The truth has interesting properties. Those who submit to it are blessed: but those who resist it, are not only cursed themselves, they want to destroy the truth-tellers.  Whistle blowers are rarely appreciated.  In this phase of Jesus' ministry, He was announcing the end of centuries of religious farce, graphically predicting the judgement to come (Mark 13:2).  The power-holders hated Him for it, but the ordinary people were amazed at the authority of His teaching (Mark 1:22).  Jesus taught truth because He is the Truth (John 14:6).

Jesus had been acclaimed as King by the crowds (Mark 11:8-11); He rebuked the authority of the High Priest (Caiaphas had authorised the market stalls in the temple)(Mark 11:15), guarded the temple as the Levitical priests should have done (Nehemiah 13:22), and prophetically spoke of the multi-national and pan-ethnic temple of His church (Mark 11:17).  It was Jesus' intention to set the scene for the religious and secular authorities to find a common goal, His death (Acts 4:27).

The more the crowds recognised the authority of the Teacher, so the false teachers of Israel saw their authority ebbing away (John 5:16-18).  But the clerical elite were trapped: if they killed the popular Jesus, public disorder would threaten their carefully negotiated power base under the Roman occupation; but if they did not, their accepted powerbase among the Jews would disintegrate (Matthew 26:3-5).  So, they looked for a way to kill Him that would please both Romans and Jews - and keep them both in power.

Political scheming is no way to serve the purpose of God (nor are petty politics in the workplace), yet it has become the habit of our age.  Cries of 'Spin' and 'Fake News' have left many untrusting as to where the truth lies.  In the church, every such manoeuvre is a diversion away from teaching the gospel.  The astonishing thing is that the gospel is designed to be amazing, and when true amazement takes hold, we cannot see or hold anything else.  But at the same time, we must guard the church from false teachers or those who want to use the gospel for their own power (Acts 20:28-31).  It makes you wonder if those engaged in power-politics have ever understood how amazingly liberating the real gospel is.  The remedy is to repent, and then immerse ourselves in the teaching of Jesus - the amazement should refocus every other ambition.