Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Many are confused about the significance of Jesus cursing a fig tree outside of Jerusalem, but when Jesus did that, it communicated a powerful message. Today on Light on the Hill, hear why this story in Mark chapter 11 provides such a powerful opportunity for life change and growth. Here’s Pastor James Kaddis.

James Kaddis: All right, let’s take a look at this. We are going to start in verse 12. We are on the heels of this incredible and powerful story of Bible prophecy being fulfilled through Jesus riding the donkey into the city. We talked about everything that entailed or was intertwined with all of that. We talked about the opportunity for the apostles to have shown obedience in a way that changed their life dramatically. We talked about the many opportunities that God puts in front of us to seek Him and to grow as a result of the decisions that we make to walk in obedience.

I think all of those things are very important. Now we’re going to enter into a mode here where we’re going to see Jesus bring a harsh and heavy condemnation upon the existing religious system that we see specifically represented by the temple culture of this time. But what a lot of people often don’t recognize or see or learn or understand is the fact that this condemnation, this harsh judgment, often referred to as the fig tree judgment, is a much larger condemnation on a specific decision that we make as the people of God within a very specific context. It should be an eye-opening experience for us. It should cause us to think about things so substantially different that we’re able to recognize what we need to do in order to not be in this place.

There’s a lot to be said here and some of this might feel a bit discombobulated, especially within the sections of verses that we’re going to read, but none of it is. It all works beautifully and we’re going to see that right now. Let’s jump right into verse 12 of chapter 11.

Mind you, this is right after what everybody refers to as the triumphal entry. This is after Jesus riding the donkey into the city through the East Gate. Look at what it says in verse 12. It says, "And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry." When it says he was hungry, it’s referring to Jesus. You have to understand we’re not in the kind of culture in which we are in today where food is readily available and we have this sort of ability to be very discriminate concerning the kind of food that we eat, when it goes into our system, and what's available to us.

I was at the Costco recently that was near the mall to go get some stuff for the kids. Nicole was in another part on the other side of the street getting some other things that she needed to get, trying to save time because we’re only limited on our time off. I go in there, do whatever I have to do, and then I said, "I’m going to go into the mall and I’m going to get one of those really soft pretzels." I wanted one so bad that I said, "I’ll pay the extra money, who cares?" I go and I do it and I take a bite and it was nasty. It did not taste good. It felt like it was stale and hard.

I said, "I want a refund." They said, "Well, we'll just give you a new one. These ones are fresh." They pull from the very back and here’s the fresh one. I take that and no, I want a refund; this doesn't taste good. They give me another one and I just said, because they say it's against our policy to refund you since we swapped it out a few times. This is ridiculous. I try the third one out, and it isn't all that good. These are first-world problems as I’m describing this, and it feels ridiculous talking about this, but you’ll understand the point that I get to.

I finish all that up, everything is terrible, and I don’t eat it. It really was inedible. It was as hard as a rock. I call them and I said, "I want a refund." They’re like, "Sorry, we’re not giving you one." Okay, no problem, I’m going to file a dispute with the credit card company. The lady says, "Well, in that case, we’ll give you a refund." Like no joke. I go over there, give her my receipt, they give me a refund. It’s all done. On my way out, I’m thinking, wow, it’s kind of crazy. I went and I got a refund. I’ve got two loaves of bread in my basket that I’m carrying and I have eggs, and I went in and got them so easily.

We don't live in a world where this is the norm or the standard. In the West, everything is available to us readily. There are parts of the world where you go and you get something like that, people would love it no matter how bad it tasted and they don’t get the ability to be discriminate about what they eat. It's a very different thing to think about it and in America, we've experienced this a lot, just how easy it is to obtain things that the rest of the world has a very hard time obtaining.

This is the thought that I was thinking about in looking at Christ being hungry because it wasn’t like Christ was hungry and then he could just go to the nearest 7-Eleven or could go to a burger place or could go sit down and buy the latest and greatest falafel. It didn’t work that way. If you wanted food, if you wanted to eat, really the only way that you could eat, maybe there were a few vendors that were around, but you had to prepare. If you were leaving, you actually had to prepare. You could not decide you were going to go on a long trip without having that food by your side because it's not like you're able to just get it anywhere you want to get it. It just doesn't make sense, kind of a different world in which we live today.

