S02-e01: Jesus Wins!

Introduction

The year is 66—three and half decades after the events of Jesus’s ministry. Florus, the Roman official holding the same office that Pilate once occupied, attempts to seize funds from the Jerusalem Temple treasury. After decades of mounting tension between Jerusalem and Rome, this act was the match that lit the fire which would consume the Temple just four years later.

This was Herod’s Temple, often called the Second Temple—a complete rebuilding of the one we read about in Ezra and Nehemiah from centuries earlier. After 80 years of construction, it was finally finished in 64. Now, just two years later, the new center of Jewish identity becomes the target of Rome’s greed.

The Temple treasury was a tempting prize. Funded by the annual temple tax, it drew in vast sums—tens of millions of dollars’ worth of silver each year. Far more than was needed for daily sacrifices or maintenance, these funds effectively turned the Temple into something like a national bank. It even ran a currency exchange, the same one that famously drew an angry rebuke from Jesus.

So when Florus made his move, it was as if a foreign power had raided the Federal Reserve. But this was more than an economic insult. The treasury was bound up with the freshly completed Temple itself—the holiest place on earth, the beating heart of Jewish faith. To raid it was not simply theft. It was sacrilege.

The people of Jerusalem rioted. The Roman garrison responded with a brutal crackdown, even attempting to storm the Temple itself. But Eleazar, captain of the Temple guard, defeated them and forced their surrender. Once the Romans laid down their arms, however, Eleazar massacred them—an act of treachery that violated the terms of their surrender.

Rome’s answer was swift. Cestius Gallus marched on Jerusalem with a legion, took the northern quarter of the city, and pressed toward the Temple mount. But to everyone’s astonishment, his forces were beaten back. Gallus retreated to the coast, suffering heavy losses of men and much of his supplies.

You can imagine the celebration in Jerusalem. This was liberation! The hated Romans had been driven out.

But of course, Rome was not finished. In the spring of 67, Nero dispatched an overwhelming force under Vespasian. His march through Galilee and Judea was devastating—village after village fell, the countryside burned. By the summer of 68, he stood ready to strike at Jerusalem itself.

And then, as if by miracle, the advance stopped. News of Nero’s death threw Rome into chaos. Vespasian broke off his campaign and returned to Rome. Once again, Jerusalem was spared—this time not by Jewish arms, but seemingly by an act of God himself.

It was in this moment—when it seemed to many that God was fighting for his people, when hopes for deliverance burned brightest—that Mark composed his gospel. He wrote for a small community in northern Palestine, a people surrounded by voices shouting that the long-awaited time had come, that every faithful follower of God must join the Jerusalem cause.

A cause that now had a champion: Simon bar Giora. Simon clothed himself in royal purple. He was welcomed into Jerusalem with shouts of acclamation. Some even said he entered the city on a donkey, while the people waved palm branches.

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Joanna’s Letter: 

Dear John Mark,

You may not remember me—my name is Joanna. We met nearly 40 years ago, in Jerusalem. I think back to those days often, when we would rush to your mother’s home because we heard that Jesus and Peter—and the Marys—were in town, and we knew they would be staying with her. We didn’t know then how privileged we were, but I had a sense even then that something big was unfolding in those rooms. 

My children and grandchildren know Peter well—not because they met him, but because I’ve told them so many stories. They always laughed when I described how we could tell Peter was about to speak—his foot already halfway to his mouth.

I wept when we learned of his death. That Nero would execute both Peter and Paul—on top of all those unspeakable things he did to our brothers and sisters—confirmed our worst fears: the world had turned against us. It felt as if the very pillars of our faith had crumbled. 

We heard reports that you left Rome for Alexandria. I pray that you will find welcome there. 

I write to share good news. News to restore your strength, and to give you hope. News that carries me back to those days in your mother’s home, when we first believed the kingdom was at hand.

In these dark days, when it seems that the light has all but gone out, God has done what only God can do. Twice now, Rome has been turned back—once by the hand of our fighters, and once by God himself, when Vespasian’s armies melted away in confusion. Does it not remind you of the days of Pharaoh, when the Lord sent confusion into Egypt’s chariots and Israel walked free?

He has anointed a man, Simon bar Giora, to restore the greatness of the kingdom. It feels as if David himself has risen, clothed again in strength to strike down the giant. The prophets said that in the last days the Lord would restore Zion and set a king on David’s throne. We are living in those days, my friend!

