Jesus Curses the Fig Tree

This morning, we begin a new series examining Jesus final week of ministry which led up to his betrayal, trial, crucifixion, and death. All along, throughout his ministry, Jesus has been showing that he is the way, the truth and the life. In order to prove this out, Jesus openly challenges the false teachers, the wicked and evil leaders, the falsely religious of his day. It is my prayer that as we spend the next several weeks studying the truth of Jesus Christ, that we see our own tendencies toward false believing, false teaching, and false understanding.

In our passage this morning, Jesus does something that at first glance seems totally out of keeping with who he is. Remember, John teaches us that Jesus is the Word, he is the one by whom all things were made, things visible and invisible. We know that Jesus has the power to calm seas and silence storms. But why in the world would he curse a tree so as to make it instantly wither?

Jesus, on Monday morning, heads back into Jerusalem, and he became hungry. Why was he hungry? Wasn’t he staying with friends? Didn’t they give him breakfast? Isn’t it likely that Jesus, who often spent hours alone, in a quiet place, outdoors, in prayer to his Father, didn’t make it back on time for breakfast, and when he arrived back at the house, told Mary and Martha, no, no, I’ll grab something from Tim’s along the way.

And, coming upon Tim’s fig tree, he expected to find fruit, but there was none. We read, that seeing a fig tree by the drive-through (though in those days it would have been a ride through, or a walk through), he found nothing but leaves. In that region, fig trees ordinarily produce two sets of figs, early and late figs. The early figs grow out of the previous year’s sprouts, and are smaller, appearing with the leaves. The later figs, coming on brand new shoots, are harvested later, and are larger.

So, Jesus rightly expected to see some fruit on the tree, seeing as it was in full leaf. But this tree, for whatever reason, had no fruit on it. And, being hungry, not being able to get the nourishment he wanted, he cursed the tree and it withered immediately.

Does that still seem a bit harsh to you? Why did Jesus curse the tree?

Jesus cursed the tree because of what it represents. The fig tree represents Israel’s and really, all humanity’s responsibility toward God in faithfulness. In order to understand this, we need to go all the way back to the Garden of Eden, Genesis chapter 3. Adam and Eve encountered the serpent, and were deceived. After eating the fruit which they had been commanded not to eat, they realised they were naked and ashamed.

And, rather than turning to God in confession of their sin, what did they do? They sewed leaves together to hide their nakedness, and they hid themselves from God. What kind of leaves did they use? They used fig leaves! Olive leaves are tiny. Fig leaves are huge!

Since that time, the fig tree has represented human attempts to cover up sin and shame. We believe that by our own means, by our own attempts to hide our sin, we can somehow avoid responsibility for it. We can fool God, and others, by hiding. Now, as far as human beings go, we can be pretty crafty and can pull the wool, or the fig leaves over each other’s eyes. But not so with God. He sees and knows everything.

The fig tree that Jesus cursed represented all the false teachings of the Pharisees, scribes and leaders. That’s what Jesus is saying. Look at them, they seem to be really healthy. They seem to be super blessed by God. They are healthy and wealthy—wealth stolen from the gifts people were offering to God. They look like they have everything all together.

They’ve got the mega-synagogues, they’ve got the fanciest chariots, they’ve got the most followers on social media, they are relevant, hip and happening. From the outside, it all looks great.

But when you get closer, you see that they are all show and no go. There’s no spiritual fruit. There’s no substance to their teaching-except when they are accurately teaching God’s Word. Instead of leading people closer to God, they were actually doing the opposite. They were leading people away from the one true God into a false religion, a works righteousness religion.

Sometimes, it is easy to read the Old Testament as a works based faith. If you this that and the other thing, if you sacrifice this for that sin, if you participate in that ritual, then you will be saved.

But what we sometimes fail to remember is that the doing of those things depended on faith. There were some who just did them, without hardly giving any thought. But there were others, who by faith saw that all those things pointed to the Messiah and the true salvation that was to come in Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

So, here in our passage, we have Jesus, the way, the truth and the life. The one whose whole ministry has been proving that he is God, Emmanuel, God with us. He is the one by whom all are saved. Jesus is life. He is the true fruit of God. And he walks right up to those pretenders, and he sees in their hearts that they don’t have any real fruit at all.

So when Jesus curses the fig tree, he is really cursing the false religion of the Pharisees, scribes and leaders. But Jesus takes no delight in cursing them, no more delight than in cursing his own good creation.

