The Death of Figs ...

Does anyone know what death is?  Can anyone truly tell you what it means to experience death?  Jesus said He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  While perhaps I cannot tell you what death is, I can certainly tell you, you will know more about it, the farther you are from the source of Life, the farther you are from Jesus.  In fact, this is my definition of hell, to be living, but to be far from Jesus.  Those who would say that Satan is in hell may have a point.  You don’t need perpetual fire to have hell, you only need to be alive, but as far from Jesus as you can choose to be.  It only makes logical sense.  Jesus is the source of Love, the source of Life.  The farther we get from Him, the farther we are from the source of those two things.  It is not a beating heart, and normal brain waves, that constitute life.  It is experiencing what it means to truly live in Jesus.

But despite this truth, there are many who think Jesus is optional.  Some consider Him a last resort.  The idea goes something like this.  You live your life, “your way”, then when all the “fun” is over, and you are old ready to die, you go ahead and find Jesus just in case.  The flaw in the logic of course, is that this premise believes sin is fun, and obedience is boring (if not impossible).  When the truth is just the opposite.  Imagine any sin, then consider the consequences.  No, not just the going to hell thing, instead how about the being in hell thing.  No matter which sin you consider, what might seem like fun to you, inevitably hurts someone else.  Most of the time, it hurts the people you claim to love most.  Sin is built on the idea of “you loving you” most often, at the expense of someone else.  Sin therefore does have a cause and effect.  We commit it, thinking we risk a punishment from God.  When in reality, we commit it, and find it is we who are punishing ourselves, and everyone who loves us, and everyone we love.  It is behavior that ultimately only hurts us.  Like cutting ourselves with a knife, over and over again.

But how do you illustrate something like this?  How do you get people who are stubborn in their beliefs to see what the ultimate cause and effect of sin really is?  How about a test case?  How about making a physical illustration of what the choice to leave Jesus could really do in the here and now.  Perhaps this was the motive that lies behind the murder of figs, or more accurately the suicide of figs.  Peter recalls the object lesson to John Mark in his gospel in chapter eleven picking up in verse 12 saying … “And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: [verse 13] And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. [verse 14] And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.”

The story begins with a need.  Jesus was hungry.  It is a hunger in all of us, that drives us to look for something more, for something better.  When our lives are not what they could be, when despite our best efforts tragedy takes hold, when everything is great, but not great enough:  it is a hunger that drives us to look, to seek for something to fill this need.  The story is not about Jesus being hungry, this is the same Jesus that spent 40 days in the wilderness without food.  The story is about hunger itself, a need, a longing for something more.  Jesus begins His search and finds a fig tree.  But it is not the season for figs.  It is the time for leaves, not for fruit.  This is the nature of all of us who live apart from Jesus, we are full of leaves, but not fruit.  We offer a pleasing appearance.  From a distance it may look like we can meet the needs of the seeking, but on close inspection, we are full of leaves, and nothing else.

It is impossible to grow fruit, in or out of season, if not connected to Jesus Christ.  For He is the source of Life and Love.  We do originate these things, we reflect them.  There was nothing special about this tree.  It was an ordinary tree doing ordinary things, living an ordinary life.  The point was in the illustration, that this tree could be any one of us.  We too are ordinary, living ordinary lives, and when disconnected from Christ, producing an illusion of beauty, but unable to meet anyone else’s real needs.  After all, the leaves of the tree are intended to nourish the tree alone, not to feed others.  Bugs may steal them, but if left alone and unmolested, the leaves do nothing but sustain the tree.  They make the tree appear appealing, but that is all.  When not connected to Christ, we cannot obey.  We can perform actions that look like obedience, but our motives, and our hearts remain unchanged.

What happens next to this tree is something that Jesus does not say to us, hence the use of a tree to illustrate his point.  Jesus curses the fig tree and proclaims that from that day forward, no man will ever eat fruit from the tree ever again.  This is the same thing we say to Jesus, when we treat the freedom He offers as if we can delay getting it for some other day.  Where it comes to humanity, Jesus is always hoping we will accept His gift.  But some of us don’t.  We make another choice.  But before you know it, our choice becomes the last one we ever make.  Before you know it, we come to a point where we do not want to choose Christ, and our choice is permanent.  The deception of the enemy of souls takes hold in our eyes, and we delay and delay, until we die before we plan to.  At our death, our lives and our choices become unalterable.  There is a permanence to rejection.  Jesus needed to show us this.  So He rejects this tree Himself, to show us what would happen next.

