Lenten Meditations from Our Parish Family
Beginning on Ash Wednesday, we invite you to journey through Lent with daily meditations written by St. John’s parishioners. These reflections offer honest, thoughtful voices from within our community—meeting us right where we are in this season of prayer, repentance, and hope. Meditations will be shared by email, posted on Facebook, and available as printed weekly copies at the church. Be on the lookout, and let these shared words accompany you as we walk the Lenten road together.
Tuesday of Holy Week
March 31, 2026
Mark 11:27-33
Chapters 11 through 13 of Mark’s Gospel are critical for understanding the significance of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Biblical commentators contend that these three chapters are a microcosm of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. In other words, we are given a glimpse into what makes Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection so unique and powerful in these three chapters. It is with this in mind that we now turn to Mark 11. In the first third of Mark 11, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. The second third of Mark 11 sees Jesus overturn the tables of the money changers and chastise the priests of the Temple for allowing such things to transpire in the House of God. Mark 11 concludes with these six verses, which show the religious officials of Jerusalem questioning Jesus’ authority.
We must remember when reflecting on Mark 11-13 that Israel was groaning for the Messiah and yearning for God to deliver His people from the burden of Roman oppression. Israel expected its Messiah to vindicate their suffering and restore God’s people to a place of privilege and blessing in the world. Yet Jesus did none of this. In fact, Jesus did the opposite of what many in Israel expected. Jesus did not violently vindicate Israel’s suffering under Rome; He died on the Cross. Jesus did not restore Israel to a place of privilege in the world; He chastised the religious officials of Israel and extended His love and mission to Gentiles. We can sense the frustration many Israelites were feeling in Mark 11:27-33. This is why they questioned Jesus’ authority. Surely the Messiah would never act like this? I understand the frustrations these religious officials felt in these six verses of Mark 11.
I’m sure we can all think of times when we cried out to God for help or for justice on behalf of the oppressed but became frustrated when God’s help and justice came in ways that flew in the face of what we expected or even demanded from God. It is frustrating and despairing when Jesus does not do what we think we need. The chief priests, scribes, and elders in Mark 11 have grown so frustrated with the way Jesus conducted His ministry that they convinced themselves that Jesus couldn’t possibly be the Messiah. I think that the question Jesus poses to these religious officials is meant to draw them closer to Jesus by making them think about Jesus and His ministry. As we see, the religious officials are blinded by their fear of the crowd and frustration with Jesus. I have always found Lent to be a time that Jesus draws us closer to Him by calling us to meditate on the ways in which He is at work in each of our lives. My prayer for all of us is to use these moments of apparent discontinuity— between what we expect from God and how God is at work in our lives— to build a stronger relationship with God. I pray that all of us pay attention to these moments of discontinuity, frustration, and even despair and choose to wade deeper into our relationship with God— even when we cannot understand the depths of God’s ways. The religious officials in Jerusalem shirked away from Jesus’ invitation to explore the depths of their hopes and fears, but we don’t have to shy away from Jesus’ call to us.
Even if we do not get the answers we hope for or think we need, Lent is a reminder that God’s love and mercy are far greater than any force present in our world.
Stewart Miller
