in the text. Jesus does not compliment the woman because she gave money to the temple. The whole context is contrary to this idea. Jesus is not absolutely in favor of giving money to maintain the structure of the Jerusalem temple and shows how this woman gave more than all the others who were rich, who put in from their surplus; instead, she already put everything. That is a concrete case in which the scribes devoured houses of the widows. If that woman put everything she had to live on, she did not eat that evening because she gave the money to the temple, and Jesus does not compliment her for that, he does not even scold her, but it is a complaint that he expresses in front of a religious structure that is like a fig tree full of leaves, but without fruits; and the harsh word of Jesus that sounds as much as a curse brings out that reality dry.

Immediately after, he leaves the temple. The disciples point to him the beautiful stones of the temple building; Jesus loses patience. For the umpteenth time, the disciples did not understand the mentality of Jesus. They are proud that the temple is beautiful, and one of them said, “Look, teacher, what stones and what buildings!” “Jesus said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? There will not be one stone left upon another that will not be thrown down,’” a formula similar to the one he spoke about the fig tree.

It is the announcement of the destruction of the temple and it is the beginning of the eschatological discourse that occupies the entire chapter 13, a particularly difficult text written in apocalyptic language, that is, revelatory, but with a particular genre in which catastrophic situations are shown. In Greek ‘catastrophe’ means reversal to change things from this to this, and Jesus prophetically announces the end, the quintessential catastrophic event. Which one? He does not say it is the end of the world. Jesus is not announcing what will happen millennia later; he is announcing what will happen in a few days: his death and resurrection.

The fundamental catastrophe is the death of Jesus and his resurrection. There is really a radical inversion of everything. The Son of God is killed, but the Son of God is risen. It is the annihilation that gives rise to novelty. Everything begins again. Above all, the eschatological discourse refers to the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. So, in a more distant perspective there is the announcement of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. It will happen 40 years later. The episode dates back to the year 30, and in the year 70, the Roman troops of Titus conquer Jerusalem and they will effectively destroy the temple, leaving no stone upon stone. Forty years later those words that Jesus had spoken are fulfilled. If Mark wrote in the early sixties, the Christians of Rome have the first announcements of that revolt that will culminate in the Jewish war and will end with the destruction of the temple. The Arch of Titus in Jerusalem, the Arch of Titus in Rome also represents the spoil from the temple in Jerusalem with the Roman soldiers carrying the great seven-armed candelabra, and it is built while Mark is in Rome, shortly after Peter's death. The drafting of the gospel become contemporary facts of the Christian community to which the gospel is addressed.

The third perspective is that of the end of the world. It is the last complete catastrophe. Jesus announces his death, the death of Jerusalem, and the death of the world, but he also announces his resurrection, the transformation of Jerusalem, and the eschatological novelty of the new world. The announcement of the Son of Man who comes in the clouds of heaven is the announcement of the Passover, of the resurrection. Then they will see the Son of Man, after that tribulation, which is the passion of Jesus, the sun will darken. It is what will happen to the death of Jesus. Then they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven.

And the last part of the discourse is an invitation to vigilance: "Watch, therefore; you do not know when the lord of the house is coming." And he makes a list with four schedules: “whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’” These four timestamps: whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. They give the plot of the story of the passion, which begins immediately after chapter 14, and is the fulfillment of the great story of the evangelist Mark.