Holy Tuesday: The Million-Dollar Question

Though Protestants don’t typically make much of Holy Tuesday, it’s a helpful way of marking time during Holy Week and preparing our hearts for Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

According to some interpretations, Holy Tuesday is when—after Palm Sunday and the cursing of the fig tree—the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes questioned Jesus (Mark 12; cf. Matt. 22:15–40; Luke 20:20–40) so as to entrap him. The topics included:

• Paying taxes to Caesar (vv. 13–17)
• Remarriage and the afterlife (vv. 18–27)
• The law of Moses (vv. 28–34)

To the untrained reader it may read like a series of disconnected discussions or a random Q&A after one of Jesus’ sermons. But the Jewish leaders in the passage are doing what we tend to do.

We all tend to bring Jesus our questions—questions that reveal our favorite pet issues.

Electoral politics questions. Foreign policy questions. Immigration questions. Questions of modern self-expression and identity. Questions about life on other planets. Evolution questions. Science questions. Substance usage questions. Sex questions.

All of these questions have a place, and Christianity is not caught flat-footed by any of them. Christians are people who are to be ready to give an answer (1 Peter 3:15).

But the Jewish leaders asked their questions “to trap him in his talk” (Mark 12:13). They were not curious about his perspective or desiring to apply his teaching to all of life; they were looking to catch him slipping up, to grab a sound bite of him saying something wrong and cancel him—to let themselves off the hook for having to listen to him further.

We can be guilty of the same thing in the way we interrogate Jesus today.

Some people’s spiritual journey is like a never-ending Joe Rogan sitdown with Jesus. “So what, rabbi, do you think about ayahuasca?” We bounce questions off the surface of Christianity like stones skipping across a pond.

Those who engage in such spiritual dialogues may seem sincerely curious, but they are “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). The problem is that we make our coming to Christ conditional upon whether he addresses our pet issues the way we think he should.

“I can’t worship a God who doesn’t accept my sexuality” or “I can’t believe in a God whose Scripture ignores what mainstream science says about evolution” are not uncommon sentiments.

But Jesus is not just about satisfying your curiosity or giving you answers. He also tells you the right questions to be asking.

On Holy Tuesday, Jesus turned the tables on his questioners:

And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly. (Mark 12:35–37)

Up until now the Jewish leaders had been trying to stump him. Here Jesus returns the favor.

Rather than chasing every rabbit trail they sent him on, he forces them to stare down the elephant in the room: Who is Jesus? Who is the Messiah? Is he merely the descendant of the great King David, or is he also himself divine—such that David, looking forward to him, called him Lord?

Whatever question is piquing your curiosity about faith—or preventing you from exploring faith further—it is inconsequential compared to the ultimate question: what will you do with Jesus himself?

A.W. Tozer wrote that “what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Jesus is not a longform podcast guest tucking and weaving through all manner of subjects to provide you with intellectual white noise.

He is the Lord who makes total claims on your life. He is God in human flesh, the One who alone possesses crown rights over the cosmos. Deal with him at that level, or you have not truly dealt with him at all.

Don’t be like the leaders who sought to entrap him—looking for an excuse to walk away—but like the great throng that heard him gladly (Mark 12:37), even when he made the most audacious claim of all: that he is the One alone worthy of all worship and devotion as Lord.