Things Are Not What They Seem
March 29, 2026
Preached by Ben Bechtel
Discussion Questions
Jesus enters as a king—but in a way that feels underwhelming and even confusing. What expectations do people today have about power, success, or leadership that might cause them to miss Jesus in a similar way?
The cross is described as Jesus’ true moment of triumph, even though it looked like defeat. How does this reshape the way we think about suffering, weakness, or failure in our own lives?
The sermon warns against confusing religious activity with genuine spiritual life. What are some modern examples of “looking spiritually healthy” without actually being connected to God?
Ben highlighted faith, prayer, and forgiveness as marks of a fruitful life. Which of these feels most challenging for you right now, and why?
The idea of “abiding” in Christ is described as cultivating a relationship rather than performing a task. What practical changes might help shift your mindset from seeing “quiet time” as obligation to delight ?
The sermon ends with the image of people who look fine on the outside but feel spiritually dry inside. What are some warning signs that someone (or you) might be “withering,” and how can a community respond to that?
Scripture Reading
Mark 11:1-25
1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. 5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. 7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. 8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. 9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”
11 And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. 13 And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.
15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. 19 And when evening came they went out of the city.
20 As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. 21 And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” 22 And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
Every one of us in here has heard the expression “things are not always what they seem.” This is one of the tag lines for one of my personal favorite movies, Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. It’s a movie all about magicians and deception. Things are not always what they seem to be on the surface. This cultural proverb names one of the primary themes for Mark’s gospel. We are jumping into a passage from Mark this week, an account that records the events of Sunday and Monday of Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter. Mark has intentionally crafted his gospel to slowly reveal to us the reader that Jesus is the promised king of the OT, the Messiah, the Son of God. However, the people in Mark’s gospel, including Jesus’ own disciples, don’t realize what’s going on. Some miss Jesus entirely while many others mistake his kingship for that of a military revolutionary, the type of Messiah they wanted. Throughout the gospel, Jesus reveals himself to be the Messiah, yes, but a totally different type than what they had in mind, one who would eventually lay down his life in suffering service of those he loved. Things are not what they seem. And we see this theme come to a head here in our text this morning.
1. The King (vv. 1-11)
This story of Jesus that we celebrate on Palm Sunday, has often been referred to as the Triumphal Entry. But the question I want us to ask is what makes this entrance triumphant? On the one hand, like he does throughout his gospel, Mark clearly wants us to see in this story that Jesus is king. He drops little breadcrumbs all throughout the story. Jesus commandeers an animal to ride on. This was common practice for kings in the ancient world. Kings had the right to take whatever animal they needed. Notice too in verse 2 that this animal had never been ridden. An unbroken war horse was considered sacred and therefore especially fit for a king. And biblically speaking, maybe the most significant piece of evidence for Jesus’ kingly authority from this text is that he fulfills an OT prophecy explicitly about Israel’s coming king (Zech. 9:9):
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Matthew in his gospel specifically links Jesus’ action here with that prophecy. Mark clearly wants to present Jesus to us as the king Israel had been longing for.
But things are not always what they seem. Jesus is a weird kind of king. First, he rides a donkey not a war horse. He could have commandeered a Lamborghini of an animal but instead he chooses a Toyota Camry. One Bible commentator says that Jesus rides in as a king on a steed fit for a child or a hobbit. Not only that, notice in v. 3 Jesus tells this disciples that he’s going to bring the donkey back as soon as he’s done with it. What kind of king commandeers something and is sure to bring it back? And what kind of welcome does this king receive once he enters the city? Look with me at verse 11 and how this “triumphant” entry ends:
11 And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
If Jesus is the promised Messiah, they would have expected him to go right to the place of power and start to get to work overthrowing the Romans. That would have been triumphant! Instead, he goes to the temple, has a look around, and says I’m tired and it’s getting kind of late. How is this a triumphal entry?
Mark’s narrative drips with irony here. He wants to show those of us with eyes to see that in this humble pilgrim entering the city, the promised king comes to his people. Despite this anti-climactic entrance, this is the king coming to take his throne. You see, in this way his entrance prefigures his cross. On the cross things were not what they seemed. There hung what many probably thought was a failed revolutionary, a failed Messiah. But the cross was the very place of Jesus’ triumph. The cross was the throne upon which this Messiah sat, dying for the sins of the world. His moment of greatest weakness was his triumph where he was crowned king. Palm Sunday prefigures Good Friday.
Friends, the lives of the king’s subjects look just like his. Jesus’ entrance prefigures not only his cross but our Christian lives as well. The message of Christianity looks like foolishness to the world. Living a cross-shaped life of sacrificial generosity, service for those society has rejected, self-giving love, repentance, prayer, and submission to God’s word look weak on the outside. They look about as silly as the humble king riding in on a donkey! They seem about as foolish as the Roman centurion who cries out while Jesus dies in humiliation on the cross “truly this is the Son of God” (Mark 15:39). But in these seemingly humble things you triumph as you walk in the way of the cross like your savior. Paul puts it beautifully in a passage you all are familiar with as you’ve been preaching through 2 Corinthians (2 Cor. 4:8-11):
8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
Things are not what they seem. Do not lose heart! Even though the Christian life so often feels like defeat, as you follow Jesus in faith you are triumphing just like your Savior in his entrance and on his cross.
