This is a devotional with my thoughts added to verses from the Bible. I highly encourage you to dig into the word with your own thoughts. The Daily Devotion series is one way to do this. However, I know that sometimes we want to read other people’s ideas about Bible passages, so I am starting the Everyday series. I hope and pray that these posts will draw you nearer to Jesus.
DAY 4–Remember to pray before you begin.
Mark 11:12-14 Cursing the Fig Tree
The next day, when they had come out from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came to see if perhaps he might find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. Jesus told it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” and his disciples heard it.
It was the day following the triumphal entry. Jesus and the disciples had stayed this first night with Lazarus and were on their way back to Jerusalem where Jesus would cleanse the temple one last time. The disciples were still confused from the anticlimactic end of the pageant the day before, and Jesus was looking for some method to help them to understand what was happening. He saw a fig tree along the way. He may have noticed it the previous day when they were on their way to Bethany and known that there were no figs in it. This tree would make a perfect parable to open the disciples’ eyes about Israel’s precarious situation.
It was probably not common for Jesus to complain about being hungry, but this time He was vocal about His empty stomach as He headed for the fig tree. He likely made a production of thoroughly searching the tree. This was not yet the season for figs; however, if a fig tree has lots of leaves, it should have fruit, so a person would expect by the outward appearance of the tree that there would be figs. Then Jesus did something that was even more out of character. He cursed a tree for not meeting His expectations. His curse was that no one would ever eat fruit from the tree again. The next day when they passed the tree, the disciples were shocked to see it withered. “As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots” (Mark 11:20). In other words, in only one day the tree had completely died. It had not just lost its leaves but was lifeless in every part.
The tree represented the Jewish nation, which was supposed to feed God’s word to the people of other countries. However, Israel was not bearing fruit in the manner that they should have been. Yes, there were many converts, but that situation was despite the corrupt leaders and blind followers of the Pharisees. The Jews had imposed barriers so that it was impossible to interact or eat with Gentiles. It was difficult for Gentiles to gain access to the word of God since the priests had filled the Gentiles’ court of the temple with money lenders and livestock. The chosen people of God had forgotten that the reason for their existence was to demonstrate who God is to unbelievers.
Jesus was not arbitrarily cursing the fig tree because it did not live up to His expectations, just as God does not abandon us simply because we mess up. God tries every way that He can to reach us with His life-saving messages. He wants us to live, and if that means killing a fig tree to teach the disciples or making a little gourd vine wither to reach past Jonah’s anger and frustration (Jonah 4:6-11), God will do it because we are infinitely precious to Him. He values all life, but He values us more than plants, or even animals. “Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:7).
As Christians, we must ask ourselves if we are nourishing those around us or simply displaying pretty leaves. Too often, we fill up our time and use our money on useless activities because we have forgotten that our mission is to lift God up to unbelievers. We may think that we are filling our lives with worthy activities, but if we consider the hours of our days that should be reserved for witnessing, we will have to face the fact that most of us are not fulfilling the mission that God has given to us. Maybe, it is time to re-evaluate our life choices. What activities should we continue to hold onto and what activities should we be cleansing from our lives?
The curse of the fig tree has resounded down through history. The people of the world are no longer blessed by the words that the Jewish people still claim to follow. Instead, Christians have been given the words of life. Even though the Jews share many of those same words (in the Old Testament), their words are lifeless without Jesus at the center of their hearts and message. You see, it is not just words written on a paper or spoken out loud that give nourishment. It is the Spirit that gives the words life. It is not just the outward leaves of the letters of the words that bring redemption; it is the inward meaning of the scriptures that reveals Jesus and provides life and nourishment to humanity.
DAY 5–Remember to pray before you begin.
Mark 11:15-19 A House of Prayer for All Nations
They came to Jerusalem, and Jesus entered into the temple, and began to throw out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and overthrew the money changers’ tables, and the seats of those who sold the doves. He would not allow anyone to carry a container through the temple. He taught, saying to them, “Isn’t it written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations?’ But you have made it a den of robbers!” The chief priests and the scribes heard it, and sought how they might destroy him. For they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching. When evening came, he went out of the city.
Jesus drove out everyone who was doing business in the Gentile court, not just the sellers but the buyers also. He overturned inanimate objects, such as chairs and tables that were used by the sellers and money changers. He refused to let anyone carry anything through the temple.
