Immerse: Messiah - Flipbook - Page 292
280
IMMERSE
•
MESSIAH
11:3-23
Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks, ‘What are you doing?’ just say,
‘The Lord needs it and will return it soon.’”
The two disciples left and found the colt standing in the street, tied outside the front door. As they were untying it, some bystanders demanded,
“What are you doing, untying that colt?” They said what Jesus had told
them to say, and they were permitted to take it. Then they brought the colt
to Jesus and threw their garments over it, and he sat on it.
Many in the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and
others spread leafy branches they had cut in the fields. Jesus was in the
center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting,
“Praise God!
Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessings on the coming Kingdom of our ancestor David!
Praise God in highest heaven!”
So Jesus came to Jerusalem and went into the Temple. After looking
around carefully at everything, he left because it was late in the afternoon.
Then he returned to Bethany with the twelve disciples.
The next morning as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. He noticed a fig tree in full leaf a little way off, so he went over to see if he could
find any figs. But there were only leaves because it was too early in the
season for fruit. Then Jesus said to the tree, “May no one ever eat your fruit
again!” And the disciples heard him say it.
When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple and
began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices.
He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of
those selling doves, and he stopped everyone from using the Temple as a
marketplace. He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will
be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a
den of thieves.”
When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what Jesus
had done, they began planning how to kill him. But they were afraid of him
because the people were so amazed at his teaching.
That evening Jesus and the disciples left the city.
The next morning as they passed by the fig tree he had cursed, the
disciples noticed it had withered from the roots up. Peter remembered
what Jesus had said to the tree on the previous day and exclaimed, “Look,
Rabbi! The fig tree you cursed has withered and died!”
Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth,
you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the
sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have
