Holy Monday: Jesus Cursing the Fig Tree
Written by Molly Perry
I have a new passion. (cue the ‘I’ve had this dream since lunch, and I’m not giving up on it now’ scene of Michael Scott from The Office…) I’ve recently gotten into wanting to grow my own cut flower garden. I’ve bought books, followed countless social media accounts, and bought seed starter kits. However, my husband and I live in an apartment downtown with no yard and a small balcony.
But I am determined. So, I did the research of when to start seeds for our grow zone (we’re zone 7, if you’re wondering!) and I probably jumped the gun, but I planted seeds and waited with anticipation for them to grow.
Within two days they sprouted, and I thought, wow, I’m a natural! The sprouts grew taller and taller….and taller. Turns out, that’s a bad sign. They were tall and leafy, so I assumed I had healthy sprouts! But, I actually had given them too much heat, water, and not enough light leading to ‘leggy’ seedlings.
They looked healthy (at least to my wanna-be-cut-flower-farmer eye), but they weren’t. They most likely won’t grow into the beautiful Zinnias and Cosmos on the front of the seed packet. And now, a lot of those initial sprouts have withered away.
As I’m learning about seedlings, I’m also reading the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree, something that happened during the week leading up to his death and resurrection. I’ve read this story before and thought, Jesus must be hangry.
If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s found in Mark 11:12-33.
Jesus and his disciples are leaving Bethany, and He sees a fig tree in leaf, but with no figs. Jesus curses the fig tree saying, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ They go to the temple, Jesus makes quite the scene (we’ll get to that later), and then when they walk by the tree again it’s completely withered away. In Mark 11:13 it says that it was not the season for figs. This has always confused me. Why was Jesus upset? I’m assuming he’s a little more knowledgeable on plants than I am.
As I’ve studied more and read what others have to say – if it wasn’t the season for figs, the tree shouldn’t have been in leaf as it was. It looked like a healthy tree producing fruit – but it was fruitless, so Jesus is upset. As we keep reading, we see that maybe Jesus wasn’t hungry after all…maybe he was trying to teach the disciples something. In the next few verses, Jesus and his disciples reach the temple in Jerusalem.
On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’
Jesus curses a tree that looks to have fruit but is actually fruitless. Then, he enters the temple, a place that is the meeting place for God and his people, a place to worship and pray. However, he sees what should be a worshipful, fruitful place that is now a ‘den of robbers.’ He was upset that those selling were essentially taking advantage of the poor for a profit.
The story of Jesus cursing the fig tree is told in two different places in the Gospels – in Mark and in Matthew. Both times, it’s interwoven with the story of Jesus calling out the temple. This is important! It’s not about the fig tree. It’s about us. It’s about our ability to look healthy and fruitful on the outside, with no real fruit. Whether that’s from sin, insecurity, fear, or outright defiance.
Jesus was getting ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for us. He was going to die and rise again, to defeat death and forever be the bridge for us from a broken world to our perfect Creator.
He needed the disciples to know that we are called to be fruitful – not just to appear fruitful.
I’ve seen this in my life. My freshman year of college I struggled with anger, bitterness, and doubt. But my instagram? It was full of snapshots of laughter, fun, even some bible studies that would make you believe I was in a healthy place. It’s easy to find the right answers to share in small groups or in conversations so that we seem like a fruitful fig tree. But we need to ask ourselves: am I bearing any fruit in my life?
Jesus wants the best for us. He’s not expecting us to be perfect, but he wants us to be real. His disciples are seeing these ‘outbursts’ with the fig tree and in the temple, and basically ask, what’s the deal?
“Have faith in God,”Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
How are we fruitful? We have faith in God. We believe in His power. We come to Him in prayer. We forgive others, just as we have been forgiven.
Not to over simplify things, but just about every instance where I’ve appeared to be something I’m not, whether I’m lying, pushing down doubts, or being consumed by bitterness, greed, or an unforgiving anger – I’m probably not doing those things.
As we reflect on the sacrifice Jesus made for us, I pray that we can remember that Jesus wants us to come to him. He sees through our ‘leggy seedlings,’ and he’ll call us on it. He made the ultimate sacrifice for us so that even in our downfalls, we can come to God. It seems to me that he’s giving us the steps to grow from leggy seedlings to a healthy, fruitful, flowering plant: faith, prayer, forgiveness.