Then other people entered the temple–some to see the rabbi but some to get a glimpse of the destruction inside the temple. They all stayed to listen to Jesus’ lessons. Jesus explained His actions. The scriptures said that the temple would be a place where people from all nations, the Gentiles, could worship God, but the priests had taken the Gentile’s court and made it a marketplace. Thus, there was no place in the temple for people of other nations to worship God. Instead, the temple had become associated with cheating and greed. Malachi describes another time when the priests had allowed greed to cheat God. “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the LORD’s table may be despised. When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the LORD of hosts” (Malachi 1:6-8). The priests of Jesus’ day would claim that they had reversed this situation by being picky about the offerings given to God, but in fact, the underlying greed, which is what God was complaining about, was still fully present. Outward actions may change, but if the inward motivations remain the same, the new outward action will be just as twisted as the old. The priests of Jesus’ day were despising the name of God just as much as those of Malachi’s day. They had not changed their inward motivations in those hundreds of years between Malachi and Jesus.
God looks on the inward man, and yet we humans always concentrate on the outward behavior. God says that our twisted actions are caused by an inward problem, yet we do not focus on the inward problem. Instead, we say that we are going to stop the behavior. We look at the outward example that reveals our sinful hearts instead of the general principle that we are being directed to understand. If we are not transformed inside, our new behaviors will reflect the same greed and selfishness that caused the original actions. Instead, we need to pray to be new creatures who love God and love people.
The day before the chaos in the temple, a huge crowd of people had proclaimed Jesus the Messiah, the king of the Jews. This day, Jesus had thrown the moneychangers and sellers out of the temple and taught a large crowd to truly respect the house of God. By His actions, Jesus had challenged the power of the priests and made them look immoral to their own powerbase—the people. It is not as though the people had not known about the priests’ greed, but they had accepted it as normal and not considered the neglect of instruction about God to the Gentiles to be important. Now, they knew that the actions of the priests were not normal or righteous, and they were beginning to have an inkling that God wanted worship from more than just the descendants of Jacob. The loss of the people’s respect caused the priests to hate Jesus and scheme to get rid of Him. They knew that if He became King, they would be thrown out of their positions of influence as surely as Jesus had thrown out the moneychangers and buyers and sellers.
Why did Jesus cleanse the temple a second time on this day? He had taught in the temple at other times without cleansing it. He was about to leave it forever. Why bother? Maybe, Jesus was providing one last witness to the Jewish people of what the temple had been meant to be. Maybe, it needed to be clean to represent the heavenly temple as He offered the final sacrifice. God’s complaint in Malachi’s day was that the temple did not reflect the perfection of heaven to the people . . . that it was not a fitting example of the sacrifice that Jesus would make. Maybe, Jesus knew he had to set the people straight on the type before they could understand the archetype that it pointed to.
This was Monday of the last week of Jesus’ life on this sinful earth. There were only four more days until the final sacrifice, and Jesus had just checked another item off His prophetic “to-do” list.
DAY 6–Remember to pray before you begin.
Mark 11:20-26 Move, Mountain, Move!
As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away from the roots. Peter, remembering, said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered away.” Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. For most certainly I tell you, whoever may tell this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and doesn’t doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is happening; he shall have whatever he says. Therefore I tell you, all things whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received them, and you shall have them. Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father, who is in heaven, may also forgive you your transgressions. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your transgressions.”
When the disciples passed the fig tree in the morning on their way back to Jerusalem on Tuesday, they were astonished to see that it was totally dead. Why had they not noticed it the night before? It is likely that it had either already withered or was in the process of dying at that time. They probably had not noticed the tree because it was dark when they passed by. Also, they were tired and excited by the events of the day. They had been disappointed the night before when Jesus had accomplished nothing after His triumphal entry, but He had renewed their hopes by His cleansing and occupation of the temple that day. He had restored their faith that He knew what He was doing.
When Peter pointed out the tree, Jesus did not give a lesson about bearing fruit. That lesson had been given the day before, and Jesus expected His disciples to remember it. Instead, Jesus homed in on the power required to cause a tree’s demise within 20 hours. The tree was as dead as if it had died many years before. Jesus told Peter that this kind of power was not much. He said that it only required one ingredient—faith in God. He used this opportunity to give a lesson in prayer. He was revealing to the disciples something about His own total trust in His Father. Jesus was telling the disciples that if they trusted God in the same way, their prayers would also be answered. They had probably not associated the cursing of the fig tree with prayer, but Jesus did so. Jesus told the disciples that when they prayed for something, they should believe that it was already theirs, and it would be. However, there are two requirements for this lesson to be true. First, we must be living in a relationship with Jesus so that we know that what we pray for is genuinely righteous, and then, we need to have the experience to trust Jesus to answer in His own way rather than in the way we expect.
