The Fig Tree and The Temple (Mark #38)

We’ve been in the book of Mark for quite a while now — this is our thirty-eighth message in it, and we’re only at chapter 11. The last five weeks we spent in chapter 10, simply because of how that chapter is structured. Today we take chapter 11 in one sweep.

We’ll skip the first ten verses, because those describe Jesus entering Jerusalem, and we covered that on Palm Sunday. If you want to study them, go back and listen to that message.

We’re starting at verse 11 — and we have to take the whole thing at once, because it’s woven together like a tight braid. There are two strands here: a fig tree and the temple. If we read it chronologically we’d bounce back and forth: temple, fig tree, temple, fig tree, temple. So instead let’s separate the strands, follow the fig tree first, then the temple, and see how the two fit together.

The Fig Tree Strand

Verse 11: Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple, looked around at everything, and since it was already late, went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

The following day, coming from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree in leaf at a distance, he went to see whether he could find anything on it — and found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. And he said to it: May no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it.

Then jump to verse 20. Passing by the next morning, they saw the fig tree withered from its roots. Peter remembered and said, “Rabbi, look — the fig tree you cursed has withered.”

And Jesus answered: Have faith in God. Truly, whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart but believes what he says will come to pass — it will be done for him. Therefore whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.

An Anticlimactic Arrival

Remember where this picks up. Jesus has just ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey. People waved palm branches and laid down their cloaks and shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” They believe he is the Messiah, arriving to establish himself as king, overthrow Rome, and restore Israel as a sovereign nation.

If that were the plan, you’d expect him to head for a governmental building or at least Herod’s palace. Instead he goes to the temple.

And notice verse 11 — he walks in, looks around, and leaves.

It’s remarkably anticlimactic. The crowds are certain this is the moment, and he simply turns around and heads back toward Bethany.

Was He Just Hungry?

They sleep in Bethany, and apparently wherever they stayed offered no breakfast, because the next morning as they walk back toward Jerusalem, Jesus is hungry.

He sees a fig tree in full leaf. But notice that Mark specifically tells us it wasn’t the season for figs — and Jesus walks over, finds nothing, and curses it. Which looks, on the surface, like a man having a bad morning.

Here’s what’s actually going on. When a fig tree is in full leaf like that, it’s preparing to produce fruit, and it puts out small early buds. People would pluck and eat those. I have no idea how good they were, but they were edible.

So when Jesus arrives at a tree in full leaf and finds no buds at all, that’s why he curses it. No buds means no fruit is coming.

The tree looks healthy. It isn’t.

Withered From the Roots

In verse 20, Peter notices the tree has withered. The translation I usually use says withered to the roots, but I think that’s one word off. Every other translation I checked uses from. I’m no Greek scholar, but with the tools available to me, the underlying word is most often rendered “from.”

So this wasn’t damage arriving from outside and working downward — lightning, or an infestation. Something happened at the roots, underground, and that killed it.

Because the roots are the heart of a tree.

A tree can look impressive above ground, but if the roots are weak, a strong wind comes and it’s finished. And without good roots it can’t draw up the water and minerals needed to produce fruit.

So the fact that this tree wasn’t even producing buds indicates the roots were already sick. Jesus’s curse merely accelerated a process already underway.

And he’s going to use it as an illustration — because of what happens on the other strand.

The Temple Strand

Verse 15: they come to Jerusalem, and Jesus enters the temple and begins driving out those who were selling and buying. He overturns the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling pigeons, and refuses to let anyone carry anything through the temple.

And he teaches them: Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”? But you have made it a den of robbers.

The chief priests and scribes hear it and begin seeking a way to destroy him, because they feared him — the whole crowd was astonished at his teaching.

Then in verse 27 they return to Jerusalem, and while Jesus is walking in the temple, the chief priests and scribes and elders confront him: By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority?

Does Jesus Have an Anger Problem?

So he makes his grand entrance, looks around, leaves, sleeps, curses a fig tree, comes back, and starts flipping tables.

What is going on?

Let me paint a hypothetical to help you feel it.

There are a few churches — genuinely, though not many — with a tradition where men sit on one side of the room and women on the other. There’s at least one in Iowa. And when you read about them, it isn’t that they think everyone else is wrong; it’s simply a tradition they honor.

Now imagine our church moved buildings, and a congregation with that tradition took over this space — except they pushed it to an extreme and irrational conclusion. Only men are allowed in the sanctuary. Women worship from the lobby, listening through speakers.

And in this hypothetical they don’t believe in separate children’s ministry — children belong with the family. And since mothers are the primary caregivers, all the children are in the lobby too. Boys aren’t admitted to the sanctuary until, say, sixteen.

Now push it further. A couple of men in the back start a conversation and, not wanting to disturb anyone, step out into the lobby. But with all the noise out there, they can’t whisper — they have to talk at full volume just to hear each other.

Then the music ends and there’s a lull before the message, so several men get up to refill their coffee, weaving through the crowd. A child runs over shouting, “Daddy!” And he says, “Good to see you — go back to Mommy, Daddy has to get back to worship.”