As you can imagine, our little church has been overjoyed by these events. We’re all caught up in this new thing God is doing.

It is time, my old friend. At last, the day we hoped for is upon us. Watch the heavens. The trumpet is sounding. Even in our old age, we may yet live to see the kingdom restored.

With confident anticipation,

Joanna

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Opening Titles:

This is—

Jesus for Sex Workers, Church People, and Me

A podcast hosted by Todd Austin

Season Two, Episode One: 

Jesus Wins!

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The Teaching

Come Down and Fix This!

There is a famous plea in Isaiah 64:

“Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down…”

It’s a prayer that just about anyone middle-school-aged or older can identify with. Sometimes a situation feels so desperate that the only prayer left is: God, tear open the sky, come down here, and fix this.

If you’re like me—and I’m a little past middle school—you’ve prayed that prayer more than once.

In these moments of desperation we are vulnerable. Vulnerable to attaching our hope to any voice or movement that seems to offer a way out of our predicament. Vulnerable to thinking that God is sending us this way out as an answer to our prayer. Vulnerable to embracing a solution without looking at it very closely.

Many of the great tragedies of history follow this exact pattern. A people desperate for change. Praying for relief. Longing for something better. And then a figure emerges—a confident vision, the momentum of success, the promise not just of relief, but of victory.

And often, they deliver exactly that. Victory.

At least for a while.

Then things begin to unravel. And when the false hope collapses, the catastrophe at the end is worse than the desperation at the beginning. Worse still, many lose their faith, because they tied that faith to a hope that failed—a hope they thought was an answer to prayer. When we see those Psalms where the poet accuses God of abandonment, this misplaced hope is often the backstory.

It doesn’t take much effort to think of examples from more recent history. Hitching our hope to a hero figure is a recurring pattern.

And there’s no reason to think this pattern won’t continue into the future. We’re not immune to repeating these same, very human mistakes.

So how do we guard our hope? How do we keep it from being hijacked by something that promises salvation, but delivers ruin?

That’s the situation we find at the beginning of Mark’s gospel. Mark is writing to a community of Jewish and Gentile Christians caught in the upheavals of their own time.

After the Great Fire of Rome in the year 64, Nero decided it was the Christians who were to blame. They were arrested in great numbers. Many were executed—torn apart by wild animals in the games, crucified, or burned alive to light his gardens. It was during this persecution that both Peter and Paul were killed.

It’s not hard to imagine how fervently these early Christians were praying.

“God, tear open the sky. Come down. Fix this.”

They were desperate for deliverance. And just as vulnerable to false hope as we are.

Like us, these were people who knew the teachings of Jesus.

People who called him Lord.

And yet the danger—for them, and for us—is that our vision of what God is doing in the world can become distorted. If we’re not being vigilant, our perspective gets reshaped by the cultural forces around us. We start to see God’s hand in human movements and events. We latch on to paths that seem to benefit us, to anyone who promises us relief, or, better yet, victory. And little by little, we lose sight of the work God’s actually doing.

When we’re living in desperate times, praying urgently for God’s help, how do we discern what God is doing…

and what he is not doing?

Mark wants to teach his readers—and us—how to learn this discernment.

Good News

Mark opens his gospel with these words: 

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God…

When we hear the words “good news,” or “gospel,” we usually think of a formula for how to get to heaven. A series of rules and practices, beliefs and expectations — drawn from that black box we talked about in season one — that will earn us entry.

But only if we live up to those expectations. Only if we uphold the standard.

We won’t rehash all the problems with that version of “good news” here. The point for today is simpler: when we read Mark’s gospel, we are preconditioned by our own understanding of “gospel” to miss what he means from the very first line.

Because as loaded as the phrase good news is for us, it was just as loaded for Mark’s audience — but with a radically different meaning.

Actually, with two radically different meanings.

First, gospel was Roman imperial propaganda. Good news was what a herald proclaimed to a newly conquered people. It meant Caesar was now in charge — and things were about to get a lot better. Over time, the phrase came to mean something like news of victory.

So when Mark begins with “good news,” he isn’t talking about a formula for getting to heaven. He’s borrowing the language of the Roman Empire. But he’s doing more than borrowing it.

