JESUS CURSES A FIG TREE, CLEARS THE TEMPLE (March 30, AD 33)
Matt 21:12-19; Mark 11:12-19; Luke 19:45-48

Mark often wraps texts and their meanings together like a sandwich. In Mark 11:11, Jesus ends up in Jerusalem briefly at the end of the day before returning to Bethany. Jesus spots a fig tree when he returns to Jerusalem on Monday. He entertains the topic of the fig tree before turning attention to cleansing the temple. Mark 11:12-19 wraps these two concepts together. This might look really different from the humble Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, but there's more here than first meets the eye. Let's look more closely at each of these two images.

Jesus Curses the Fig Tree

First, Jesus drives our attention to a withered fig tree in verses 12-14:

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard it.

Some have seen a character lapse in Jesus’ cursing of the tree. New Testament critic, T.W. Mason, describes this story as “a story of miraculous power wasted in the interest of ill temper.” Some interpret Jesus' angry response as erupting from his hunger--as if he was "hangry." But Jesus’ outburst is motivated neither by hunger nor misplaced anger.

Fig trees dot the landscape of Jerusalem and can grow to 20 feet tall or more. Because it was Passover (March/April), Jesus didn’t expect this tree to produce the first figs until May/June. But the leaves would have already arrived, giving the appearance of a healthy fruit-bearing tree.

Commentator Craig Evans says, "The fig tree symbolized Israel’s golden age and properly functioning temple practices." Jesus looks like an Old Testament Prophet. Sometimes they used fig trees and their fruit to symbolize the people of God and their obedience. For instance, Jeremiah compared the abomination of the temple by the leaders of Israel in Jeremiah 8:13 to a fruitless fig tree, saying he came to gather up their sweet fruit “but there were no figs on the fig tree; even the leaves were withered… therefore the Lord God has doomed us to perish… because we have sinned against the LORD.”

So Jesus uses the fig tree as a prop illustrating Israel as a fruitless tree. This sets up the transition to his actions in the temple which follow right afterward.

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

Second, Jesus clears out the barren temple in Mark 11:15-19:

And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came they went out of the city.

The crowd is largely Jewish. Jesus is likely in the outer courts where Gentiles were permitted. First-century historian Josephus probably embellishes here, but he claims as many as 2.7 million people gathered for Passover and over 255,000 lambs were sacrificed.

Pilgrims traveling from all of the kingdom and world would purchase sacrifices from vendors once they arrived so they didn’t have to travel with them. Both Mark and Matthew mention pigeon sacrifices to show how merciless the price-gouging had become--even the sacrifices God provided for the poor were used to exploit them. Vendors would mark up the price of a lamb and then cheat them on the exchange rate from idolatrous Roman coins to the required Tyrian coins.

Jesus enters, throws over the tables, runs out buyer and seller alike, and prevents anyone carrying anything through. John even pictures Jesus taking a whip creating a stampede of sheep and cattle too out of the temple. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all quote Isaiah 56:7 here, “My House shall be called a house of prayer,” but only Mark completes it with “for all the nations.”

The temple was considered the house of God, representing God dwelling with his people. Who should you be paying attention to in God’s House? God! Jesus’s point is that God’s house is for prayer, not profit. But God’s people are more concerned with their wallets than their worship.

Why does Jesus curse the fig tree and clear the temple? Jesus is deliberately fulfilling Zechariah 14:21’s prophecy of a Last Day (eschatological) judgment on the leaders of Israel--both political and religious. There Zechariah says:

And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat of sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day.

The chief priests and scribes understood the unprecedented authority Jesus claimed here and versed 18 says they “heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching."

They feared the loss of influence. They feared the loss of profit. But they didn't fear Jesus.

Jesus came to replace the place of worship in the temple as the person through whom all must worship to have access to God.

Reflection

1. It has been said, “to be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” How is your prayer life? What does your prayer life say about your love for God? Are you suffocating? Breathe.
2. What does the content of your prayers say about what you care about? Do you pray for others? What do you pray for specifically? Do you pray for spiritual realities like the sin struggles of your brothers and sisters? Do you pray for non-Christians (co-workers, family, friends, etc.)? Do you ask for opportunities to share Christ?
3. Mark makes it clear that God’s house is a house of prayer for the nations. Do you pray for people who are different than you? Do you pray for missionaries in foreign lands?
4. When you gather with the local church, are you eager to use your spiritual gifts to build up the church?
5. Are you loving other Christians in a way that is noteworthy as other-worldly to those far from God?

Art: Draw either Jesus looking at the fig tree or Jesus casting over the money tables.