It’s Monday. The dusty track between Bethany and Jerusalem is busy with the typical traffic: Farmers bring their produce into the city, the more successful driving braying donkeys. A young lawyer-in-training walks as quickly as dignity allows to get to his studies in time. A family arrives to celebrate the Passover with relatives, the children chattering with excitement as they near the holy city. A group of Roman auxiliaries travel to a new assignment.
Hurrying about their business, few take notice of the small group walking toward Jerusalem with a young rabbi at the center. Yesterday, he had ridden on a donkey to the resounding shouts of the multitude. His arrival had thrown the city into a tumult — Who is this man? Today is quieter.
“I hunger.” Not far ahead, the leaves of its branches shading a bit of the road, stands a fig tree. Pausing in the shade, he looks up and finds nothing but leaves; it is not the season for figs. He knows no fruit could come from its strong, spreading branches. Yet he speaks: “May no one ever eat fruit from you again” (Mark 11:14). The disciples look at each other. Surely he knows figs are not yet in season. Doesn’t he? They resume their walk toward Jerusalem with questioning glances.
That morning holds more surprises. An angry confrontation with moneychangers in the temple leads to the confusion of overturned tables and pigeons set loose in the precincts. Jesus’s voice rises above the chaos: “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” (Mark 11:17).
A cursed fig tree, a cleansed temple. With the looming cross ahead, what does it all mean?
Cursed Tree
Some six hundred years before the events of those days, the prophet Jeremiah had spoken warnings against the people of Judah, telling them to turn from their stiff-necked and rebellious ways.
While acting wickedly, the people foolishly trusted in the security of “the temple of the Lord,” saying, “‘Peace, peace,’ when there [was] no peace” (Jeremiah 7:4; 8:11). God repeatedly sent them messengers, but they refused to “listen . . . or incline their eye, but stiffened their neck” (Jeremiah 7:26). When he came looking for a harvest, he discovered vines lacking grapes, trees lacking figs (Jeremiah 8:13). They trusted in the outward form of the temple and its practices, but they rejected the word of God.
Walking with his disciples that morning, Jesus gave them a prophetic parable. Going to gather the fig tree’s fruit, the incarnate Lord found its branches bare. Entering the temple, he found a den of robbers. Coming to his people, he found only rejection and spite. Jesus cursed the barren fig tree. According to Mark, it was “withered away to its roots” when he and the disciples passed it the next morning (11:20) — a sign for them of the fruitlessness of Israel, an echo of the prophetic word that “even the leaves are withered” (Jeremiah 8:13).
Though maintaining the outward forms of the people of God, Israel was a dead tree that rejected the Word of God.
Cursed Cross
The days to come would hold yet more surprises and evidence of godlessness. Repeated contests with the religious rulers, instruction about the end of the ages, a final meal, betrayal, arrest, a mock trial, and death. On one side of the city stood a barren fig tree, withered to its roots, cursed. It stood as a parable for Israel, the rebellious son of God. On the other side of Jerusalem stood another tree, this one made by man, also fruitless. On it hung the Son of Man, cursed as are all who hang on a tree (Deuteronomy 21:23).
The whirlwind of events, the unspeakable grief, the rapid descent from a glorious entry into the holy city followed by the crucifixion outside it — all of this left the disciples lost. They had hoped Jesus would be the one to redeem Israel. What did it all mean?
When Jesus cursed the fig tree, he made it barren forever. No fruit would come from that tree again. It would stand until it rotted away as a sign against Israel. But as the disciples would soon see, when Jesus became a curse for us, he made the barren cross bear fruit. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law,” Paul writes, “by becoming a curse for us . . . so that in [him] the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles” — all nations (Galatians 3:13–14).
The fig tree was a sign against a godless nation that had scorned the covenant promises of God, its barrenness revealing the living death of a people without God. The cross is the sign of a new nation, under a new covenant, that receives the promise of the Holy Spirit. From this death springs life and the promise of worldwide blessing — God with us.
Fruit for the Nations
The point of Monday was always Friday. Jesus knew as he walked with his confused disciples that greater confusion was yet to come. He knew they did not yet understand the work he had come to do. They would taste the bitterness of disappointment. They would bury their hopes in his grave.
He also knew that their mourning would turn to joy, for the point of Friday was always Sunday. On the other side of the cursed tree stood the empty grave. From barrenness would fruit be born. From the curse would spring forth life. From the strong grip of death, they would taste something sweet. And then their joy would spread. The little overshadowed tree outside Jerusalem would grow, spreading forth branches to shade the whole world, bearing the fruit that brings healing to the nations.
Do you hunger? Come to this tree. Eat of its fruit. Taste of its blessing. Receive its life.