Why is this Week Different From All Other Weeks? 4.

This is the Week when, once and for all, the question of ultimate authority will be answered.

Jesus had already caused considerable controversy by doing real and imagined damage to the enterprises and images His society’s power elite had built. He’d even made a mockery of familiar symbols of power by mimicking its pomp and militaristic celebrity. Riding a peasant’s donkey colt, bearing no symbol but His own humble demeanor, into the City rightfully known as His, He would ultimately die the most barbaric death known to humanity. In so dying He would establish His Sovereignty over all Kingdoms and powers.

“By what authority,” the powerful asked, “are you doing these things?” “What authority do you have?” The question assumes authority. “Who gave you this authority?” This question presumes He, Himself, has no authority. Who then would give Him the authority to do these disruptive things? For someone to ask such a question is revealing. The questioner exposes his presumption that he has the authority to question another’s power. Jerusalem’s power elite had presumed just that. They’d taken for themselves the right to define and dominate the socio-religio- political culture of their time. Jesus was a threat to their house of arrogant hypocrisy. And so they questioned His authority.

He answered their question with His own question. A question with a scalpel. “Was John the Baptist baptizing with the authority of heaven or of men?” Touché! He had them. Their power was a wispy construct of image and popular opinion. If they said John was God’s man their hypocrisy – their self-serving acts of piety – would be exposed for the fraud that they were. If they said John’s work was simply one more human attempt to sway humans sentiment and allegiance then the crowd would rise up in fury against them. That they feared. Popular opinion was their treasure and their arsenal. Arouse that and the flimsy framework of their dominion would be trampled under the agitated feet of a mob.

By the end of this Week Unlike any other Week the futility of all power would be finally exposed. The crowd that sang His praises on His entrance to the City would cry for His crucifixion before the Weekend. They would virtually drive Him out of the City to die. Temporal power is just that temporary. Its foundations are whimsical and destructible. But Jesus would demonstrate a different kind of power. Paradoxically He would demonstrate it by mounting something more ignoble than a peasant’s donkey. He would mount a cross and die. Then, and only then would we hear the answer to the question. “What authority do you have?”

“I'm Alive. I died, but I came to life, and my life is now forever. See these keys in my hand? They open and lock Death's doors; they open and lock Hell's gates.”

The Lord of death and life is the Lord of all things

This is the Week when ultimate authority is established for time and all eternity!

What authority do you have …? Who gave you this authority?