Truth Be Known

 

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

TRUTH BE KNOWN

Mark 11:27-33

27 They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. 28 "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you authority to do this?" 29 Jesus replied, "I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 30 John's baptism — was it from heaven, or from men? Tell me!"  31 They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Then why didn't you believe him?' 32 But if we say, 'From men' . . . ." (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.) 33 So they answered Jesus, "We don't know." Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things." 

NIV

The truth be known is the theme of this narrative. Although Jesus had all the authority to heal people, to do miracles, and to even raise people from the dead, the Pharisees did not want to acknowledge the truth about him. Non-believers will find anything or question everything regarding the authority of Jesus so as to not acknowledge that he is the Son of God, that, in fact, He is God. These Chief priests, who are supposed to be honoring and serving God in the temple and the teachers of the law who are supposed to be fully versed in all of scripture, including all the prophets who speak directly about the Messiah and reveal who Jesus is, and the elders who are supposed to be the senior Sanhedrin members all refuse to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, the long-awaited Savior of Israel. It would appear, as we have been revealed to before that they did not want anyone taking their power over the people away from them and Jesus was gaining more and more influence over the people and so these false leaders, who were only in for the power, and prestige hated Jesus and wanted him dead. It is amazing how power can corrupt even the most well-intentioned, when given that power and honor that comes with the position. Truth holds no honor among types like these three groups Mark tells us about here. So Jesus, knowing their intent to dishonor him, to trap him into something they can then accuse him of speaking against God, uses the truth to trap them instead. They could not bring themselves to even deal with the truth because as they considered it, because of their greed for power and control over the people, they would not answer with anything other than “We don’t know”. The question we should be asking internally is if we would rather ignore, or not want to acknowledge certain truths, in order to maintain control over our own lives. Sure, we acknowledge Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and that mainly maybe because we cannot save ourselves, and we want to go to heaven when we die. But what about all the truths within the scripture? We have dealt with so many that are centered on faith, around believing everything Jesus said, as well as all the inspired epistles. How much of the truth from the word of God are we actually applying in our lives? Just the simple things like accepting His rest, His peace, and His joy are at times difficult as we face various aspects of life. However, what we have to consider is how much of the truth do we want to set aside so that we can make our own choices, pursue our own agendas, or our own passions? What we should be doing is looking into the scriptures and allowing the truth to be known.