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Mark 11 — A triumphal entry, a cursed tree, a flipped temple, and a trap that backfired
6 min read
Everything is accelerating. has been heading toward for weeks, and the tension has been building with every mile. Healings, confrontations, cryptic warnings about what's coming — his can feel it. Something is about to break open.
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And now they're on the outskirts of the city. The is right there. Jerusalem is within sight. What happens next is planned down to the last detail — and every detail matters.
As they approached , near the villages of Bethphage and , pulled two of his aside and gave them very specific instructions:
"Go into the village ahead of you. As soon as you enter, you'll find a young donkey tied up — one that's never been ridden. Untie it and bring it to me. If anyone asks what you're doing, tell them, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back right away.'"
So they went. And everything happened exactly the way he said. They found the colt tied at a doorway out on the street. They started untying it.
"Hey — what are you doing with that colt?"
They told the bystanders what Jesus had said, and just like that, they let them go. They brought the donkey to Jesus, threw their cloaks over it, and he climbed on.
Then it got loud. People started spreading their cloaks on the road. Others cut leafy branches from the fields and laid them down. The crowd — people walking ahead, people following behind — started shouting:
"Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!"
Here's what makes this scene so wild. Every conquering king in the ancient world rode into a city on a warhorse, with an army behind them. Jesus chose a donkey. A young one. One nobody had ever ridden. This wasn't accidental — it was a direct callback to about the arriving , riding on a colt. The crowd was rolling out a royal welcome, and Jesus accepted it. He was claiming the throne. Just not the way anyone imagined.
And then — this is the part people miss — he entered Jerusalem, walked into the , looked around at everything, and left. It was late. He went back to Bethany with the twelve. That's it. No speech. No confrontation. Just a long, quiet look. Like someone walking through a house they're about to renovate, taking inventory of everything that needs to go.
The next morning, coming back from , was hungry. He spotted a fig tree in the distance — full of leaves, so it looked promising. But when he got close, there was nothing on it. Just leaves. No fruit at all.
(Quick context: notes it wasn't the season for figs. So why did Jesus expect fruit? Fig trees in that region produce small early fruits before the main harvest — if a tree was leafy, it should have had something. All that foliage was advertising something it couldn't deliver.)
"May no one ever eat fruit from you again."
His heard him say it. And at the time, it probably seemed strange — maybe even unfair. Why curse a tree? But Mark is doing something brilliant here. He's sandwiching this story around what happens next, because the fig tree isn't really about a fig tree. It's about something much bigger that's also full of leaves and no fruit.
They arrived in . walked into the . And this time, he didn't just look around.
He started driving out the people who were buying and selling in the temple courts. He overturned the tables of the money-changers. He knocked over the seats of the people selling pigeons. He shut the whole operation down — wouldn't even let people carry merchandise through the temple as a shortcut.
Then he started teaching, and this is what he said:
"Doesn't Scripture say, 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you've turned it into a hideout for thieves."
Think about what was happening. The temple was supposed to be the one place on earth where anyone — including — could come and encounter God. Instead, the religious establishment had turned the outer courts into a marketplace. Need to exchange your foreign currency for temple coins? There's a fee. Need to buy an approved animal for your ? Marked up. The system that was supposed to welcome people into God's presence had become a toll booth.
Jesus wasn't having a bad day. He was furious on behalf of every person who came looking for God and found a business instead.
The chief and heard about it. And they started looking for a way to kill him. Not because he was wrong — but because they were afraid. The whole crowd was captivated by his teaching, and the people in power could feel their grip slipping.
When evening came, Jesus and his left the city.
The next morning, they passed the fig tree again. stopped in his tracks:
"Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed — it's completely dead. Withered all the way to the roots."
Now the sandwich comes together. A tree that looked alive but had no fruit — dead overnight. A that looked magnificent but had lost its purpose — about to face the same . had been looking for fruit in both places, and both were nothing but a show.
But instead of explaining the symbolism, Jesus pivoted to something his needed even more:
"Have Faith in God. I'm telling you the truth — if anyone says to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and doesn't doubt in their heart but believes it will happen, it will be done for them.
So I tell you: whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you've already received it, and it will be yours.
And when you stand praying — if you have anything against anyone, forgive them. So that your Father in heaven will also forgive you."
Don't rush past that last part. Jesus linked and in the same breath. You can't have full access to one while refusing the other. The kind of that moves mountains isn't just about confidence — it's about a heart that's clear. No grudges blocking the signal. No bitterness clogging the line between you and God. You want your prayers to have power? Start by letting go of the thing you've been holding against someone.
They went back to . was walking through the when the heavy hitters showed up: chief , , — the whole . They came with a question designed to corner him:
"By what authority are you doing all this? Who gave you the right?"
It's a brilliant trap. If Jesus says "God gave me this authority," they'll charge him with . If he says "I'm doing this on my own," the crowd loses interest. Either way, they win.
But Jesus didn't walk into it. He walked through it:
"I'll ask you one question. Answer me, and I'll tell you where my authority comes from. John's Baptism — was it from heaven, or was it a human invention? Answer me."
Now watch them panic. They huddled up and started calculating:
"If we say 'from heaven,' he'll say, 'Then why didn't you believe him?' But if we say 'from humans'..."
They couldn't finish the sentence. The crowd loved . Everyone considered him a genuine . Saying his ministry was just a human thing would have turned the whole crowd against them.
So they gave the only answer left to them:
"We don't know."
And Jesus said:
"Then I'm not telling you where my authority comes from either."
Catch that? The most powerful religious leaders in the nation came to publicly discredit Jesus, and he turned it around so cleanly that they were the ones who looked foolish. He didn't dodge the question — he exposed that they weren't interested in truth. They were interested in control. And when the truth threatened their position, they'd rather say "we don't know" than admit what everyone else already knew. That kind of calculated ignorance might protect your reputation for a while. But it won't protect you from what's coming.