Weekly Sermon Overview

Message Date: June 4, 2015 Message Title: Faith, Fig Trees, and Mountains

OVERVIEW The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a f ig tree in leaf, he went to f ind out i f i t had any fruit . When he reached i t , he found nothing but leaves, because i t was not the season for f igs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say i t . On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and sel l ing there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those sel l ing doves, and would not al low anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is i t not writ ten: ‘My house wil l be cal led a house of prayer for al l nations’? But you have made i t ‘a den of robbers. ’” The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kil l him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the ci ty. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the f ig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The f ig tree you cursed has withered!” “Have fai th in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tel l you, i f anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea, ’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say wil l happen, i t wil l be done for them. Therefore I tel l you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received i t , and i t wil l be yours. And when you stand praying, i f you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” -Mark 11:12-25 I recently realized that we’re tackling these Kingdom essentials, these pillars of life with Jesus, in reverse order. Last week, we talked about humility, unselfconscious reliance, without which it is simply impossible to live as a citizen of the Kingdom. This week, however, we find that there is another pillar upon which humility is entirely dependent: faith. Where humility is essential, faith is elemental because reliance presupposes trust. I came to this realization right after I finished preaching this weekend—a little late to the ballgame, I know, but better late than never. I had

just finished talking about the beauty of dependence and inviting people into a life of peace and rest and joy as they learned the mystery of the easy yoke, when I realized that, if this kind of a thing was easy, everyone would be doing it. Now, I did recognize and acknowledge that there are things in our lives upon which we rely instead of Jesus, places we find our significance apart from Him, and we did spend time together praying for the courage to lay them down. But, what I didn’t do was acknowledge the reason we find it so easy to hold onto these things and so difficult to cling to Jesus: we’re not sure if we can trust Him. For a variety of reasons, we simply think that the stuff that we’re carrying might just be too heavy for Him to lift. So, where entry into and greatness within the Kingdom is dependent on humility, entry into Jesus-focused humility is dependent on faith, faith that He exists, faith that He is able, faith that He is near, faith that He is good. This is why the writer of Hebrews says: And without fai th i t is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. -Hebrews 11:6 Jesus illustrates this in vivid fashion in Mark 11. Having just the day before ascended to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in triumph, the newly inaugurated King returned to Jerusalem, presumably to assume the throne and get to the business of governing. The disciples must have been watching in eager anticipation to see what His first act as King would be, and it turns out that the first thing Jesus wanted to do was grab a bite to eat. The humble King who spent the night not in a palace or as a guest in the home of a high ranking official or priest but with a few friends in the suburbs, didn’t demand that breakfast be provided for him by His hosts but decided to forage for Himself. Off in the distance, He saw a fig tree, and approached it hoping to grab a bite to eat, but despite the broad, green canopy of leaves, there was nothing edible on the tree. Mark presumably gives us the reason for this: …because i t was not the season for f igs. -Mark 11:13b

But, despite the fact that it was unreasonable to expect there to be figs on a fig tree out of season, Jesus flew off the handle and yelled at the tree: Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” -Mark 11:14a Over the course of the series so far, we have seen, and as we continue on, we will see, Jesus in a variety of moods from playful to furious, but I’m not sure that we’ll see again Jesus irritable. Maybe someone should have made breakfast for Him back in Bethany because it seems like He might be suffering from a bit of hypoglycemia. Why else would Jesus curse a fig tree for not having figs in season? Well, it’s because He recognized that, for all its leaves, the tree was already dead. See, it was around the Passover, which occurs in early spring, about 6-8 weeks before fully formed figs would have begun appearing on the tree, as Mark points out. However, when leaves begin to form on a fig tree, they are accompanied by a crop of small knobs, called taqsh by the Arabs. These are pre-figs, blossoms, that then indicate the health of the tree and the size of the coming crop of figs, and significantly for our conversation today, they are edible. This is what Jesus was looking for when He approached the fig tree. See, He knew it wasn’t fig season, but He knew that a healthy, vibrant tree would have something to offer Him at this time of year. So, when he saw the tree, full of leaves but completely empty of taqsh, He recognized it as dead on the inside, and His curse, then, was simply an acknowledgement of what was already happening within the tree. The fig tree, then, becomes a metaphor for the Temple. Upon His arrival in Jerusalem, Jesus finds the Temple full of activity but entirely devoid of life, of fruit, and His harrowing of the Temple, just like His cursing of the fig tree, is both acknowledgement and judgment, which, of course, is not what anyone expected or wanted from their new King. So, in cursing the Temple, Jesus has begun down the road to the cross, but that’s a topic for another time. What’s significant for our conversation today is that the fig tree metaphor bookends the dramatic scene in the Temple.

When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the ci ty. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the f ig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The f ig tree you cursed has withered!” “Have fai th in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tel l you, i f anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea, ’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say wil l happen, i t wil l be done for them. -Mark 11:19-24 Here we see why context is so important. Over the millennia, we have made Jesus’ famous statement in Mark 11:24 into a metaphor about the secret to overcoming our problems. The “mountain” has come to represent, for us, whatever hurdle or trouble we are facing in our lives, and faith, in this setting, becomes a means for getting what we want. But, we have to remember that the mountain is not the metaphor; the fig tree is. A real, physical, tangible, green on the outside, dead on the inside fig tree. And in the backdrop, just behind the fig tree was a mountain—as Jesus would call it, “this Mountain”—again, not a metaphor but a real, physical, tangible, alive on the surface, dead on the inside mountain. The Temple Mount. When Jesus says, that through faith, His believers will cast “this Mountain” into the sea, He is referring to the Temple Mount. In other words, in this statement Jesus was officially signing the death warrant on the Temple as the locale of divine encounter and was significantly broadening the playing field. No longer would access to God be limited to a specific geographic coordinate or regulated by ethnicity or personal holiness. Now, through the presence of the King and through faith in Him, the God comes to us. Author: Josh Harrison

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. Think about the state of your heart. Do you see evidence of life or death? Are you bearing fruit?

NEXT STEP RESOURCES (Check out these resources for additional reading on this topic.)

1. Who Is This Man: The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus by

John Ortberg 2. The Jesus I Never Knew by Phillip Yancey