Fig Trees and Other Things   Mark 11: 1-25

Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason -- June 11, 2006

“And on the next day, when they had departed from Bethany, he became hungry. And seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if perhaps he could find anything on it; and when he came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he answered and said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And his disciples were listening.”  (Mark 11:12-14)

James M.Boice a leading Minister of the early part of the last century once wrote:

            As a result, of this conversation the young man agreed to tell the first ten people of his old   set whom he encountered that he had become a Christian. The soldier went home. Almost  immediately--in fact, while he was still on the platform of the suburban station at the end   of his return trip--he met a girl whom he had known socially. She was delighted to see him and    asked   how he was doing. He told her, "The greatest thing that could possibly happen to me has  happened."

"You're engaged to be married," she exclaimed. "No," he told her. "It's even better  than that. I've taken the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior." The girls' expression froze. She   mumbled a few polite words and went on her way. 

A short time later, the new Christian met a  young man whom he had known before going into the service. "It's good to see you back," he  declared. "We'll have some great parties now that you've returned." "I've just become a Christian," the soldier said. He was thinking, That's two! Again it was a case of a frozen smile and a quick change of conversation. After this the same circumstances were repeated with a young couple and with two more old friends. By this time word had got around, and soon some of his friends stopped seeing him. He had become peculiar, religious, and -- who knows! -- they   may even have called him crazy! What had he done? Nothing but confess Christ. The same   confession that had aligned him with Christ had separated him from those who did not want Jesus Christ as Savior and who, in fact, did not even want to hear about Him. 

   This is an interesting text for us today. As we read our New Testaments, we don’t usually find Jesus cursing and destruction of things to be part of his usual methods. But it is a central part of the passage we are considering today.

This is the only account of an exercise of power on the part of our Lord, which is totally destructive. There is the story of his casting the demons into the swine which are destroyed, but that involved the deliverance of the man who was demon possessed. But in this story, Jesus is the one who definitely destroys the fig tree.

Turn over to chapter 13:28 in your Gospel and you read: “Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when it s branch has already become tender, and puts forth its leaves you know that summer is near.”

This is undoubtedly early in the Spring, before summer was near, before the time of leaves. We know this for several reasons none the least of which was that the Passover was near. Passover was always in the early Spring – March to April in our calendar. And yet this fig tree had leaves. Because of this there should have been some of the early, first ripe fruit that came out before the leaves appeared on the tree. When Jesus went over to the tree, expecting to find some of that early fruit, he found none at all. The tree had failed in itself, and as such was a symbol of what Jesus wanted to teach his disciples.

We need to remember, as we come into Mark 11, we are entering the final week in the earthly life of Jesus. There are three days of that last week in view in this greater paragraph.

On the first day, he enters Jerusalem in triumph, looked around in the Temple and then because it was late in the day, retired to Bethany.

On the second day, he goes back to Jerusalem with his disciples and on the way in he goes over to the fig tree and curses it. He goes on into the city and cleanses the Temple and at the coming of evening he goes back to Bethany.

The third day dawns and back to Jerusalem he goes with his disciples. It is on this trip, that the disciples note the fact that the fig tree has withered from the roots up.

The Apostle John tells us in his Gospel, “He came unit his own, and they that were his own received him not.” This week reveals to all that this is the hour of his rejection; it is the hour in which the people of his own nation finally said, “We will not have this man to reign over us.”

It is also true that this is the hour in which the Lord Jesus Christ rejected that nation. He arraigned the leaders of the nation and compelled them to find verdicts concerning themselves and to pass sentence upon themselves. His final word to that generation was this: “The Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”

We have seen that this is an unusual methodology on the part of Jesus. We have often seen the fact that Jesus hid himself, or escaped from the crowds. The crowds thronged him and pressed in on him wherever he went. They were attracted by his teaching and miracles he performed. He was always trying to get away from them and be alone with his disciples.

Now, however, he plans a demonstration. He made definite arrangements for entering Jerusalem and that ensured that his entry into the city would draw attention to him and his disciples. We call it his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and it notified the whole city of the hour of his arrival.

He enters the city as the King of Israel. Jesus, who has been presented by Mark as the Servant of God, is now seen as entering the city as the triumphal King. Remember, “…the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”  He is still the Servant of God, but he draws attention to himself as the King and acts with definite authority as he goes into the city. He came in the name of the Lord, as the representative of Jehovah. The Galileans proclaim: “Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The implication is that the Servant of God has come to establish his Kingdom.

