Monday – Gospels

Reading – Mark 11-12

Highlight Verse:

“He noticed a fig tree in full leaf a little way off, so he went over to see if he could find any figs. But there were only leaves because it was too early in the season for fruit.”
‭‭Mark‬ ‭11‬:‭13‬ ‭NLT‬‬

This scene always confused me.

Here’s the perfect man losing His temper over a tree that shouldn’t have had figs on it yet in the first place.

Huh?

We never covered this in Bible college (I didn’t get that far along).

So, I turned to my favorite commentary sites – Blue Letter Bible, and Enduring Word.

It turns out that, while not definitive, the Greek implies that either it was a bad season for figs or that tree was having a bad season.

That still leaves the disturbing image of Jesus losing His temper over a minor circumstance…

Unless…

Could He have been trying to teach us a lesson?

That tree had all the indications of bearing fruit. It was in full leaf, well past flowering. It should have had fruit by now.

It didn’t.

In our journey of faith, if we are past the initial blossoming of faith, we should be bearing fruit.

If something is wrong that is holding us back from bearing fruit, we shouldn’t act like that tree, like everything is normal.

But let’s face it, our default is to put on our best front and look to those around us like everything is fine.

That’s not fine.

Jesus was in a mode of cleansing the religious corruption and extended that mode to make an example of this fig tree.

But keep in mind that he brought redemption to those of the religious establishment who chose to follow Him – Nicodemus, Levi, Paul, etc.

If you or I find ourselves hiding behind a religious front, we still have the opportunity to step out from behind that fake front into a healed and whole faith.

Then we won’t be able to stop the fruit of faith that we will bear.

Have you ever recovered from a fruitless fake season of faith? How did you get past it?
Are you in that season now? Do you want help out? Let us know.