So Jesus is hungry and when you read the description of what hunger means according to the way this is phrased, it doesn't just mean that Jesus wanted to snack because he felt a little like he wanted to just put something in his belly. No, he was very hungry, meaning his body was calling out for nourishment. That's the picture that we get here. I need you to think that through because when this story gets read, very few people point out the fact that the Bible says that Jesus was hungry. They don’t really focus on that; they actually want to focus on the tree itself that we’re going to get into in just a minute. But Jesus here is very hungry.

This is interesting because if you are hungry and you’re looking at a tree that’s producing fruit, then that is going to feel very welcoming and not only is it going to feel very welcoming, but that’s going to be exciting in a way. I’ve had those moments where as a kid it was a very busy summer day and you’re near a peach tree or you’re near an apple tree or something like that and you’re hungry and you see that readily available to you. You go grab it and there is nothing that tastes better unless you bite into one with a worm, which I’ve done that before, then that’s not so good. We had a fig tree in our backyard and my mom loved going to the backyard and getting figs. They produced so many figs that we had to pick them quickly, if not then all the skunks and the raccoons would come and eat them.

But there’s nothing better than feeling a little hungry and then going to a tree that’s producing fruit and eating the fruit of the tree. There is nothing like it. When we look at this story, I want to set it up correctly. I want you to be set up with the understanding that Jesus here is hungry. Look at this verse 13 because this is where it really matters. The fact that Jesus is hungry matters to the next verse that we’re going to read. It says this, "And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet."

Now this is interesting. The Bible points something out to us that should be noted and that is that the figs were not in season, meaning there should be no expectation for fruit to come from that tree because of the season that they were in. If you read this and that’s all you knew and what you read from its plain reading was exactly that, then this would be deeply confusing to you because you would think, "Well, wouldn’t Jesus know that the season is not ready? The season is not that which matches with the fig tree?" Like wouldn’t He know that and then wouldn’t He just simply not anticipate anything being on the tree? Well, yes, if that’s all you knew about the way fig trees worked, especially in the Middle East.

But if you take some time to study and understand this, you would know that the figs come in one very specific season and it’s the only time that the figs would actually come, especially in this climate, in this environment. One fact that a lot of people don’t normally talk about or not even are necessarily aware of is, let's say the season for the figs would be typically in the middle of the summer season, which is often times the way it is. What you would see on a regular basis is figs coming out of a tree several months before the season and although it was not something that you would commonly see with all of the fig trees all the time, when you did see it happen during that time it would produce figs that were very, very good.

The thing that you would be able to do in order to tell whether or not there were figs on that tree from a distance is you would observe leaves on that tree. If there were no leaves on the tree, then that would mean the tree would have no figs and typically if you saw leaves on the tree, then you would know that the tree was signaling you to tell you that there are figs. So if you go to the tree seeing that there are leaves on it and there are no figs at all or no signs that the figs were picked, then that means something is very wrong with the tree. It's a bad thing.

So Jesus goes to the tree because he’s walking with the general assumption that the tree is going to produce fruit or has produced fruit. That’s probably the better way of putting it. He walks up to the tree with the general assumption that it has already produced fruit. 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." That’s very interesting.

First of all, the one question that I would ask almost immediately is why would Mark write this story? Why would this story even be told to us? By the way, we do see other accounts of this story, somewhat similar accounts to this story, Matthew 21 specifically. But what’s interesting here is when you begin to contemplate why this story would even be told, perhaps because of the unusual nature of what happened, yeah, maybe. But there’s a bigger picture involved. I want to be careful when I say this. There’s a lot of people that will look at the fig tree and immediately what they will do is they will assume that the fig tree is Israel. I hear it a lot. Right now especially with all of these Israel-haters, they will say that what this was was God cursing Israel because Israel is fruitless. That’s kind of the idea. Well, that’s not true. Nothing could be further from the truth; that’s actually dead wrong.

