Withered Fig Trees

Mark 11. Have you ever really imagined this story? It's the beginning of fig season and the tree was covered in big green leaves, but had no fruit yet. Jesus stops for a moment and simply tells this lush, green tree "may no one ever eat from you again."Shortly after, you're going back on the same path and the gorgeous green tree that you JUST saw has become a nasty, withered, pathetic twig.

Now, of course there is the clear illustration that the we are the tree, and though we may look promising, if we do not bear fruit, we will wither and die too.

But more importantly, Jesus chooses to tell us about the power of faith in this instance. Jesus explicitly says, if you believe (without a shadow of a doubt) that God can do something, it will be yours.

Imagine having that kind of faith. Believing God SO wholeheartedly and SO confidently that you yourself could go up to a fifty-year old tree and tell it to wither. And crazy enough, it does.

The thing is, this type of faith is truly within our reach. Not because we are so great, but because God is just THAT crazy. THAT amazing. THAT powerful.

If you do not doubt and believe that what you say WILL happen, it will be done for you! Believe it or not, it really is as simple as that. The power of God is ready and right there for the taking, all it takes is genuine belief. But all too often, we shy away from God's power. We limit what he can do because we're too scared. What if it doesn't come true? And sometimes even scarier, what if it does.

God is capable of giving us a whole downpour, a monsoon, but instead we ask for a single raindrop. We ask for the smallest thing we can, because we don't want to impose upon God with our petty problems, just in case it doesn't work out. In case God says no, we don't want to risk that disappointment. If God doesn't deliver like we hope he will, then what would that mean for what little faith we have?

But we have to realize that the lack of an answer usually is our lack of faith more than any insufficiency on God's part. If we had blazing faith like Moses, Elijah, and the disciples did, we could do miraculous things. We would see God's hands working through our lives all the time, and there would be withered fig trees all OVER the place.

But this world has got us jaded. We are an unbelieving and perverse generation. Of course God is still capable. He is the unchanging, omnipotent God, and the same Holy Spirit inhabits our souls. The only difference now is that we don't believe like they did. But we can.

The Lord is our father. And he explicitly tells us over and over to just come. Just ask. Just believe. And if we actually were to, why would he not give us the desires of our hearts?

So now try reading this with renewed faith in the power of Christ.

⁷"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

⁹"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? ¹¹If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"

Matthew 7

Show me a sign.

In the New Testament, we read over and over about the Pharisees and Jewish council members testing Jesus. Asking him for a sign. Trying to catch him breaking Roman and Jewish laws so that they could persecute this man who was ruining their rep and overturning what they had grown up learning was right.

And because hindsight is 20/20, I would always think, "Goodness, these Pharisees are so blind. They're just so desperate to cling to their religion and customs that they can't see the LORD in front of them."

And while I still hold onto that view, Pastor Sam's sermon on Sunday shed some new light to the situation that gives the Pharisees much more credit.

Deuteronomy 13:1-5.

They were, ironically, trying to follow God's word in persecuting Jesus. This passage describes a false prophet who would come doing miracles, leading them to follow gods they did not know. And God commanded that the false prophet was to be put to death.

Imagine being one of the Pharisees, forewarned that this type of prophet was coming. Then Jesus comes around, calling people to follow him (and to them, Jesus = not God). Plus, this man is going around performing miracles, so your duty as a follower of God's Word would seem to be: catch Jesus as the false prophet and get rid of this threat. God said so.

They had to prove that Jesus was indeed what Deuteronomy 13 describes, so they tried several times to catch him in the act. They asked for miracles and signs, not as proof of his Lordship, but to be used as incriminating evidence against him. Which of course, is why Jesus often denied them and owned them with his penetrating words instead. Jesus could have easily doled out a miracle, but he knew their hearts and exposed their deceitful traps.

But the Pharisees really did think it was their God-given decree to put this "false prophet" to death. Hence the hot pursuit and ultimate death of Jesus Christ. (But of course, thank God for that, because it led to Jesus' atonement for our sins)

So it wasn't just that they couldn't accept or understand Jesus' miraculous powers. It wasn't just that they were outraged that this man was breaking laws that God had specifically told them to follow. Their persecution was genuinely rooted in the word.

Sad and ironic, isn't it? They thought they were being good, righteous, God-fearing believers, but it was their lack of faith and their inability to see Jesus for who he was that condemned them. This man was too radical for them. Too human. Too counter-cultural.

So even though Pharisees knew the Word inside and out, if these serious, legitimate Bible scholars could end up condemning themselves, it shows me that the interpretation of His Word is not to be taken lightly. And more importantly, if we cannot see God in his whole triune self in light of the Word, then we are just as blind as the Pharisees. We cannot pick and choose pieces of the Bible that fit what we want it to, or else we risk facing the same self-righteous fate.