2. The Temple (vv. 12-21)
This story is so weird. Right? For starters, what’s Jesus doing with the fig tree? Did he just get hangry and lash out at this innocent little tree? This is not a good PR move for Jesus if so. Well, this isn’t going to help your hanger, but what we have here is a good old Markan sandwich. Throughout his gospel, Mark uses a literary device called a Markan sandwich, where he will sandwich one story in the middle of two similar, parallel stories. The meat, the story in the middle, helps us make sense of the bread, the stories on the outside. So, a good place to start for us if we’re going to understand the fig tree, the bread, we must first understand the temple story, the meat of the sandwich.
What exactly was going on in the temple as Jesus and his disciples arrive? First of all, we need to understand something about the architecture of the temple. On the outside of the temple was the court of the Gentiles, the part of the temple where non-Jewish people could come to worship. In between that part of the temple and the rest was a thick wall with these words inscribed on it: “No foreigner may enter within the railing and enclosure that surround the Temple. Anyone apprehended shall have himself to blame for his consequent death.” This Gentile court was precisely where the Jewish people had set up this market. This market was massive in scope. The ancient historian Josephus tells us that some 255,000 animals were bought and sold in this temple market. Now, in and of itself this market wasn’t a bad thing. People were travelling a long distance, and it would have been a pain to bring animals to sacrifice all that way. This buying and selling in and of itself wasn’t why Jesus got upset. He got upset because with this market they were excluding Gentiles from the worship of God! The first OT quotation from v. 17 comes from Is. 56 where it promises a day when Gentiles will fully be included in the worship and prayer of God—“I will make my house a house of prayer for all nations.” Yet the people of Jesus’ day have essentially excluded the Gentiles from worship through this massive temple market.
Friends, Christianity does not belong to one ethnic group, one nationality or national identity. Despite what some are saying in our world today, the Christian faith does not belong to white Europeans. God is building a worldwide house of prayer made up of people from every ethnicity and language. Jesus was zealous for this! So we should be too.
But that’s not the only reason Jesus gets upset here. The other OT quotation here—“you have made [my house] a den of thieves”—comes from Jeremiah 7. In this passage that Jesus hyperlinks back to, God brings a word of judgment against the people. Essentially, God judges the people for using the temple like a religious talisman. The Jewish people thought that since they had the temple, this always meant God was on their side. So God comes to them in Jeremiah 7 and says “you are perpetuating injustice, sacrificing to and worshipping other gods! And you think I am on your side because of some temple?” Jesus draws on this text here in Mark 11 as if to say this same judgment applies here too. You think you have God’s favor because you have this building, because you’re busy with religious activity? That means nothing if you don’t have a real life with God, if you don’t have obedience and justice.
In this story, Jesus takes up the role of the prophet who enacts judgment against the temple. Prophets did this all the time—they played out their message in the form of signs. That’s what Jesus is doing here. He’s stopping the entire sacrificial system for a few moments to signify that the temple was being brought under God’s judgment for the nation’s lack of true spiritual life. Do you see the irony and tragedy Mark is laying on thick for them? They’re running around crazy at the temple doing things for God all the while the true temple of God, the ultimate place where God dwells with his people, is standing right in front of them in Jesus!
Things were not what they seemed to be at the temple. Israel seemed to be a nation busy with the things of God—journeying to the temple and making sacrifices—but they actually had no substance to their relationship with God. And the fig tree was a parable of this. Israel should have had the fruit of real life with God on her tree. Of all the places on earth where there should have been fruit it’s the temple, the place where the presence of God dwelled! And yet it was a barren tree. Friends, the same is true so often for our lives and of the church. We so often confuse a life of bustling religious activity with the fruit of real life with God. We so often mistake religious busyness with spiritual vitality. But as it was with the temple it so often is with our lives—things are not what they seem.
Are things what they seem in your life? For those of you who are busy with God-adjacent stuff, with religious activity like church and CG attendance, Bible studies, reading Christian books and podcasts, are you mistaking that for the fruit of life with God? Are you mistaking those things for a real prayer life, generosity, service, sacrificial love for your spouse or neighbor—the true fruit of relationship with God in Jesus? Are you so busy doing things for God that you confuse this for life with God?
Another related question: do you have a version of the temple in your life, some type of religious talisman, that assures you that God is on your side and you’re in the right? It’s so easy for these types of things to pop up in our hearts. Maybe it’s how much you serve this church, maybe it’s holding what you deem are the correct political and social views, maybe it’s having good doctrine, or your church attendance, or being a better parent than others to whom you compare yourself—do you have some religious thing that as long as you’re busy with that or have that reassures you that you’re good with God?
Jesus is not after the external trappings of religiosity. He’s after your heart and your life.
