Throwing a Fit Over a Fig Tree

We are studying some of the book of Mark on Wednesday nights in Bible Study.

This one is where Jesus is hungry.  He goes over to a fully leafed fig tree, but it has no figs. So he curses it and says it will never give fruit to anyone again.

Then Mark switches over to Jesus and the gang arriving at the temple and Jesus opening up a can of you-know-what on everyone. He turns over tables, uses a whip, and money and freed animals are going every which way and he lets them know His Father's Temple has been turned into a den of thieves.

The passage ends when they come back by the fig tree as they leave, and the tree is withered from the roots up.

This has always flummoxed me.

Was Jesus just in a bad mood that day?

The disciples are all excited about the tree (and the temple stuff, too, I imagine, although Mark doesn't say).

Jesus talks about faith and prayer.

I didn't really get that answer, either.

By now I'm feeling like Peter.

So, I'm sitting on my back porch after reading this and ask God to let me know what the heck this means.

The first thing that comes to me is this: The fig tree was in full leaf, out of season. It was way ahead of all the other trees in the way it looked, but it was bearing no fruit whatsoever.

Have you ever seen a church member like that? They talk the talk, but walk the walk doesn't happen.

The Bible says elsewhere (in Matthew) that we will know Christians by the fruits they bear. It says a good tree can't bear bad fruit and a bad tree can't bear good fruit. In other words, how a Christian lives and what he does for the Kingdom and glory of God shows his relationship (or lack thereof) with Jesus.

If we, as Christians, are known by our fruit, what symbolism that fig tree was! All dressed up and lookin' pretty, but not a fruit in sight.

No wonder Jesus cursed it.

So, thank you Lord for explaining that to me. I don't know if that's what you'll get when you read it, and that's okay.  This may have been meant just for me.

And the temple fit pitching?

That was Jesus just being Jesus.