Jesus longs for the leaders to come to true faith, to see him as he truly is! So that they can see that their false religion was nothing more substantial than a few crumbly old leaves. He was judging them, even harshly judging them, with the intention of shocking them into seeing the truth.

In the early 1500’s a monk by the name of Martin Luther, tried to accomplish the same thing. The organised church had become as corrupt and out of faith with the Word of God, as the Pharisees. Make no mistake, Luther wasn’t the only one to see this, others had proclaimed the truth also, like John Hus had some 100 years earlier.

But Luther couldn’t stand by and let people be led astray by the false teaching of his day, and so he proclaimed the truth. His methods and his words were not perfect. He himself was an imperfect, sinful human being. And yet, God still used him to bring about reform, a return back to the true Word of God, true preaching and teaching from the Word of God.

When the disciples saw the tree was cursed immediately, they were amazed! They asked, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” Jesus was showing that in just a short amount of time, those same disciples, filled with the Holy Spirit, would bring many people to true faith in him. The religion of the Pharisees, their power and prestige would come tumbling, crumbling down in just a few short decades, when the temple was destroyed in AD 70.

And even though the disciples didn’t really know and understand the full implications of what the withered tree meant, they asked, "How did this happen?”

Personally, I would have expected Jesus to give an answer about the tree, and how it represents human effort to hide their sins, or to buy their way into heaven, or how human leaders manipulate and take advantage of people in order to glorify and satisfy themselves.

But Jesus goes for a different, and always better tactic. Instead of further pointing out what the Pharisees were doing wrong, Jesus points out what needs to be done right!

Faith is the answer. Faith in God, in what God has done.

How were the Israelites rescued out of Egypt? Was it by their many sacrifices? Was it by their temple worship? Was it by their obedience to God’s laws? No, none of those things existed before the Exodus, God revealed them all afterward.

Remember, the Heidelberg Catechism gets the law of God right—it is not the means of salvation, rather, it is the expression of gratitude after salvation. The Israelites after witnessing God’s power in the plagues, believed God would save them, and he did.

Jesus is commanding his disciples—if you have faith in me, and do not doubt who I am, or what I have come to do, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,” it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.

The faith that Jesus is talking about is faith in him, believing in him. John puts it this way, “For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him, shall not perish, but will have everlasting life.” It is putting trust in all that Jesus did on the cross in dying for and paying for our sins.

It means taking our doubts, and stacking them up against the truth, against the reasonableness of our faith, and saying, yeah, those doubts don’t belong. Faith makes much more sense, based on the evidence I have before me.

Such faith enables us to see through the false religious teachings of the Pharisees, and persists on proclaiming the truth. So that the whole house of cards of works righteousness is knocked down.

It is the faith, given by God, through the Holy Spirit, that empowered the disciples to do just that in the days, weeks, months and years following Pentecost. They continued Jesus’ ministry, and the fig tree withered and died. And we see in their lives how they persevered through trials and tribulations, through persecution and beatings, and imprisonment, and exile. They boldly proclaimed the gospel, setting people free from mountains of sin, mountains of shame, mountains of abuse under false religion.

So, now, how about us?

We need to be very aware of the false teachings around us. There are false teachers online, in bookstores, on our bookshelves. Even though we have unsurpassed access to God’s truth, Christians in North America are almost as scripturally illiterate as Christians were in the time of the Reformation. We have convinced ourselves that we know this stuff.

But when the evil one comes along and says, “Did God really say...” or “If Jesus is the Son of God, why aren’t you healthy and wealthy?” or, “Where was Jesus when you lost your job, or lost your spouse, our lost your home? If Jesus loved you, you’d have all those things, or maybe you don’t really love Jesus enough. Maybe you’ve got to prove it, show me how much you love Jesus—Do this that, and when you’re done, do the other thing too!

Don’t listen to Satan. All we need, brothers and sisters, is faith in the finished work of Jesus. That means our righteousness, our sanctification, our holiness, our perfection is from Jesus through faith. We learned in Galatians, that having begun by faith, we continue by faith also!

So, as we have seen the disciples, who devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching, and to prayer, we see that our method must also be the same as theirs.

We continue to devote ourselves to the apostle’s teaching, by studying God’s Word faithfully and diligently. And by being people of prayer. Pray to the Lord in confidence in Christ, not in yourselves. Pray, trusting Jesus to remove the scales of hypocrisy, of false religion, of false teaching. Pray, trusting Jesus to lead you deeper into the Word of God, and making you bolder to proclaim his truth, as those disciples did, as the Reformers did! Go forth in boldness to proclaim the truth! Amen.