Conclusion: The Fig Tree
And we see Jesus say this positively in the final verses of this text. If the temple shows us a people marked by religious activity without spiritual life, what does true spiritual life look like? Let’s read vv. 22-25 again so they’re fresh in our minds:
22 And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
Here’s the question I’m asking immediately about these verses—what in the world do they have to do with the temple and the fig tree? It seems like Jesus just drops that entirely and says alright now we’re going to do some assorted teachings on random aspects of the Christian life. It’s like Jesus just activated his X formerly known as Twitter account.
Jesus is not jumping to some random teachings here though. Rather, he is showing us a positive example of what an authentic, fruit-bearing life with God looks like. He’s showing us a healthy fig tree. And notice where he starts in verse 22: faith. True spiritual life, Jesus tells us, comes not from external religious activity, but simple, earnest faith.
Let me put it like this: you and I will never bear fruit for God unless we have a true life with God. All of our religious activity and busyness and good intentions will never quiet the ache in our hearts for the approval of others, or our incessant need to control every detail of our lives, or our deep need and drive to succeed at all costs because if I don’t succeed after all who am I. All of our religious activity on its own does not serve God but ourselves.
We will never bear fruit for God unless we have a true life with God. This is precisely what the apostle John has in mind where he famously records these words of Jesus in John 15:4-5:
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
Abide is one of those Christian words that can so easily get thrown around without anyone knowing what it means. Abiding is simply this—cultivating and maintaining our relationship of love with God through Jesus Christ. Abiding is like a couple inhabiting the vows they made to one another on their wedding day. Those are beautiful vows, but their marriage can’t simply be sustained on those words. They must actively cultivate a relationship of love. Abiding is getting the love of heaven that is yours in Jesus Christ down into the actualities and particulars of your life. It is to be connected to the source of life and vitality. A fruitful life with God, a life that bears fruit like earnest prayer and forgiveness (vv. 24-25), starts with abiding in Jesus.
Practically, this looks like returning again and again to God in his word and prayer. Our relationship with our “quiet times” is so messed up. For so many of us, we’ve perverted this beautiful thing into another opportunity to grade ourselves in religious performance. Some of us have become so frustrated with this that we’ve given up on quiet times all together. You’re like I’ve got 3 kids screaming and running through my house at 6am—how in the world could I ever have anything meaningfully called a quiet time?!
I think quiet times need a rebranding. The eternal delight of God for you in Jesus Christ is on offer each and every day when you wake up and open his word—that’s not a quiet time. That’s delight time! That’s a time of nourishment and life! How many of us go to sit down at a lavish meal and think, “well I just need to check this off my to-do list for the day I guess”? You’d be insane! Friends, the love of God that heals your wounds, forgives your sins, reorders your heart’s desires, and satisfies your soul’s eternal longings is on offer to you each and every day through God’s word and prayer. Abiding is delight! This is how you become a person of love, a person who bears much fruit in the world for the sake of others.
Let me say too, this doesn’t have to look like “coffee and the word” time. It doesn’t need to be Instagrammable. I know it certainly isn’t for me. God doesn’t care that you can’t read scripture, pray, and journal for an hour every morning—he knows about your kids or your crippling chronic pain that makes you take it slow! He’ll take 15 minutes of audio Bible and prayer. He just wants to delight in you and you in him.
We planted MCC about 2.5 years ago and started seriously prepping for it like 4 years ago. Sometimes being around church planters can be a discouraging thing. On the front end because they’re naïve and overzealous, and on the back end because they’re wounded and tired and burnt. I remember hearing all these stories as we were preparing to launch about how this guy almost lost his church, this guy almost lost his marriage. And I remember thinking “man, I’ve got to do things differently.” I’ve got to prioritize connecting to the vine above anything else because there’s some real occupational hazards with this thing. I’ve got to take prayer seriously—my prayer life was a mess before I planted MCC. I needed that to survive. I’ve got to take rest seriously, not just a day off where I sip a cappuccino, but a day of delighting in and communing with God. Not as a way to gain God’s love but simply as means to receive it—as a means to delight in him. I had this realization: I’ve got to prioritize abiding or I will wither and die.
Most of you, save a few, aren’t pastors or in full-time ministry. But the same is true for you. There are so many hazards in this life that threaten to dry you up and keep you from true life with God. There is nothing the enemy wants more than to keep you running on spiritual fumes, than to keep the script of your own failures (or successes) running in your head so you don’t run to God in desperate need. Some of you in here this morning feel like cut flowers in a vase. You are withering and exhausted, cut off from the source of life and joy. And here’s the thing—so many of you on the outside look like you’re doing great. You’re crushing it at work, you’ve got the house, a spouse and two kids, the 401k, you’ve got all of that and yet inside you are dying and burnt out. Things are not what they seem with your life.
Friends, there is good news for all of us worn out and weary people—you might say weak, wounded, and wayward people. Jesus offers himself to us today yet again. You do not have to play religious games anymore. You don’t need to keep up a charade on the outside while dying on the inside. You can be connected to the true vine today and bear much fruit. You can have a true spiritual life with God that brings delight to your soul and fruitfulness in your life.