Jesus was doing something in that moment that was producing a very active and important demonstration and that is if a tree reports visually that it bears fruit and doesn't bear fruit, then Jesus was going to go out of his way to make sure that the tree would never, ever show that it could bear fruit even though it didn't. In other words, Jesus cursed the tree knowing full well that what would happen in essence is that anybody else who walked up to the tree would see it in its withered state and no longer anticipate eating food from it, thus being deceived by the appearance.

Now that’s important because I think the placement of that story is really remarkable in that what we read next is critical. Let’s read this and then we’re going to get into this question that the disciples ask which is also critical, but let’s take a look at this verse 15. "And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple."

Now I want to stop here because you immediately will gravitate to the idea that Jesus is doing something here that’s very harsh and the very question that you need to ask is why is he doing it? This is really simple. For those of you that don't know what drove the anger that Jesus had in this situation, you’ve got to recognize that in the Old Testament law, there was a certain requirement for sacrifice to be made in order for the covering of your sin. So in order for people to have their fellowship restored with God, in other words in order for their relationship with God to remain intact, they had to sacrifice animals. There can be no remission of sin without the blood of bulls and goats.

The Lord recognized in the Old Testament law, we see it, he recognized that there were different people of different categories of life, different people that had different levels of wealth, different people who were relatively poor and people that were relatively wealthy. And so there was always provision made for people who could not afford cattle, didn’t have a ranch, wasn’t raising these incredibly expensive animals, to be able to bring pigeons and sacrifice pigeons. Something very similar, birds, doves, whatever you want to call them. There was an alternative that was made in order for them to be able to do so so that they could still allow their relationship with God to be reconciled through some kind of animal sacrifice. In some contexts if they could not afford it, they would be able to resort to the tool or the instrument that birds provided for them.

So they would go and they would do this. Jesus was upset because what he was witnessing when he went into the temple was something that was completely outside of what God ever intended for the temple. You see, when the temple was built, it was built for the same reason that the tabernacle was built. We've been talking about this going through the book of Exodus and the tabernacle was built for two very important reasons. Number one, it allowed people to continue to develop the awareness that God was in the center of their lives. They exited their tents, they would see the tabernacle, they knew that God was there because they were reminded of the presence of God's glory.

They were reminded of the fact that God was in the midst of them, that God was guiding them. They knew they were where God wanted them to be when they saw the pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night. It served that purpose. It made them aware of the fact that God was at the center of their lives. The second thing that it did was it provided a way by which people could have fellowship restored to God as a result of their fellowship being severed from the sinful life that they lived. The Bible says that we are all born in a condition of total and complete depravity and without the shedding of blood there cannot be remission of sins. So you have no fellowship with God if there is no sacrifice.

Now we right now in the day in which we live find that we have redemption through the perfect Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world and our fellowship with God is constant because of the restoration given to us by our perfect sacrifice. This is where now Christ is acting as our priest. One day he will act as the King of the Jews and the King of the world. He’s not there now, but he is our high priest and that’s a thing we have to understand. They would go to the temple and this is what Jesus was witnessing. The purpose of the temple here was for them to seek God. The purpose of the temple was for them to have fellowship restored. The purpose of the temple was so that it would be a place that they could go to where they could literally pray before the Lord.

Just like in the day that it was dedicated and rededicated and rededicated, the whole purpose of that was so that fellowship would be restored between God and man. This is what would happen. This was a typical experience. You would have people, rich and poor, that would show up and they would bring their animals. And the high priests would say, "Your animal is unacceptable because it has not been sanctified by our priests and it is not worthy of being sacrificed in the temple." As a matter of fact, it’s very interesting when we hear the story of the angels appearing to the shepherds making the announcement of Christ's arrival, those shepherds were very likely the shepherds that were managing the temple sheep, the sheep that we’re about to talk about right now.