If you’re female, I suspect you dislike this scenario intensely. That’s the point. Think about what worship would actually be like for those women — unable to see anything, only able to hear, surrounded by chaos and noise. Would that help them connect deeply with God? Would that help them understand him as loving?

Of course not.

That Is Exactly What Was Happening

Most people assume Jesus was angry simply because money was changing hands and animals were being sold. That’s part of it — but many of those animals were being sold precisely so people could worship. The Old Testament established various sacrifices, and travelers often couldn’t bring what was required. Providing that as a paid service wasn’t inherently the problem.

What angered Jesus was where it was happening: inside the Court of the Gentiles.

The temple had concentric areas. The outermost large area was the Court of the Gentiles. Inside that was the Court of the Women, and inside that the Court of Israel. And all the animal selling and money changing was taking place in the Gentiles’ court.

Listen again to what Jesus says as he overturns those tables: my house is to be a house of prayer for all the nations.

God’s Heart Was Always for the Nations

God is not merely the God of the Jews. He was always the God of the Gentiles as well.

Some people will tell you God seems angry in the Old Testament and pleasant in the New. But go into the Old Testament and you find, again and again, people who were not Jewish being welcomed in. God’s heart has always been for the nations.

That’s why Paul, writing in Romans 9, quotes the prophet Hosea: those who were not my people I will call my people, and her who was not beloved I will call beloved — and in the very place where it was said to them “you are not my people,” there they will be called sons of the living God.

And it’s why Jesus quotes Isaiah 56:7 here: my house shall be a house of prayer for all the nations.

Read to the end of the story in Revelation and you find every tongue, tribe, and nation — every people group, every skin color, every economic level — represented before the throne. God’s heart is for people.

Bad Roots

And yet these leaders had constructed a worship system in which Gentiles seeking the one true God — remember, this was a world assuming many gods, and some Gentiles were beginning to wonder whether the God of Israel might be the only one — arrived to seek him and found nothing but chaos. Bleating animals. Haggling. Commerce.

Who would want to come to that God?

So Jesus comes in angry and overturns the whole arrangement — because the system revealed the condition of their hearts. The roots were bad.

They weren’t producing the fruit God wanted. When God formed the Jewish people, they were meant to be a blessing to the world. Now they were keeping the world out, making it nearly impossible for outsiders to reach God — when helping people find their way to God was the entire point of their existence.

So exactly as he put the fig tree out of production, Jesus drives these men out of the temple and resets it.

“Who Gave You the Authority?”

As you’d expect, this infuriated the leaders. They had operated this way for generations, and this man simply walks in and overturns it. So the next day they confront him: where did you get the right?

Jesus answers a question with a question.

If someone did that to us we’d object — don’t dodge, answer mine first. But in first-century Judaism this was standard and considered entirely fair. If you’ve asked me something, I have the right to ask you something.

And notice his question. Essentially: Do you remember that man out in the wilderness, John the Baptist — camel’s hair, locusts and honey, my cousin, baptizing people in the Jordan? That baptism: was it from heaven or from man?

They pull aside and start whispering, because they’re trapped. If they say from heaven, he’ll ask why they didn’t believe him. And they genuinely thought it was from man — but if they say that, the crowds will turn on them, because ordinary people regarded John as a prophet and held him in high esteem.

Say it out loud and they don’t just lose respect. They lose power.

So they answer, “We don’t know” — which really means, “We’re not answering your question.” And Jesus responds that neither will he answer theirs.

But let me answer it for them. John’s baptism was from heaven. And so was Jesus. As God the Son who established all things, he had every right and all authority — because as he said, this was his house.

Just as a mother and father set the rules for their household, Jesus as God had the right to say: here’s how this is done, you’re not doing it correctly, and I’m going to correct it. Who gave him the authority? The Father. He is God.

And he cleaned house because he knew their roots were bad — and he wanted them to have healthy roots. Roots reaching into the heart of God, where they’d discover that God’s heart is for all people.

The Section We Skipped

If you were paying close attention, you noticed we skipped a significant piece of the fig strand — verses 22 through 25, where Jesus tells them to have faith in God, speaks about a mountain being thrown into the sea, promises that whatever they ask in prayer believing they’ve received it will be theirs, and then adds that when they stand praying they must forgive.

I’ve been familiar with this passage a long time, because I’ve watched two significant abuses of it.

Abuse One: A Blank Check

The first is treating it as license to ask God for anything you want.

It says whatever you ask in prayer, believe you’ve received it. So God, I believe I’ve won the lottery. Thank you that I’m a millionaire. I declare it. It’s mine.

I have literally heard this passage used to pray for a car. I was riding with someone who drove past one and said, “God, right there — that car is mine. In the name of Jesus I declare that car is mine. You said to pray and receive, so I receive that car. Thank you, Father.”

Abuse Two: Explaining It Away

The second abuse is the opposite — ignoring the passage entirely. Scientifically, mountains do not leap into seas. This is over the top. Let’s move along to something more comfortable that fits our assumptions.

