Mark 11:12 Now the
next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. 13 And
seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would
find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it
was not the season for figs. 14 In response Jesus said to
it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.”
And His disciples
heard it.
Keep reading that story and you will find that Jesus traveled
on to the temple and chased out the money changers and flipped over their
tables. The next day when they came back to Jerusalem from Bethany again they
passed by the same tree and it was dead from the roots up and the disciples
marveled.
Jesus responded by telling them if they had faith they could
do anything. All this happened on Monday and Tuesday. He died on Friday. Truly
we are in the shadows of the cross and Jesus is killing trees?
Return a few verses back and you find that Sunday was the
grand entrance on the colt. The city was in a frenzy. For generations they had
talked about their Messiah and how he would arrive and this was it! By now even
though Jesus had spent very little time in Jerusalem He was a legend. Most
recently He actually brought a man alive from the grave 4 days after his
burial. Sure there was lots of controversy and the church had actually
threatened to throw anyone out who professed to believe in Him but when Jesus
entered the city the same way Solomon began his reign and the same way
Zechariah said the Messiah would enter there was no holding back the crowd.
They shouted His praises. They threw their coats and palm branches before Him.
You can imagine the confusion of the disciples now. He said He was coming here
to die and now this?
Then we are told that evening, Sunday evening, before leaving
the city to return to Bethany He entered the temple courts and just looked
around, quietly taking in the scenes. He had less than a week and He k ew it.
It was like He was silently planning out His final moves.
He wasted no time on Monday. He cursed a fruitless tree,
trashed the outer court of the temple and then taught those who remained, those
who could now hear because the market place was gone.
The next day they passed by that cursed tree and it was
dead.
What do we do with that? Jesus cursed the tree because
even though it had leaves there was no fruit. I had to prepare a sermon on this
story back in college. I had no idea what it was about so I went to the library
and started digging. It turns out fig trees grow their fruit first and then the
leaves come. It was spring. Mid April. Really it was too early for figs in that
area but the this particular tree had leaves. It was the leaves that attracted
Him. Leaves meant fruit. With hunger and expectation He went to the tree.
You know how it is when hunger meets anticipation of food. He was already
salivating. His body was preparing to be fed. Then nothing.
Can you see it? That tree was just like the city of Jerusalem
and the temple specifically. It advertised substance but there was nothing.
People came from all over seeking God only to find a market place. They came to
seek His blessing only to find big business with no product. Leaves but no
fruit. Temple but no king. A holy building but no Holiness inside.
Just as the fig tree was exposed for what it truly was, a
barren tree, so Jerusalem was a out to be exposed for what it had become. A den
of robbers. A high place of hypocrisy. A monument to everything that is wrong
in this world.
Recently my dad bought some other brand of duct tape. It
looked like duct tape. It presented as duct tape but it was absolutely useless.
It wouldn't even stick to itself. Often people flee from God because of
hypocrisy, because of places that advertise one thing but produce something
else. In cliché terms they throw the baby out with the bathwater. What they
forget is that the fake proves the true. My dad never would have been drawn to
that silver roll of tape had he not experienced the genuine. No one makes cheap
copies if there isn't first something to copy.
Yes the world is full to overflowing with bad religion. It
fills the airwaves and the TV screens. Churches professing to represent God and
to exist for the benefit of the people are run by men who see it and use it as
a means to either get rich, control people, or both. This does not prove God
doesn't exist. It proves He does. And just as Jesus came back then to turn the
tables and then the world upside down, so will He return. The wrongs will be
righted. The fakes will be exposed. The truth will be known, and best of all the
gnawing soul hunger of all those hurt by trees with leaves and nothing else
will finally be satisfied. They will see Him face to face, the One they knew
existed all along.
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