And so he comes in the majesty of meekness; stripped of all the things that men associate with royalty. There is no royal, purple robe or sleek white horse a Roman ruler would ride. He came riding upon an ass. We are often told that this was a royal, Jewish thing to do. But to come into the city on a “beast of burden” was not what ordinary rulers in the East would do.

If you think like a Roman, and not as a Hebrew, this would be a pageant of poverty, lacking the usual trappings of royalty. Note the scattering of clothes and branches from the palm trees and the shouting of the Galilean mob.

As he came into the city, it was for investigation. He went into the temple area and found that the temple precincts had been invaded by money-changers, who were so nefarious in their dealings that no court of law in that day would accept their testimony. There in the name of religion, the Court of the Gentiles was desecrated with the animals being offered for sacrifice. They were making religion easy and in the process excluded the Gentiles from worship, contrary to the express desire of God.

The moral and spiritual leaders of Israel were antagonistic toward him. They refused to listen to him. He was interfering with the exercise of their authority and power. All of this spelled out the reality of that day…there was a death of faith in Israel.

When Peter commented on the fig tree on the following day after Jesus cursed it, Jesus’ answer was “Have faith in God.” He was giving his disciples the secret to so live that they would never be destroyed as the fig tree had been.

When the Son of God came into Jerusalem for his final investigation, he found faith missing. He found leaves without fruit.

hat was Jesus teaching them?  Well, first of all, he was teaching that fruitlessness must inevitably be destroyed. Life is God-given and it is given for the bearing of fruit. Remember, in the Garden of Eden, God had made trees, each bearing seek after its own kind, for the purpose of the production of fruit. That is a symbol that runs down through the entire life of the people of God. Bear fruit. Israel had been given life as a nation in order to bear fruit so that the whole world would know God.

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What did Israel produce?  Isaiah tells us in chapter 5: “He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.” And because the nation of Israel created and sustained by God failed to produce the fruit that was to be the natural outcome of the life God had given, the decree went forth: “I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away the hedge around it, and it shall be eaten up;  I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down.”

The tree is the symbol, but the nation is on Jesus’ mind. If fruit is not going to be produced, the instrument provided for the bearing of the fruit must be destroyed.

Jesus came after long centuries to His own. And his own refused to accept him. By refusing to accept the King and his Kingdom and by the absence of fruit, the necessity was created for the destruction of the nation of Israel. And the fig tree was the symbol of that destruction.

By the next morning, the disciples saw that the tree had withered from the roots up.

When his disciples saw the tree and said, “Rabbi, behold the fig tree, which you cursed is withered away.” Our Lord gave them his interpretation: “Have faith in God.” And the central value of that interpretation of that faith is the principle of fruitfulness. He gave them the secret of making destruction unnecessary.

Have faith in God.  Fruit was not found in the nation of Israel, because life had departed; and life had departed because faith in God had departed.  And then he tells them to pray. Why? Because prayer is the expression of faith. It is to be the expression of life which is mastered by compassion, forgiving and seeking to be forgiven in return.

Faith in God is the secret of a life of fruitfulness.

Thomas Edison invented the microphone, the phonograph, the incandescent light, the storage battery, talking movies, and more than 1000 other things. December 1914 he had worked for 10 years on a storage battery. This had greatly strained his finances. This particular evening spontaneous combustion had broken out in the film room. Within minutes all the packing compounds, celluloid for records and film, and other flammable goods were in flames. Fire companies from eight surrounding towns arrived, but the heat was so intense and the water pressure so low that the attempt to douse the flames was futile. Everything was destroyed. Edison was 67. With all his assets going up in a whoosh (although the damage exceeded two million dollars, the buildings were only insured for $238,000 because they were made of concrete and thought to be fireproof), would his spirit be broken? 

The inventor's 24-year old son, Charles, searched frantically for his father. He finally found him, calmly watching the fire, his face glowing in the reflection, his white hair blowing in the wind. "My heart ached for him," said Charles. "He was 67--no longer a young man--and everything was going up in flames. When he saw me, he shouted, 'Charles, where's your mother?' When I told him I didn't know, he said, 'Find her. Bring her here. She will never see anything like this as long as she lives.'" The next morning, Edison looked at the ruins and said, "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew." Three weeks after the fire, Edison managed to deliver the first phonograph. 

Swindoll, Hand Me Another Brick, Thomas Nelson, 1978, pp. 82-3, and Bits & Pieces, November, 1989, p. 12.

The message to us is this:  If we really have the life of Jesus within us, we will have faith in God. On the other hand, whenever we find ourselves in a place of unfruitfulness, we can thank God that we can start anew. It is always just a step back to God.

Have faith in God.

And live your life as a life that is fruitful for Christ.

--Dennis Gleason