Listen to this ancient inscription honoring Caesar Augustus. Words like these would have been familiar across the Roman world:

“Since Providence… has set in most perfect order by giving us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit humankind… sending him as a savior, both for us and for our descendants… and since the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the good news for the world that came by reason of him…”

Mark lifts the opening phrase of his gospel almost word-for-word from inscriptions like this.

If we imagine Mark pausing after the words “the beginning of the good news about…”, his audience would instinctively finish the sentence with Caesar.

But Mark surprises them. Instead of Caesar, he names Jesus.

It’s an attention-grabbing way to begin. Mark takes a political slogan belonging to Caesar and uses it to force his audience to see something about Jesus they were missing.

And remember: Mark isn’t writing to convince people that Jesus is Lord. He’s writing to people who already confess this. People like us.

And yet, he still thinks we need this jolt.

We’ll come back to that.

Because Mark isn’t finished making his point.

“Good news” didn’t belong only to Rome. It also carried deep meaning for the Jewish people. It was the language of their prophets — language of hope, deliverance, and a coming king anointed by God to rescue his people.

In the next few verses, Mark leans into that expectation. He quotes the prophet Isaiah. And just as he did with the Caesar inscription, he doesn’t quote the whole passage — only the opening line. But for his readers, that opening would have unlocked the entire passage.

It’s like saying, “Four score and seven years ago…”

We don’t think about eighty-seven years. We think of Lincoln. Gettysburg. Of a hope that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The rest of the Gettysburg Address fills in automatically.

That’s what would have happened for Mark’s readers when he quoted Isaiah:

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way;

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight,’ ”

We hear a few lines. They would’ve heard the whole passage. Listen to how that passage ends:

Get you up to a high mountain,

O Zion, herald of good [news];

lift up your voice with strength,

O Jerusalem, herald of good [news],

lift it up, do not fear;

say to the cities of Judah,

“Here is your God!”

See, the Lord GOD comes with might,

and his arm rules for him;

his reward is with him,

and his recompense before him…

This isn’t just poetry. It’s a vision of divine rescue. Twice, the prophet proclaims good news. And this good news directly competes with Caesar’s.

But it’s still not the formula-for-salvation gospel we’re used to.

For Mark’s audience, this was the “good news” of a human king. One who would claim Israel’s throne. A king who would lead God’s people to victory over their enemies.

A king who might look a lot like Simon bar Giora, the hero figure of their moment.

“Here is God’s answer to our prayers. The one spoken of by the prophets. The man anointed to sit on David’s throne and lead us to victory at last.”

Just as he did with Caesar, Mark now does the same with Simon. He takes a popular political narrative of his day — a man claiming the mantle of prophecy for himself — and tells us that this mantle belongs instead to Jesus.

And again, Mark is not writing to Roman followers of Caesar, or Jewish followers of Simon, trying to convince them they’re wrong.

He’s writing to people who already believe in Jesus. People like us.

Mark is telling us that the domain where Caesar and Simon operate is also the domain where Jesus operates. Jesus isn’t off in heaven doing heavenly things while we live in Caesar’s world and Simon’s world down here.

Mark refuses to let us split reality in two.

The “real” world and the spiritual world.

The earthly and the heavenly.

Mark is telling us that Jesus is a very-real-world political alternative to Caesar and Simon.

And that he is just as much a very-real-world political alternative for us today.

Great Expectations, Misplaced Hope

On the first Sunday after a national election, a dear old saint stood up in a church assembly, raised both arms in the air, and shouted, “Jesus wins! Jesus wins! Jesus wins!”

Now, the details of the election and the candidate who won don’t really matter. What matters is the impulse: here was someone who knows the teachings of Jesus, who has confessed him as Lord—yet whose vision of God’s work in the world had been reshaped by the cultural forces of the moment.

It’s the same sentiment that a first-century believer might have expressed regarding the victories of Simon bar Giora: “Good news! News of victory! Jesus wins! Jesus wins! Jesus wins!”

It’s not blasphemy. It’s misplaced hope.

If Mark were writing his book today, he might start with a Republican political slogan instead of Caesar’s, and a Democratic slogan instead of Simon’s.

We need the message of Mark’s gospel just as much today as it was needed then. Because although we confess Jesus as Lord, we often imagine his activity as somehow separate from the way the “real world” works. As if Jesus’s involvement in human affairs is limited to picking sides in political contests—anointing leaders and endorsing agendas—instead of actively leading a very real-world agenda of his own.

