No One Knows The Hour (part 12)

Looking through the synoptic Gospels and comparing the records that follow Jesus’ actions in the Temple and His being questioned as a result of those actions, one is forced to notice similarities and differences.  As has been seen, Matthew reports the parable of the two sons, the parable of the tenants, the parable of the wedding banquet, the challenge concerning Caesar and taxes, the question from the Sadducees about marriage the resurrection, and the rabbinic challenge concerning the greatest commandment.  From there, Matthew has Jesus proceed to offering up the “seven woes” that comprise the twenty-third chapter of his Gospel.  Matthew built on Mark’s account and traveled a longer path in the story of Jesus that he presented, and it must be said that Matthew’s account is the busiest of the three.   

Mark, which is generally understood to have provided the basis for both Matthew and Luke, does not have a parable of the two sons, narrates the parable of the tenants, lacks a parable of the wedding banquet, recounts the conversation about the paying of taxes, reports the question by the Sadducees, and offers up a memory of the question about the greatest of the commandments.  In something of an anomaly, Mark’s presentation of the exchange concerning commandments is actually longer than that which is reported by Matthew.  Matthew and Mark differ in their account of Jesus’ words, with Matthew’s Jesus saying “All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (22:40).  In Mark, Jesus does not say this. 

In addition, “The expert in the law said to Him, ‘That is true, Teacher; you are right to say that He is one, and there is no one else beside Him.’” (Mark 12:32b)  Here, the expert in the law quotes back to Jesus what has been said, which also informs the reader that Mark has another statement that is omitted by Matthew, in that Jesus here says, to begin His response to this man, “The most important is: ‘Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.’” (12:29)  This is the preface to the specific quotation from Deuteronomy in regards to loving the Lord with heart, soul, mind, and strength.  This is also a reminder that in Matthew, Jesus is not reported to have mentioned “strength.”  The man continued, conflating Jesus’ answers and the quotations together, saying “And to love Him with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” (12:33). 

Just in case it may be thought that this study was reaching a bit by calling attention to the fact that the section being called to mind with the neighbor quotation from Leviticus begins with mention of the peace offering sacrifice, and that this serves as yet another reminder of the setting---that being the Temple and that which takes place in the Temple, this response confirms that such was not a reach at all.  Beyond that, just to reconfirm the intimate ties between the Temple, the importance of the promised land, and concepts concerning the kingdom of God, Mark reports that “When Jesus saw that he had answered thoughtfully, He said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’” (12:34a) 

This final statement is also part of a fuller account (in this particular pericope) than that which is on offer from Matthew.  Luke omits this exchange concerning the commandments entirely, which is not surprising.  One remembers that Luke made no mention of the withered fig tree in conjunction with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, so it apparently does not fit with Luke’s overall purpose.  Following his report about Jesus’ actions in the Temple and the questioning from the authorities that He underwent there, Luke follows Mark by not presenting a parable of the two sons, and moving right along to the parable of the tenants.  There is no parable of the wedding banquet as part of Luke’s Temple narrative, though Luke does present a great banquet, with similar features, in his fourteenth chapter.  Following the parable of the tenants, Luke moves to the discussion about taxes, and then to the question about marriage and the resurrection.

No One Knows The Hour (part 5)

Here it must also be said that in Mark’s account in contrast to Matthew’s, rather than the withering of the fig tree being bracketed by Jesus’ actions in the Temple and a return to the Temple the following day in which He is challenged by the Temple authorities, it is Jesus’ dramatic actions in the Temple and pronouncement of judgment against it that is bracketed by the words spoken to the fig tree and the words spoken about and prompted by the withered fig tree.  It is then that Mark writes “They came again to Jerusalem” (11:27a), with Jesus being confronted with “By what authority are you doing these things?  Or who gave you the authority to do these things?” (11:28)      

So in Mark, the order of events is the triumphal entry that is accompanied by a trip to the Temple where Jesus merely looks around at everything (11:11), a departure to Bethany for the night, words to the fig tree the following day, another trip to Jerusalem and the Temple where He dramatically acts and speaks, another departure from Jerusalem (presumably to Bethany again), the disciples noticing the withered fig tree to which Jesus had spoken and doing so on the following morning on their way back to Jerusalem (thus prompting the previously mentioned commentary by Jesus), where Jesus makes another trip to the Temple. 

