Mark 11:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Christ and his disciples are on the way to Jerusalem. Luke tells us that Christ led the way at the front of the procession. He alone knew what would soon take place there, and he eagerly went forward to complete the work which he had come down from heaven to do. He is a Saviour who does not just send us, but who goes ahead of us. It is the last week of the Saviour's life, culminating in Calvary and the resurrection. Lazarus has been raised from the dead. He has healed two blind men.at Jericho before beginning on this road. He comes here from Jericho along the Roman road paved with great stone slabs and he arrives at these two places – Bethany, and Bethphage. The latter is unknown today: there is no trace of it; it has disappeared. It is mentioned here probably because this was the place from which the colt was brought on which Christ would sit for his entry into Jerusalem. They come near to Jerusalem on the Friday, and on the Sunday they will make their entry into the city with just those five days to go. This is now the last week of his life, the very end of his earthly pilgrimage. This event is recorded in all four Gospels, and so we may be sure that there is particular significance in the entry into Jerusalem. It is full of symbolism.There are many pilgrims on the road heading to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. There is also great excitement among the people, because there are many witnesses of the raising of Lazarus, and that's being spoken about everywhere. The people are, no doubt, full of questionings. ‘Is he going to Jerusalem? Will he not be taken and arrested?’ They know the hostility of the chief priests and the scribes and the Pharisees, but here he is. He's going first of all to make his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and we read here of how he sends two of the disciples to find the colt on which he will sit as he enters the city. They have come to Bethany six days before Passover (John 12:1), they have rested on the Sabbath, and now it is the Sunday before the crucifixion.We note the person of Christ. He was divine; he is God as well as man. He knows all things. He knows in detail what he is going to do. He knows the divine plan: how he will allow himself in apparent weakness to be arrested, ill-treated, humiliated, and tried; how he will go to Calvary. He will allow it all. He could have stopped it at any point, but he goes willingly to suffer and die in order to make an atonement for all who would be saved in the history of the world. He will bear in his own body on the tree the punishment, the eternal punishment, due to them. In a matter of six hours he will somehow do the impossible, and he will suffer and bear away that concentrated eternal punishment. He will experience the pain of separation from the Father, the agony of soul that no human speech can adequately describe. The wounds and the nails through his hands and feet, the crown of thorns upon his brow, all the insults and torture, and the hanging in the sun – that was by comparison nothing. The wounds from the lashings he had received – that was nothing compared to the inner pain which the eternal Son of God endured in bearing away the sin of the world. No passion film could possibly depict the tiniest fraction of what the Lord suffered and experienced and tasted for us, for those who believe throughout time.