When Paul warns in Romans not to “be conformed to the patterns of this world,” this is what he’s talking about. It’s not a warning about letting bad influences water down our purity, but about something deeper and far more dangerous: mistaking the movements of worldly power for the work of God.

And when he tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds—so that we can discern the will of God, so that we can recognize the movement of God in the world—Paul is showing us how to break free from that conformity. It happens through ongoing renewal.

This is the renewal Mark offers that fragile first-century community in his gospel. A renewal that reframes their vision of events, trains their hearts to discern God’s work, and transforms their lives. And by preserving this gospel, the Spirit offers the same renewal to us.

A Playbook, A Map, A Way

At this point, you might be thinking this all sounds like a great idea, but you’re wondering how it’s supposed to work. What are we supposed to do? How do we live in the world in recognition of the active, present leadership of Jesus—in alignment with his active, present agenda?

Let’s back up and listen again to those lines Mark pulls from the Hebrew Scriptures. The words associated with “good news.” Mark attributes them to Isaiah, but he’s actually weaving together lines from three different books. Listen for the common refrain.

From Exodus 23: 

I am going to send an angel in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.

From Malachi 3: 

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me…

And from Isaiah 40: 

A voice cries out:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God

All of these speak about something called the Way. That’s no accident. In fact, one of the earliest names for the Christian movement wasn’t “Christianity” at all. In Acts, believers are called followers of the Way. Before any of the New Testament was written down, it was this Way that guided the followers of Jesus.

Mark leans into this language. The Way is a central theme of his gospel—and it’s his answer to the question of how all of this becomes real.

Over the next sixteen chapters, Mark is going to lay out the agenda of Jesus, the very real-world leader of a very real-world movement. This agenda is called the Way.

It is radically different from every other agenda on offer. So different that we will watch Jesus’s followers become bewildered, doubtful, fearful—and eventually abandon him altogether.

And if we’re honest, we will experience that same bewilderment, doubt, and fear as we work our way through this book. At some point, each of us will be tempted to walk away because of the absurdity of what Jesus proposes and demands.

But Mark insists this is the way to a hope that can be trusted. This is the way God has chosen to answer the prayers of his people—the prayers where, with Isaiah, we cry out in desperate times, “God, tear open the sky and fix this.”

Which gives special weight to Mark’s words starting in verse nine:

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

This is God’s answer to our cry. Jesus—and his Way.

Later, God will say this again, and add emphatically, “Listen to him!” Follow his way.

And yet we keep searching for another, more “real-world” answer. The Jordan feels distant—something that happened long ago. How could that possibly meet our present need?

That’s exactly how Mark’s first readers would have felt. For them, the Jordan was already decades in the past. Their suffering was immediate, and the answer needed to be immediate as well.

Mark’s point is that God’s rescue doesn’t look like Simon’s way, or Caesar’s way. Or a Republican way, or a Democratic way. It looks like Jesus—and his Way.

The heavens have already been torn open. The Spirit has already come down. The Beloved Son has already been revealed. The answer has already been given. The rescue isn’t waiting somewhere out there—it’s already before us.

Mark closes this section with these words:

Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time [has come], and the kingdom of God has [arrived]; repent, and believe in [this] good news.

That’s Mark’s message to a frightened church—and to us:

Jesus wins. Just not the way we expected.

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Mark’s Letter

Mark: 

My dear Joanna,

Of course I remember you. I remember how eager you were to hear Jesus. How, once you realized you were welcome among his students, you refused to miss a word. I confess I was jealous in those days—annoyed, even—that a woman would presume to sit so close at his feet. It took me far too long to understand that this, too, was part of his good news: that it wasn’t just the men who were going to be trained to teach his Way.

Your letter reached me in Alexandria. The city is beautiful and broken; brimming with scholars and merchants, but torn by fierce arguments that too easily turn to blood. Still, I am among friends here, though the days are heavy with unrest. I often wish Peter were still alive. Since his death, I feel unequal to the task that has fallen to me.

This Simon bar Giora concerns me. There will always be those who claim to bear the anointing of the Lord. But I knew the Anointed One. I heard his voice. As did you. We saw how he moved among us. He never sought the seat of power. He never raised a sword. The only crown he accepted was made of thorns.