So what these priests would say is they would say, "Look, the sheep that you brought, the animal that you brought has not been sanctified. It’s not worthy to be sacrificed." "Well, then what are we going to do?" "Well, you can buy this animal from us at this exorbitant price." Most people would say, "Well, look, I might be wealthy but my goodness, that sheep would normally cost me $1,000, you want me to pay $5,000 for that thing?" "Well, I’ll tell you what, I will give you a deal and you can pay $1,000 for that sheep if you trade in your old one." It’s an 80% discount. "All right, sounds like a plan, whatever." And they would go and they would do that whole tradeoff, then they would take that sheep that was supposedly not consecrated, not set apart, and they would put it in their own field to sit in that field for a little while and they would take it and they would sell it and they would make money and they would turn it over.

And then likewise, you’d have people come with their own birds and the priests would say, "No, no, no, it doesn't work, it's not good enough. These are not set apart." "Well, what do I do to fix that?" "Well, you can buy ours." "Well, you want $30 apiece for these birds? We literally pay 40 cents for them. What do you mean $30?" "You have to do it." So they would go to pay the money just like the wealthy people would go to pay the money. They would say, "Oh no, uh-uh. This is Roman money. You can’t buy a sacrifice that you’re going to give to God with the dirty Roman money. Romans are dirty. You can’t use Roman money."

"But then how are we going to buy it?" "Well, if you'd like, we don't really talk about it much, but there's a few people over there, they'll take your Roman money and they'll exchange it for temple money." "What? Okay, I'll just go over there, it's just an extra inconvenient thing." They go, "Hey, can I have 30 temple dollars for my 30 Roman dollars?" "Oh no, it doesn't work that way. I have to take that Roman money and I have to figure out a way to spend it without being ostracized by all of my friends and family. So your 30 Roman dollars only mean five temple dollars to me." "What do you mean to say that I have to pay you 150 Roman dollars in order to get 30 temple dollars?" "I'm taking a hit. You want me to go spend Roman money. My temple money’s worth a whole lot more."

Whole families would come together, put all their money together because they’re not going to leave. They’re not going to walk away from the temple, they don’t want to be separated from God. So what are they doing? They’re giving everything, their whole life savings so they can go to the money changers. Then this would happen; we actually read an account of this. They would take their money, they’d go back to the people selling it and they would say, "Well, we sold that bird. Now this bird is going to cost you a little bit more." And it was a vicious cycle. And they took advantage of people. Jesus sees this and he’s turning everything around because he knows this is wrong what they’re doing.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today for Light on the Hill. What you just heard is one part of a study in Mark’s Gospel from Pastor James Kaddis. You can hear it again at lightonthehillradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Pastor James, here in Mark chapter 11, we see Jesus upset about what was going on in the temple courts and overturning some tables. Some might even be taken aback by that. Many have a picture in their mind of a meek and mild Jesus, a man who was all about peace and love, never about correction or judgment. How does this passage challenge that thinking?

James Kaddis: This is a very difficult question for me to be able to answer considering the day that this is being answered for. This is the 25th anniversary of what happened on 9/11, which is a reminder of the very substance of the question that you asked me. The war that we are facing is a spiritual war. The battle is a spiritual battle. And when those men flew in those buildings, they were actually saying very spiritual things when they did what they did. And it goes back to this same picture where people look at Jesus and they don't expect him to be one who engages, they don't expect him to be one who would even get forceful or difficult when in reality it has nothing to do with what you perceive Jesus to be.

It has everything to do with who he is and seeking him and putting him first. And I think it's remarkable because reflecting on a day like this, I think about these men who flew in the towers because they're being told by a lying and deceiving false god like Allah who gets them to think that it's okay to act with violence because that's where real spirituality is. When Jesus, being the most meek and mild-mannered person, acts in a way that we perceive to be violent when in reality it's being done to save our lives, not take the lives of those who oppose him. And I think it’s just so powerful to think about this on a day like this, Jesus extending himself, looking at this. It really does challenge the thinking of the world that what Jesus is doing here is spectacularly important because it's not violent action for the sake of harming and hurting and putting people aside because of their lack of belief, it's action designed to bring people closer in to Almighty God. It's just heavy, but it’s a powerful message here especially considering what happened on this day.

Guest (Male): Amen. Thanks, Pastor James. More from the book of Mark coming up next time on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. This listener-supported program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.