September 27, 2026
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Matthew 21:23-32
It was Monday. Just the second day of the week. Already, however, Jesus had created an uproar in the precincts of the Jerusalem Temple.
It had started the day before, on Sunday. Jesus had ridden a donkey into the city, and a crowd had gathered to welcome him with cries of “Hosanna!” “Save us!” Although most in the crowd wouldn’t have recognized it – very few people would have Zechariah’s prophecy about a king riding a donkey because very few people could read – they had given him a royal title. “Son of David,” they shouted. That was a very dangerous thing to say when the Roman Governor was in town.
Jesus hadn’t stopped there. He’d gone all the way to the top of the city, the summit of the mountain, where the Temple stood. He’d entered it, and he’d driven the moneychangers and dove-sellers out of it. He’d accused the Temple leadership of allowing it to become a place where people were robbed.
Then a crowd of people seeking healing had flooded in, many of them crying “Save us!” “Hosanna to the Son of David!”
The priests had urged Jesus to stop them. Why? Matthew didn’t say, but – right next door to the Temple was the Antonia Fortress, home to Jerusalem’s resident Roman legion.
So the next day, when Jesus returned to the Temple, the angry and furious priests wanted to know: By what right do you do these things, which threaten the peace of the city, which disrupt the established workings of the Temple, which disregard our authority which comes from the Law of Moses itself?
By what right, Jesus?
As Amy Frykolm notes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “There is a sneer in these questions: Who do you think you are, day laborer, nobody, know-it-all, rabbi of the rabble?”
(I rather like rabbi of the rabble.)
As Ira Brent Driggers writes at Working Preacher, “The chief priests and elders are apparently expecting the name of a teacher; a human association that will help them better understand Jesus’ actions. If you can identify someone’s teacher, then you can better grasp what they’re all about. More to the point, they are prepared to counter any and all claims to human authority with their own authority. At least as far as the local Jewish status quo is concerned, there is no claim to human authority that they cannot trump. They are the temple leaders.”
Jesus decided not to answer the question directly. He offered them a challenge. Answer my question, and I’ll answer yours. Ready? Here it is.
I’m surprised they fell for it. Their question was proper, legitimate, and immensely important. They had the authority to ask it. They had the duty to ask it. They had no need to answer any questions from a rabbi of the rabble.
So. First mistake.
Jesus’ question was: “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” John, you remember, offered baptism that, combined with the repentance of the person being washed, granted them forgiveness of their sins.
Washing had been for some time an important ritual practice for Jews, but around issues of purification from uncleanness. That wasn’t the same thing as sin. People became “unclean” in lots of ways, and rarely through any fault. Handling the wrong kind of food could make one unclean. In Jesus’ day, entering the house of a Gentile made one unclean. The response to these was ritual, not sacrificial. Sometimes they waited a prescribed length of time. Sometimes they washed.
When they wanted to be forgiven for a sin, for having done something that was actually wrong, they went to the priest, and they brought an animal for sacrifice – what animal was determined by the infraction and by their level of wealth. The animals were present on the Temple grounds so that people could purchase one there for sacrifice and avoid the problems of keeping one sound while traveling to Jerusalem. Those sacrifices supplied at least some of the diet of the priests.
A baptism for the forgiveness of sins was a problem for the priests.
Nobody had to bring an animal – or money for an animal – to John. John’s baptism was free (at least in money; let’s not forget that repentance can be costly). That meant that the merchants in the Temple didn’t get business, and they probably paid rent to the priests. Further, the priests didn’t get the meat from the sacrifices.
Do you see why a baptism for the forgiveness of sins might have been a problem for the priests? Do you see why, a good couple years after John’s execution, Jesus’ question was still a sensitive one for them?
On the one hand, few of them would have supported John’s baptism ministry in the first place. They couldn’t with honesty say that they believed God had authorized John to forgive sins. Remember – that was the job they believed God had given them. Matthew speculated that they also feared Jesus’ follow-up question, which they may have. Some among them may well have appreciated John’s ministry. In Matthew 3, we hear that Sadducees came for John’s baptism. Some of those Sadducees might have been in the group that challenged Jesus. Most of them didn’t. Most of them hadn’t believed in John.
So they really couldn’t say they’d believed God authorized John’s baptism.
But if they said what they believed, there were others listening beside Jesus. Those were the ones still coming for healing. Those were the ones who’d been shouting “Son of David” the day before. Those were the ones who had been the poor and the desperate and the outcast and the displaced. Those were the ones who’d gone to John the Baptist. Now they stood, rank on rank, behind Jesus. Lots of ones. Too many ones for the priests to say what they thought.
No, Jesus, we won’t answer your question.
No, priests, I won’t answer yours, either.
Even though it is the essential question of Christianity: where did Jesus’ authority come from?
Ira Brent Driggers continues: “For the church, then and now, everything depends upon the source of Jesus’ authority. If it is ultimately ‘from humans’ (Greek: ex anthrôpôn), then Jesus is really no different than the next charismatic leader (except for maybe his more pathetic death), and the church will be forced to define itself only as a human institution among other human institutions. In other words the church will be forced, like Jesus’ opponents, to compete against perceived rivals, reducing its mission to the quest for power, even if it purports to use that power for doing ‘good’ in the world.”
Christians have maintained, as you well know, that God was, is, and will be the source of Jesus’ authority. But where do we see that? What tells us that it’s true?
It’s what Jesus did.
In the story he told, Jesus savagely criticized the religious leaders of Jerusalem, priests and elders, for their failure to do what they said they would do. They were supposed to act not just as intermediaries between people and God, they were supposed to ease the process. They were supposed to guide and support the people as they sought to approach God. They were supposed to help.
Jesus didn’t think they were helping very well. He thought they were raising new obstacles rather than clearing old ones away. He thought they were enriching themselves at the expense of people coming to sacrifice. He thought they were maintaining their power and position, satisfying the Roman overlords, rather than advocating for the people in their care.
They were the one who said, “I’ll do it,” and didn’t.
In contrast, Jesus went and did it. He didn’t just give people hope, he fulfilled that hope. He healed the people that flooded into the Temple. He challenged the power-hunger of the priesthood. And when they came to arrest him, he stopped his followers from committing violence in his defense. He faced his accusers. He faced his judges. He carried his cross. He was crucified, died, and was buried.
That’s one who said, “I’ll do it,” and did it.
That’s what tells us that Jesus drew his authority from God – that he did what God directed.
Mind you, we have some additional confirmation in Jesus’ resurrection. Without that, I grant you, we might simply think of Jesus as a faithful martyr, which is quite a high title, but not Messiah. Anointed One. Blessed and Blessing of God.
Jesus didn’t answer their question with words. He answered it with action. He answered it with faithfulness. He answered it with his life, with his death, and with his resurrection.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches, so the sermon as prepared does not precisely match the sermon as delivered.
The image is Jésus se promène dans le portique de Salomon (Jesus Walks in the Portico of Solomon) by James Tissot (between 1886 and 1894) – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2007, 00.159.177_PS2.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10957468.