Jesus was also showing His followers that they needed humble hearts when they asked God for something in prayer. He was revealing to them that they could not harbor resentment and anger against a fellow human if they wanted to have the proper relationship with the Father. This is a condition of answered prayer whether it is answered in a positive or negative way. Jesus was informing the disciples that prayer is dependent on being in a right relationship with God and man. This lesson is similar to the many instances when Jesus told someone that he/she had been healed because of his/her faith. Faith is the conduit through which God’s power flows to us. If we do not forgive a fellow human being, that sin (that attitude) restricts our connection to God so that our prayers, which are our conduit to and from God, are ineffective and powerless.
DAY 7–Remember to pray before you begin.
Mark 11:26-33 Authority
They came again to Jerusalem, and as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders came to him, and they began saying to him, “By what authority do you do these things? Or who gave you this authority to do these things?” Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John—was it from heaven, or from men? Answer me.” They reasoned with themselves, saying, “If we should say, ‘From heaven;’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ If we should say, ‘From men’”—they feared the people, for all held John to really be a prophet. They answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Jesus said to them, “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
On the way to Jerusalem that morning, the disciples and Jesus had passed by the withered tree and discussed it and then continued on to the city. They had already entered the temple when an official delegation of high priests, scribes, and elders came to interrogate Jesus. This was Tuesday. Essentially, this same group would be pronouncing judgement on Jesus on Friday in just three days. This was the beginning of the end of the Jewish nation as the representatives of Yahweh. The leaders and the people had a decision to make, and God had forewarned His people long before that there were consequences to rejecting the Messiah. There are Old Testament prophecies that indicate a possible future if the Jewish nation had accepted the Messiah. These prophecies are different from others that would be fulfilled if they rejected Him. These leaders were at a crossroads, and they were about to choose the wrong path that would end in the destruction of Jerusalem. Some of them might have already died from old age and health issues before their temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, but their present actions would have devastating effects on their nation’s future.
It is ironic that the leaders justified their rejection of Jesus as being the best method of preserving their country when in fact their decisions in the next few days would seal their nation’s doom. This is the problem with political expediency and letting our political views overwhelm our faith in God’s word. In choosing the “logical” or “politically right” decision, we may be heading down a road of destruction even though we were trying to preserve the status quo. While we arrogantly think we can navigate through life’s complexities, the truth is that we are blind to the future, and our only safety is to follow the principles of God’s word. We must not choose force over obedience to the scriptures because God knows the end from the beginning while we do not. God knows how to work around the roadblocks that Satan throws up while we mistake the tunnel painted on the rock face for a real tunnel (to use a roadrunner and coyote cartoon analogy). In fact, the power of the Holy Spirit can sometimes make us a roadrunner to race right through the traps set up for us. On the other hand, trying to live our lives according to worldly logic ensures that we become coyote and are repeatedly caught and destroyed in the traps of our own making. (Apologies if you have never watched a roadrunner cartoon)
Jesus knew that these same leaders would be putting Him on trial in just a few days, but He faced them with courage and grace. The leaders thought that they had Jesus on the spot when they asked Him where He had received His authority to throw the moneylenders and sellers and buyers out of the temple the day before. After all, they believed that they were the highest authority over the temple, and Jesus had not had their permission. Thus, they believed that they could discredit Him before the crowd that surrounded Him. However, Jesus answered in a way that they had never expected. He made His answer conditional on their response to His question.
Jesus asked whether John had received his authority to baptize from heaven or from humans. Because John had died a martyr, it was difficult to criticize him now. The common people in the temple all believed that John was from God. John had spoken out in the manner of the Old Testament prophets and had done nothing that could be used to discredit him. However, while everyone else thought that John the Baptist was a prophet sent by God, these leaders believed only in themselves and their own worldly power. They had no faith that God was operating in their present-day society. On the other hand, they also believed in the power of the people, so they knew that they could not reveal their true belief that John was not from God. They must have had a little whispered conference right there in the courtyard where they decided to refuse to answer Jesus’ question. One answer would anger the crowd. One answer would back them into a corner because John had testified that Jesus was the Messiah. Their position as leaders in the temple meant that they were not required to answer a question from a commoner like Jesus, so they responded that they did not know where John had received his authority from. Jesus replied that if they did not respond to His question, then He would not answer theirs. (However, in the next few verses, Jesus essentially answers the question.)
Like Jesus, we should not worry about skeptics who challenge our beliefs. These cynics do not believe in God. They do not believe in creation. They do not believe in the commandments given in the Bible. They pay lip service to the path of love while following a different path. The doubters’ unrealistic ideas are invalid, and the future will reveal that the deceptions they have faith in are lies. In the meantime, we do not need to challenge their beliefs. Instead, we must simply maintain our faith and love for Jesus and be ready to give an answer about that faith and love if we are asked. In other words, we are not called to solve all the world’s political problems or be anxious about the oppression and lies that flourish around us. Instead, we must maintain our faith in God’s plan which will provide the only workable solution for our world in the long run.