GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 11:11
Divine Timing
Whenever I purchase another car—not always a new one—I like to raise the hood and look carefully at the hardware: the carburetor, the fan belt, the air conditioner compressor, and so on. For one of the later model cars I bought, I lifted the hood and searched for the familiar parts, but there was no carburetor. Then I looked for a distributor, but I could not recognize one. It dawned on me that my days as a—as the phrase goes—“shade tree mechanic” were drawing to a close.
A home inspection is much the same. People want to look carefully at all the details because, in most cases, they are making the largest purchase of their lives.
With the large crowd following him, Mark wrote, “And he entered into Jerusalem, into the temple. And after looking around at all things, the hour being already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.” (Mark 11:11)
Some translators believe the word for “looking around” (περιβλέπω, periblepó) suggests intensity, so they translate the phrase as, “After looking around carefully at everything.” (NLT) Whether or not the word “carefully” appears, this was a pivotal moment for Jesus. There is good reason to think that as He stood in the temple—where momentous events would soon unfold—he surveyed the scene like a commander assessing the strength of his opposition and his own resources before a decisive battle.
Jesus was likely surrounded by a large crowd that had just acclaimed him as the Messiah who would lead Jerusalem like a conquering king. Yet in this moment, he showed restraint—acting not like a warrior but like a thoughtful prophet surveying the decaying state of devotion within the temple courts, now filled with money changers, animals, and merchants. The hour was not yet right to cleanse the house of worship, for “the hour was already late.” Learning to follow the Father’s timing often demands restraint, patience, and careful observation.
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