By way of review and contrast, Matthew has Jesus triumphally entering Jerusalem, acting and speaking in the Temple, departing for Bethany, speaking to the fig tree which produces an immediate withering and subsequent commentary on the fig tree, and an entrance into Jerusalem and the Temple where He is challenged.  Luke, by way of further contrast, has Jesus entering Jerusalem (for which He weeps while on His approach) and then speaking and acting in the Temple.  He is a bit more ambiguous in His timeline, as following Jesus’ recitation from Jeremiah he writes that “Jesus was teaching daily in the Temple courts.  The chief priests and the experts in the law and the prominent leaders among the people were seeking to assassinate Him, but they could not find a way to do it, for all the people hung on His words.  Now one day, as Jesus was teaching in the Temple courts and proclaiming the gospel, the chief priests and experts in the law with the elders came up and said to Him, ‘Tell us: By what authority are you doing these things?  Or who is it who gave you this authority?’” (19:47-20:2)     

All that follows from the twenty-third verse of the twenty-first chapter of Matthew when Jesus re-enters the Temple courts, until the first verse of the twenty-fourth chapter when Jesus goes out of the Temple courts and walks away, occurs without a change of scenery.  The same is true of Mark, as the setting does not change from the twenty-seventh verse of the eleventh chapter until the first verse of chapter thirteen. 

In Luke, the Temple is the scene of the narrative from the first verse of chapter twenty to verse thirty-seven of chapter twenty-one, which does not neatly change the setting, but simply breaks-up the narrative by informing the listener that “every day Jesus was teaching in the Temple courts, but at night He went and stayed on the Mount of Olives” (21:37).  For Luke, though Jesus embarks on His triumphal entry from Bethany, He does not return there each evening.  This helps to explain his omission of the story of the fig tree and its withering, which takes place in Matthew and Mark on the road from Bethany.  Throughout this entire section of the narrative, one must see and hear Jesus in the Temple courts, which provides a dramatic backdrop for all of the words that He speaks, along with the obviously Temple-related context for understanding His insistence that no one knows the hour . 

No One Knows The Hour (part 4)

For the sake of rounding out the Biblical picture, it’s worth noting what Mark presents in association with the fig tree and the mountain.  Mark reports Jesus as saying “Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that you Father in heaven will also forgive your sins” (11:25).  In contrast, and though clearly utilizing the Markan narrative to provide the basis for his own, Luke omits any mention of the fig tree or mountain, moving directly to Jesus return to the Temple courts and the challenge to Jesus’ authority that comes from the temple authorities. 

Though this study will not spill a great deal of ink with conjecture on why Matthew and Mark include the story of the withered fig tree whereas Luke does not, one could surmise that the appearances of the fig tree in the Matthean and Markan narratives, with both (Matthew most likely relying on Mark) connecting the withered fig tree with the mountain to be removed, could possibly have some bearing on the conclusions to be drawn.  Perhaps its appearance and correspondence to the mountain that is in view (the Temple mount, so it is both literal and metaphorical) is somehow linked to Jesus’ insistence that no man knows the day or the hour, which, as has been pointed out, is to be found in Matthew and Mark, but not in Luke.  Certainly, the fig tree did not expect to wither on that day and at that moment---it clearly did not know the hour.  

In addition, it is necessary to acknowledge and report the divergence in the Gospel stories surrounding Jesus’ triumphal entry.  An honest observer does not simply ignore these things and pretend that they are not there, though it is also quite possible to insist that differences in detail do not derail from the overall message of the accounts nor do the differences really present much cause for concern, primarily because the authors (and that world in general) did not operate with the strict, modern, western notions in regards to “doing history”.  Fluidity in reports were acceptable, as long as the major details remained intact, especially when any glaring problems could and would be corrected by the oral/aural community, which was often a far better guardian of stories in that day than was the written word.  

