Mark 11:1-11
Introduction
In this passage, Jesus proclaims loud and clear that He is the Messiah, the King of the Jews. We also see Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled.
Bear this in mind as we examine today’s passage.
Verses 1 to 3
Jesus arrives at the Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem. From now on until the end of Mark’s Gospel the events that he describes occur over just one week.
Bethphage and Bethany are two small villages near to each other on the Mount of Olives. Bethphage means ‘house of unripe figs and Bethany means ‘house of sorrow’.
Jesus tells two of His disciples to go to a nearby village and get a colt that is tied up. A colt is either a young horse or a young donkey. We know from the other Gospels that in this case it was a young donkey.
At first glance it looks like Jesus is telling the two disciples to steal the young donkey. However, in those days the king of Israel was allowed to commandeer a beast of burden whenever he needed it. Therefore, Jesus was not stealing the young donkey because He was in fact the King of the Jews. He was simply exercising His right as the king.
Notice in Verse 2 that we are told that the young donkey had never been ridden. Throughout Jewish history nobody was allowed to ride the king’s horse or donkey. So, the donkey had to be one that had never been ridden. By commandeering a donkey that had not been ridden by anyone else, Jesus was telling the Jews that He was their king.
By commandeering a young donkey (colt) and riding it into Jerusalem, Jesus was fulfilling a prophecy by Zechariah. See Zechariah 9:9. This is one of a number of messianic prophecies that involve a donkey. Notice how Zechariah’s prophecy talks about the Messiah entering Jerusalem on a donkey. This is something that the Jews were expecting from their Messiah. By His actions, Jesus was announcing to the Jews that He was their Messiah.
Notice what Jesus says in Verse 3. Why will they let the disciples take the young donkey when the disciples say, “The Lord has need of it”? They will do it because to the Jews, ‘Lord’ means the sovereign one, the King of the Jews.
Verses 4 to 6
In these verses we see the two disciples doing what Jesus told them and it went exactly as Jesus said it would. What was remarkable about what happened was that there was a perfectly suitable young donkey tied up in the next village. I would say that this a miracle.
What can we learn from this? That we should do whatever Jesus tells us no matter how implausible it might seem to us.
Verses 7 to 10
In Verse 7 we see that the disciples put their coats on the young donkey to make a saddle for Jesus to sit on. Then in Verse 8 we are told that people put their coats on the road for Jesus to ride over. The coats formed a kind of red carpet.
The significance of the people putting their coats on the road was that it was something that happened in the Old Testament. It happened when Jehu was anointed the King of Israel. See 2 Kings 9:1-13. In Verse 8 of our text in Mark the people are acknowledging that Jesus is their anointed king.
In Verse 8 we are also told that some of the people spread leafy branches on the road. In John’s Gospel we are told that they were palm branches. Why did they use palm branches? Because palm branches symbolise victory.
In Verse 9 the people shout, ‘Hosanna’. Hosanna means, ‘Lord, save us now’.
What does verse 10 tell us about the people who were celebrating the arrival of Jesus into Jerusalem? That they were expecting Jesus to establish the millennial kingdom on David’s throne at that time. However, that was not what Jesus had come to do at that time. They did not understand that their Messiah was to come twice. The first coming was to save them from their sins and the second coming will be to set up the millennial kingdom.
Verse 11
Jesus finally enters Jerusalem and goes to the temple. What is odd about what Jesus did? The answer is that He went to all of the trouble of entering Jerusalem as the Messiah and all He does when He gets there is take a look around the temple and leaves. What an anticlimax. It sounds like nothing significant happened when Jesus entered Jerusalem.
So, why did Jesus go to the temple and look around at everything? The temple was the place where sacrifices were offered for sin. And the temple, through its structure and use, was a living prophecy of the Messiah who was to come. The temple replaced the tabernacle in which God dwelt among His people. In the temple, God was meant to dwell or tabernacle among His people. But now God was tabernacling among His people through Jesus. Jesus had become the temple.
See John 2:19. In this verse Jesus is talking about Himself. Jesus went to look at the temple of Jerusalem before it was to become obsolete. He was about to make the animal sacrifices unnecessary and He was going to replace the temple.
By going to the temple, Jesus was also fulfilling prophecy. God showed the prophet Ezekiel that in 586 BC, when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, the glory of God left the temple. See Ezekiel 10:18-19.
Then in Ezekiel 43:1-4 the prophet saw the glory return from the East to the temple. The Mount of Olives is to the East of Jerusalem. When Jesus rode on the young donkey from Bethany on the Mount of Olives to the temple in Jerusalem He was fulfilling this prophecy.