Mark 11

¹²When Jesus and his disciples left Bethany the next morning, he was hungry. ¹³From a distance Jesus saw a fig tree covered with leaves, and he went to see if there were any figs on the tree. But there were not any, because it wasn’t the season for figs. ¹⁴So Jesus said to the tree, “Never again will anyone eat fruit from this tree!” The disciples heard him say this.

 ¹⁵After Jesus and his disciples reached Jerusalem, he went into the temple and began chasing out everyone who was selling and buying. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers and the benches of those who were selling doves. ¹⁶Jesus would not let anyone carry things through the temple. ¹⁷Then he taught the people and said, “The Scriptures say, `My house should be called a place of worship for all nations.’ But you have made it a place where robbers hide!”

   ¹⁸The chief priests and the teachers of the Law of Moses heard what Jesus said, and they started looking for a way to kill him. They were afraid of him, because the crowds were completely amazed at his teaching. ¹⁹That evening, Jesus and the disciples went outside the city.

 ²⁰As the disciples walked past the fig tree the next morning, they noticed that it was completely dried up, roots and all. ²¹Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree. Then Peter said, “Teacher, look! The tree you put a curse on has dried up.”

    ²²Jesus told his disciples:

   Have faith in God! ²³If you have faith in God and don’t doubt, you can tell this mountain to get up and jump into the sea, and it will. ²⁴Everything you ask for in prayer will be yours, if you only have faith.

    ^25-26Whenever you stand up to pray, you must forgive what others have done to you. Then your Father in heaven will forgive your sins.

Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree is peculiar when read on its own. It is shocking when read in the context of Jesus’ own time and related to the action that Jesus is reported to have taken in the Temple.

Indeed, we might think of Jesus as being slightly churlish: a fig tree does not produce fruit out of season. However there are indications of Jewish Proverbs, dating from around the time of Jesus, that talk of fig trees bearing fruit in the presence of the Messiah. some biblical scholars have made the connection with Jeremiah 8: 11-13, where

Israel’s God compares the people of Israel to a fig tree as well as to a vineyard.

For Mark’s Gospel, the cursing of the fig tree is connected inextricably with the action in the Temple. What is Jesus doing then in the Temple?

Many preachers have demonstrated that Jesus is railing against the excesses of the Temple

• The Temple exchange rate
• Profaning the Court of the Gentiles with buying and selling

Jesus and his earliest followers were not unique in being critical of the Temple, including certain of the Pharisees and those who wrote the writings found near the Dead Sea.

But what if Jesus was not just offering a critique, but pronouncing judgement on the Temple. Such an idea is not that far-fetched. Jesus turns over the money changer’s tables, therefore no monies can be exchanged into Temple currency, and thus no animals could be bought for sacrifice. Little wonder then the chief priests want to take action against Jesus.

The use of symbols and actions were well understood by both prophets and people alike. The Old Testament is littered with examples of prophets doing things that point to something else: the potter in Jeremiah; Ezekiel laying on his side, and Isaiah’s nakedness of just three.

What is Jesus then symbolising?

• Imminent destruction of the Temple
• That God was in the process of offering judgement and redemption for Israel.
  • Jesus saw himself as the climax of Israel’s story

   

  The fig tree did not blossom in the messianic age, and therefore was judged.

  The people of God who had been called to be a light to all, and chose not to be appear also to be judged.

  Jesus was not though an ordinary revolutionary. His values demanded—and still-demand that the values of the world are stood on its head.

  This is no where clearer seen than in his comments to his disciples when they discover the fig tree has withered.

  ^25-26Whenever you stand up to pray, you must forgive what others have done to you. Then your Father in heaven will forgive your sins.

  ‘The person who broke the mould’ is how one scholar has described Jesus.

  Jesus at one and the same time brings judgement and forgiveness.

  What is it that God needs to judge in this church, in our lives and in the life our nation?