That said, Matthew’s account has already been detailed here quite well.  Owing to the fact that Mark is believed to be foundational for Matthew and Luke’s account, it must be said that it is Matthew’s account that is divergent, rather than Mark’s.  The divergences are accounted for by each author having slightly different goals for the telling of the Jesus story as received by their target audiences in the growing Jesus community that they want to achieve through the delivery of their accounts.  So even though each has the goal of setting forth the story of Jesus, each comes at it from a slightly different angle, which is perfectly understandable.  Honestly, it needs to be said that if each told the story in the same way, the world would have no need for multiple Gospels, and Christendom and the world at large would lack the rich and manifold witness to Jesus provided by these evangelists---not to mention their diverse perspectives and portrayals of Jesus that serve to provide a more complete sense and picture of the one that so many call Lord.

What are those divergences?  For Mark, Jesus does head to the Temple upon the occasion of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  However, Mark does not record Him immediately engaging with the buyers, sellers, and money changers, nor making His Jeremiah-esque stand.  In Mark’s telling, this takes place on the following day, which is also the day that Jesus speaks to the fig tree while on His way to Jerusalem.  However, in Mark’s presentation of that detail, and even though the fig tree may indeed have immediately withered, the disciples do not comment on this withering until the following day, which is when Jesus offers up His commentary concerning the fig tree, the mountain, and the need to offer forgiveness.  

No One Knows The Hour (part 3)

Returning to Matthew and to the day after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which took Him to the Temple to pronounce a symbolic judgment against it in the mode of Jeremiah (and for the same reasons), along with which He referred to the Temple authorities as robbers (for engaging in insurrection against the God of the Temple---an insurrection that will cause Israel’s God to bring upon Jerusalem and its Temple the same type of judgment that their God brought upon it by way of Babylon, which are the thoughts that Jesus’ words and actions would have stirred, therefore setting him at odds with the Temple authorities and the people, as also happened to Jeremiah), Jesus returns to Jerusalem and to the Temple, having spent the night in the nearby village of Bethany (the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus). 

On his way back to Jerusalem, Jesus is reported to have caused a fig tree to wither for not producing fruit.  This echoes Jeremiah’s repeated use of fig tree symbolism, and therefore becomes a clear allusion to the nation of Israel, which was failing in its task to be a light to the nations.  This withering of the fig tree also functions as an allusion to the well-understood curses of the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus and the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, which the Creator God (as Matthew writes from the post-Resurrection perspective of Jesus as the physical embodiment of Israel’s Creator God) promised to bring upon His unfaithful people). 

This causing of the fig tree to wither, for Matthew, appears to stem from the reaction of “the chief priests and the experts in the law” (Temple authorities) when they “saw the wonderful things he did” (21:15a).  Matthew alone, to the exclusion of Mark and Luke, reports that following Jesus’ talk of the Temple as den of robbers, “The blind and the lame came to Him in the Temple courts, and He healed them” (21:14).  In addition, there were “children crying out in the Temple courts, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’” (21:15b).  This is said to have caused the chief priests and the experts in the law to become “indignant” (21:15c). 

Those that represented Israel before their God were unable to celebrate Jesus’ entry in the way of Solomon as pronounced by Zechariah, they refused to repent when one who had been attempting to be a Jeremiah (and more than a Jeremiah) to the people for three years called them to account, and they refused to rejoice in what was a rather obvious coming of their Messiah (in the mold of Isaiah 61) and His healing of the blind and the lame in the Temple courts.  Little wonder then that Jesus spoke to and about the fig tree in such a way.  Matthew writes that “When the disciples saw it they were amazed” (21:20a), and wondered at what they had seen.  To their amazed inquiry, Jesus replied “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen.  And whatever you ask in prayer, if you believe, you will receive” (21:21-22). 

As these words are heard, one must not lose sight of the fact that Jesus is on His way into Jerusalem.  Matthew will move immediately to add “Now after Jesus entered the Temple courts, the chief priests and elders of the people came up to Him as He was teaching and said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?’” (21:23).  So the story of the fig tree and the words about the mountain are bracketed by Jesus being in the Temple (Israel’s God returning to Zion and to the Temple), where the legitimacy of His presence there is challenged by the Temple authorities.  This fact shall not be allowed to casually pass.  This makes the point that it is the Temple mount that Jesus has in view when He speaks about the mountain being cast into the sea.  It must be understood that it is the Temple that is central to Matthew’s narrative (along with Mark and Luke), and one must not lose sight of that fact while working towards an appropriate understanding of Jesus’ statement about the day and the hour that no one knows.