During the week before Jesus’ crucifixion, He ministered in Jerusalem, giving His people one last chance to discern the fact that God truly had sent His Son among them.

One morning as He was making His commute to Jerusalem from Bethany where He was staying, He saw a fig tree and went over to it seeking something to eat. Finding that its branches were barren of sustenance and fruitless, He cursed the tree and went on His way.

He then proceeded to overturn the tables of the money changers, possibly the second time, as John’s gospel records Him doing the same thing at the beginning of His ministry (John 2:13-17). If that’s the case, apparently nothing was learned from the first explosion of God’s wrath at their dishonest practices. The merchants had developed a money exchanging scam where they would cheat the people who had to exchange the “unholy” Roman coins for temple money so they could purchase the animals for the sacrifices. The religious leadership knew very well what was happening and were most likely receiving a percentage of the profits because they were known to be covetous (Luke 16:14).

These dishonest practices were taking place in the court of the Gentiles, the only place on the temple grounds where Gentiles were permitted. The Jews were behaving like the Gentiles who did not have the privilege of being exposed to God’s law, and so the Jews were without excuse.

That evening when Jesus and His disciples were returning to Bethany, the disciples were amazed to see that the fig tree that Jesus had cursed had withered so quickly.

One could wonder why Jesus was so swift to in cursing and destroying a perfectly good fig tree. We are told that it wasn’t the time of figs (Mark 11:13), which Jesus had to have known. Aside from using this example as an illustration of faith and the power of God to the disciples, there is a greater symbolism that we must take into consideration.

The fig tree is used in scripture as a symbol of the Hebrew nation. Jesus was about to be rejected and crucified by the people He came to save. Their rejection of the Messiah is symbolized by those withered branches.

Fruit can only be produced from branches that are alive with sap. When there is no sap, the tree withers and dies.

In John 15, Jesus likens Himself to a fruit bearing vine, alive with the living, flowing sap of the Father’s Holy Spirit.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the Husbandman, (John 15:1)
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in Me (15:4)
If a man does not abide in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (15:6).

I wonder if Jesus’ words to His disciples triggered their memory of the withered fig tree they saw just a few days earlier. Were their thoughts clinging to the image of those brown, useless branches when Jesus reiterated the point He was making when He told them, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Without His Spirit in them, the fruits of a changed life, those fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22,23), including love and all its aspects (I Corinthians 13:4-8) cannot be produced.

Without His Holy Spirit of eternal life, the “sap” that flows from the Father through Jesus to us, no one can have eternal life. And all those who reject the Son, cannot survive and will suffer the same fate as that cursed and rejected fig tree. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except by Me” (John 14:6).

Forty years after Jesus’ pronounced judgment on a fig tree that represents His people, the city of Jerusalem that witnessed His crucifixion was destroyed by Titus’ army in 70AD.

Only Jesus is the vessel that the Father has ordained to be the life giving vine to all those who believe that He is the Son of God and the Messiah.

Jesus has given us all a commandment we must obey in order to have eternal life, and live a life that is pleasing to God: Abide in the Vine of Christ.

We can choose to obey Him and let His sap develop us into a vibrant, life giving branch that can nourish others; - or we can reject Him and wither like the fig tree that Jesus cursed.

Copyright 2022 by H.D. Shively

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