Saturday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, May 29, 2021

Mark 11:27-33

Jesus and his disciples returned once more to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple area, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approached him and said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority to do them?” Jesus said to them, “I shall ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was John’s baptism of heavenly or of human origin? Answer me.” They discussed this among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?”– they feared the crowd, for they all thought John really was a prophet. So they said to Jesus in reply, “We do not know.” Then Jesus said to them, “Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

“The chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approached him and said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority to do them?”  The Jewish leaders are responding to the Lord’s casting out the money changers and animal sellers from the Temple courtyard.  They pose an interesting question.  Since they are the authorities over the Temple, and the Lord Jesus did not obtain permission from them to do what he had, where did his authority come from?  The chief priests and elders challenge him in this way in order to force him, they think, into claiming to be the Messiah, claiming authority direct from heaven.  Claiming this would play into their hands, they assume, because they could then contest his claim with their own interpretation of the Scriptures, or by their counterclaim that the Messiah should be obedient to the chief priests.  In their eyes, this Galilean had attacked the Temple itself as well as their authority, and exposing him as a fraud would be easy once they had called his bluff.

The Lord does not yield to their scheming and will not give an answer that could be interpreted as a claim to be the Messiah they imagine for themselves: a military leader.  Instead, “Jesus said to them, ‘I shall ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.’ ”  He does not give them a chance to reply.  He is not asking  them to make a deal with him; he is giving them an order: “Was John’s baptism of heavenly or of human origin? Answer me.”  We note here that he has said twice, “Answer me.”  His order will abide no silence from them.  Now, they do not dismiss his order, showing that they lack confidence in their authority.  They do not ignore his order, either.  If they truly believed in their position as the rightful masters of the Temple and truly discounted that Jesus had the authority to do what he had done, they would have spoken very forcefully at this point, insisting that he answer them.  But they do not.  They feel compelled to answer him, thus acknowledging his authority.  But they cannot agree on an answer to the question he poses.  They are trapped between competing fears: “If we say, ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘Of human origin?’ – they feared the crowd, for they all thought John really was a prophet.”  The question Jesus tells them to answer is not unrelated to the situation at hand.  The chief priests and elders were trying to force him into declaring himself as the Messiah, but they and the people present knew that John himself had pointed out Jesus of Nazareth as the Lamb of God.  For them to admit that John spoke by heavenly authority would be to acknowledge Jesus to be who he showed himself to be.  Yet to say that John did not act by heavenly authority would cause a riot among the people, and most certainly reveal them to be unworthy of respect and authority.

“We do not know.”  But in truth, they did.  This answer from the very people who should have known substantially undermined their authority in the eyes of the people.  It also lay open to the view of all the corruption and incompetency into which the Jewish priesthood had fallen.  As St. Paul would say, speaking of the New Priesthood of Jesus Christ and the New Covenant in his Blood, “Now in [God] telling of a new, he has made the former old. And that which decays and grows old is near its end” (Hebrews 8, 13).  “Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.”  The Lord declares his victory over the chief priests and the elders with these words, and shows himself to be their authority, at the same time reminding them of who he was through the reference to John the Baptist, who said of him, “I indeed baptize you with water: but there shall come one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to loose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.  His fan is in his hand: and he will purge his floor and will gather the wheat into his barn: but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Luke 3, 16-17).

The chief priests and elders, with all their “wisdom” and “authority” were silenced and put to shame.  The people and the Apostles rejoiced.  We marvel at the authority of the Lord Jesus, to whom all power was given by the Father, and who will protect and save those who belong to him.