This Simon does not smell right; he does not carry the aroma of Christ. He does not walk in the same way in the world as did our Lord. 

I fear that this will end in sorrow. Jesus warned us that many would come claiming an anointing, and many would be led astray. You and your church must hold fast to what you first heard and saw in him. Look for the evidence of his work in the world—the scent of mercy, of forgiveness, of broken bread for the hungry, living water for the thirsty.

If the heavens have already been torn open, as I believe they were that day at the Jordan, then we do not need another to force them open by war. God has already come down. Our deliverer has already been revealed.

May his Spirit keep you on the Way,

John Mark

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Test This Teaching

You may be wondering how the story of Simon bar Giora ended. Vespasian the general became Vespasian the emperor, successor to Nero. He put Titus in charge of four legions, and sent him to deal with Jerusalem. 

Titus’s strategy was as effective as it was cruel. He didn’t distinguish between combatants or non-combatants: between men or women or children. On July 14, in the year 70, the daily sacrifices at the Temple stopped, and have never been offered since.

The magnificent Temple was burned to the ground by Roman forces on August 30th. Josephus tells us that 1.1 million Jews died in Jerusalem during the conflict. Modern scholars doubt his number, but their estimates still put the death toll in the hundreds of thousands. 

Another 97,000 were enslaved to be used for sport in the games. Among these was Simon bar Giora, who was led off to Rome, and, on the grounds of the Coliseum in front of a massive crowd, strangled to death.

It’s hard to imagine a more catastrophic outcome, especially for those who thought this was God’s man, and God’s plan, to set things right.

So how do we know when it’s really God who’s at work in the world—and when it’s someone falsely claiming His anointing?

That question isn’t just for the first century. It’s for us, too.

Because the “other ways” always look convincing at first. They promise rescue, strength, and restoration for the righteous. But they always end the same way—in escalating hyperbole, demonization, in-fighting, and violence. The circle keeps getting smaller, until only the “true believers,” the ones with the right doctrine and the right résumé, are welcome.

That’s not the Way of Jesus.

God may use anyone for his purposes—indeed, he bends all things toward the good of those who love him—but that doesn’t mean he anoints that person as his agent on earth. We have to be careful who we get behind. If they don’t have the aroma of Christ, if their victories smell of smoke and blood instead of mercy and forgiveness, they are not the answer to our prayers. They may look successful for a time, but the outcome will not be what we hoped, and may even be catastrophic. 

The wrong ways are always tied to power. The path to power is the very path that Jesus rejected—over and over again. Power shares the same deceptive allure as wealth: when you start down its path, it convinces you that you’re always just a little bit short of what you need to reach your goal. All you need is a little more wealth, a little more power. 

According to Jesus, these ways don’t work. He came to show a different way. The only way that can deliver against our hope.

If you listened to the first season of this podcast, you know what comes next. You need to test this teaching. 

Take a few minutes this week to read the first 23 verses of Mark 13. Then look up the events of the first century that those verses likely refer to—earthquakes, famines, wars, rumors of wars. Think about the events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, and compare them to the warning Jesus gives his disciples. The warning that Mark repeats for his audience, and the Holy Spirit preserves for us. Is the teaching of this episode in alignment with where Mark is going, or am I off base?

The second test is to consider the teaching of this episode in light of the way of Christ. If you were to adopt the teaching given here, will it make you look more like Jesus, or less? If less, press Stop: you don’t need to listen to another word I say. If more, consider what competing teachings or loyalties you’ll need to unlearn. Then choose the Way that matches the Way of Christ.

If you’re not sure, then stick with us. Mark’s purpose is to teach his audience to see the way of Christ—to discern the fingerprint of God’s work in the world around us.

We still need that discernment today. Because when the true King is at work in world events, he comes the same way he did before—not on a warhorse, but like a dove.

In the next episode we’re going to talk about fishers of men. A phrase that meant something sharper (and stranger) to Mark’s audience than it does to us. I hope you’ll join us.

Thanks for listening.

[Thanks for watching.]

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Closing Credits

This has been Jesus for Sex Workers, Church People, and Me

Share your questions, comments, or feedback at JesusForSexWorkers.com.

The content of this podcast is copyright 2026, by Todd Austin. All rights reserved.

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