April 2 | Authority
Read Mark 11:27-33
“On whose authority?” These verses bring up a constant theme in Mark- the conflict over the apparent authority of Jesus.
Throughout Mark, we see Jesus’s authority over sickness, demons, the weather, and the teachers of the Torah.
So now, in the center of power and authority in Israel- the temple before the Sanhedrin- we get to this question of Jesus’s authority. The authority to do the things Jesus had done (forgive sins, drive out demons) could only come from God.
This was deeply troubling and seemed blasphemous to the religious establishment! They needed to ask Jesus about it. His question in return left them scrambling, because one answer would affirm that Jesus was in fact God (if John’s baptism of Jesus was from Heaven- then God actually did say that Jesus was His Son), and the other would insult John the Baptist and alienate the crowd (who loved John). So they opted for retreat. “We don’t know.”
What causes us to resist the authority of God in our lives? Is there anywhere we’re pretending not to know what God is asking of us so we can avoid it?
Today, let’s confess any place in our lives we are tempted to ignore or avoid submitting to God’s authority.