I consider that an abuse too, because this is God’s word. He wrote it through human authors and has preserved it reliably, which means he put this here for a reason and we have to understand what it’s for.

The Understated Truth

But we can’t take it as a guarantee that God hands us whatever we want.

Doesn’t the Psalm say God will give you the desires of your heart? Yes — but read what comes first: delight yourself in the Lord.

There’s an understated truth here that Jesus didn’t need to spell out because it was obvious to his hearers: if you genuinely love God, if you truly follow Jesus, then what you most deeply want is God’s will.

So if it’s God’s will for you to come into money, praise God. If it isn’t, that’s fine — he knows what he’s doing. If God’s will is a new car, praise God. If God wants you to keep driving the clunker, he must have good reasons, and I’ll drive it happily.

If you claim to believe in an all-wise, all-knowing God, then you can’t be angry at him when he permits things you didn’t choose. But God, I prayed for this. You said right here in Mark 11.

Are you pursuing what you want, or what God wants? Because what God wanted in that moment was for a fig tree to wither, so he could use it to teach his disciples. And it happened.

About That Mountain

And honestly, if God wants a mountain to jump into a sea, he can do that.

But notice where Jesus is standing. Crossing from Bethany to Jerusalem, they’re on the Mount of Olives — on a mountain. And on a clear day you can see the Dead Sea from there. He’s using what’s physically in front of them.

It was also a colloquialism in Judaism: talking about moving a mountain meant an impossible task. So when he says this mountain will be thrown into the sea, nobody thinks he’s making a geological prediction. They understand he’s teaching that what’s impossible for them is not impossible for God.

Which is exactly what he said back in chapter 10: what is impossible with man is not impossible with God. With God all things are possible.

So if God wills it, it happens. Which is why I have no problem with people praying enormous prayers.

If you’re fighting something physically, pray. Ask God for healing, because he can. And at the same time, trust him if it doesn’t come on your timeline. Live as though you’ve received it — and live in a way that says, “I’m going to trust him regardless.”

I think that’s what Jesus is after. He wants us living by faith, because God can do far more than we imagine. So pray the big prayers. What do you need to be praying for? What should we as a church be praying for? What enormous thing might God be calling us toward? Let’s pray it and go after it.

And if he leads a different direction — if the answer is no — it isn’t because he’s angry or punishing you. He has something better. And maybe, over time, your prayers themselves will begin to change.

And Then, Suddenly, Forgiveness

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He jumps from mountains and seas straight to forgiveness. How does he make that leap?

Have you ever been deeply hurt by someone? If so, forgiving them may feel impossible.

Years ago I preached a message on forgiveness, and by God’s grace it reached a lot of people. Afterward one woman came up. She could tell it had resonated broadly, so she was being kind when she said, “That was a good sermon, but —” and then told me there was someone in her life she could not forgive. She couldn’t do it.

I have no idea what was done to her. It must have been genuinely evil. And you could see the pain in her eyes, and part of me wanted to say: I understand. I’m with you. I’m sorry.

But I think Jesus would answer: if your Father in heaven can forgive you, then you must forgive others.

Consider Who Is Doing the Forgiving

God is pure and holy. There is no one like him. He is so pure that sinful humans cannot enter his presence — we would simply be obliterated. Not because he’s punishing us, but because his glory is that overwhelming.

So to protect us he often places a veil. He sends an angel to speak on his behalf. He won’t let someone see his face directly. He even sent Jesus to shield us.

And by sending Jesus to the cross, he made forgiveness possible. The penalty is paid, our sin is washed away, and we can come into the presence of that perfect, holy God.

So Jesus would say: if I, as God, can forgive you — then you, a sinful human, can forgive another sinful human.

But you don’t know what they did to me.

You’re right, I don’t. But I do know this: the worst sin one human can commit against another pales beside even the smallest of our sins against a perfect, holy God — and God in his grace forgives us completely.

Forgiveness Is Not the Absence of Consequences

Please don’t mishear me. Forgiving someone does not mean they face no consequences.

God has blessed us with four children. If someone murdered one of my children in cold blood, I would not say, “No problem, I forgive you, I’ve got three others.” My children are precious. I would be furious, and that person should face consequences, which would almost certainly include prison.

And yet I would still need to live in forgiveness toward that person for what they did to me and to my family.

Because if I refuse to forgive, I’m attempting to take God’s place. I’m effectively saying: God, I don’t trust you to handle this person correctly, so I’ll hold onto this bitterness and this judgment, because you’re going to get it wrong.

And in that moment, I’m revealing that my roots aren’t healthy.

Where Your Roots Are Supposed to Go

If you say you follow Jesus, your roots are meant to run down into the gospel. They’re meant to draw up God’s love and God’s grace — and that is supposed to emerge from you as fruit toward other people.

So Jesus is telling us: if you will not forgive, your roots are unhealthy.

Which brings the two strands together. A tree in full leaf that produces nothing. A temple full of activity that was keeping people from God. Both looked impressive above ground. Both were dying underneath.

The question isn’t whether your life looks leafy. The question is what your roots are drawing from — and whether any fruit is actually coming.