There is an interlude that occurs in scripture we will focus on in our next study.  For now, we will skip down to the results of this incident in Mark, picking up in verse 20 saying … “And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.”  The result of permanent separation from the source of Life and Love is death.  The same tree who only one day earlier was full of leaves that nourish the tree, looking for all intents and purposes as if it were a healthy tree, is now dead from the roots up.  Normally it would take years for this to occur, and only under punishing circumstances.  But a lack of hope, when there is no more chance to be connected to Christ, can produce this result far faster.  The cursed tree is fully dead.  It is not just colored leaves falling, or a branch that has decayed.  It is a full on death from bottom to top, nothing left of it.  It is only useful for firewood now.  What is left can be burned up and consumed, and it will be gone forever.

How like us.  Peter recalls pointing this out to Jesus in verse 21 saying … “And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.”  This stark object lesson has caught the eye of Peter.  It is a miracle in itself, but not a good one.  It may be the only miracle with a dark outcome in all of scripture.  Especially a miracle, that was performed by Christ, that resulted in a death of something that looked alive.  All the other miracles Jesus performed were happy-stories.  All the other miracles ended in someone being brought back to life, being restored to life.  This one ends in death, death from a curse.  Jesus had used a fig tree to symbolize what life disconnected from Himself was really like.  This was truth.  It was unpleasant truth, but truth.

This tree was living its own life.  We, like the tree in this vignette, might consider we have all the time in the world, and the complete freedom to live as we choose.  This is only partially correct.  We have the time of today, but to choose to live away from Jesus carries with it consequences.  The punishments do not come from Christ, they come from us.  But the effects are real, eventually the death is real.  And it does not have to be this way.  Christ used a fig tree because He does not curse humans.  Even Judas could have been redeemed, Peter was.  Jesus even interceded with His Father for the Romans and Pharisees that were putting Him to death.  No human would ever be beyond the love of God.  So Jesus used a tree to show us what happens when we put ourselves in that place.  This is what happens when we refuse the love of God, and cling to our own wisdom and common sense.

But the object lesson was not over.  Jesus responds in verse 22 to this sight saying … “And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.”  The response of Christ to this tragedy is not to focus on the suicide of figs, but to look upwards instead and to have faith in God.  What is impossible in us, is child’s play in our God.  The fig tree was not in season, not expected to bear fruit, but God can do the unexpected in us.  He can save us from loving only ourselves, and reflect a great harvest of fruit through us, no matter the time of our lives.  Then Jesus takes the object lesson up to an entirely new dimension, He expands our thinking way out of the box as He continues in verse 23 saying … “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.”

We are no longer talking about a single tree folks, we have moved up to an entire mountain that may have many trees on it.  Those mountains that stand in our way, be they physical (that’s right real physical mountains), or be they spiritual (that’s right sin’s the size of Everest that we have never been able to beat) can be moved into the sea, just through a single prayer to God to make it so.  Jesus asks us to have faith in God, we are not trusting to our own power, wisdom, or common sense.  Common sense says history will repeat itself.  If we have been beaten before, we will be beaten again.  But faith says, forget your history, focus on Christ, and let Him write you a new history.  Let Him move the mountain you cannot move.  Be careful moving the physical ones folks, because many hikers might be at risk, plus all the animals, you get the idea.  But those spiritual mountains, you can move those out of your life, by praying to God as many as you want, as often as you want.  The sky is the limit on those buggars.

The remainder of these texts we will focus on in our next study.  The response of this illustration with the fig tree is as important as what happened to the fig tree.  Ordinary lives are just not good enough, nor should they be.  What God has planned for you is not a death from the roots up.  It is an explosion of life from the roots up.  What God wants for you in your life is not a sacrifice of fun on the altar of obedience, but rather an explosion of joy that comes within the protective bounds of obedience.  You have lived too long already with the pretense of leaves that nourish only yourself.  Be free from them.  Be free from the pretenses of your life, and make joy a reality of your life.  As you connect to Jesus Christ you do not find gloom and despair, if that is what you are finding, you need to look for Jesus somewhere else.  Jesus is not about gloom and restriction.  He is about the unbridled freedom to love others, with imagination, and without limits.  Don’t get caught up in the deceit of Satan, our enemy of souls, who would drag your life down in the ordinary under the guise of a freedom he cannot offer.  Instead look up.  Instead cast aside the ordinary, and find the extraordinary.  Find Jesus now.  Why would you live in misery another second by a choice you can easily change?  Find Jesus now, and find an explosion of life you can barely contain in the limits of your imagination.