Fruit or leaves? (Mark 11.1-26)

We are very happy to resume our series on the Gospel of Mark after the summer break. We expect to finish this series before Christmas.

To illustrate the central message of today’s text, I'm going to tell you something that some of you already know. I haven't mentioned it to the whole church so far, because most of the time it's not relevant.

This time, I think it may be useful.

Generally, I like myself. I like how God created me.

But when I was a teenager, I started to develop...the best way to explain it is a feeling of inevitable failure. Not for big things, but in very ordinary situations. I always feel like there's something missing that prevents me from understanding very basic things or social situations. And so, you make a lot of mistakes in very ordinary situations, and you get used to that feeling: you feel like a failure even though you haven't failed.

My whole adult life has been like that.

To be clear: I have prayed a lot about this, and again, I love how God made me. There is no identity crisis in what I am saying. It is simply the feeling that in many situations in life, I am missing something. Like, "You're a really good guy, Jason...it's just that you're very shy, and not very smart. And that's okay: there are things you do very well. But in most ordinary areas of life, you're a little dumb, that's all."

That's what I thought.

But in February, I was diagnosed with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and a fairly aggressive form of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—not physical hyperactivity, of course, but mental). I don't like those terms (I prefer to call them "challenges" rather than "disorders"), but more importantly, they are not illnesses that can be cured; they are simply part of the way God formed my brain.

This diagnosis explains so much, both to the people who know me and to myself. But the biggest thing it explains is that the things I used to think about myself are not true. I am not "a little stupid": I simply lack the tools I need to process certain information. I am not "socially awkward": I simply lack the tools I need to decode certain elements and know how to respond to them. What I used to think about myself was not true. I was wrong in my assessment of myself.

And knowing what is true about myself—that this difficulty stems from the way God created my brain—is a huge gift, because it gives me the opportunity to understand these things and learn how to manage them.

I have said all this to illustrate a very simple but very big problem that goes to the heart of this passage in Mark 11. And the problem is the same one I just mentioned: what we think about ourselves is not always true. We are sometimes wrong in our assessment of ourselves, and especially of our faith.

Many Christians think about their faith in a way that does not correspond to reality.

So in today's text, Jesus helps us to "diagnose" our faith. He helps us to see the truth about the state of our faith...which allows us to finally begin to live out what we say we believe.

But before we go any further, let's quickly review what we've seen in the first ten chapters of Mark's Gospel.

Mark encountered Christ through the apostle Peter; in his Gospel, he recounts what Peter saw during his time with Jesus. Mark's main purpose in this book is to show us who Jesus is, what he did, and how he calls us to live as disciples. A disciple is someone who follows and learns from a teacher; and the Teacher we follow and learn from is Jesus Christ himself.

Mark presents Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah whom God promised to send to the people of Israel to save them. At that time, Israel was living under Roman occupation, the people were oppressed, and naturally thought that this promised Messiah, when he came, would free them from this oppression.

And Mark immediately begins to show us that Jesus possesses absolute, perfect, universal authority. He is the Savior the people need, and therefore the people must follow him.

In chapters 1 through 7, Mark shows us Jesus' authority through his ministry. First, he acts in Galilee, among the Jews. He calls his disciples, teaches through parables, heals the sick, casts out demons, and demonstrates his power over nature. The religious leaders cannot tolerate him because they see him as a threat, and they begin to plot how they might eliminate him.

Even more surprising, after ministering among the Jews, Jesus leaves Galilee, goes to the Gentiles, and there too he teaches and performs miracles.

Then, in chapter 8, things take a different turn: Jesus heads for Jerusalem. He begins to explain to his disciples what it really means to be disciples, what it will cost them. He is transfigured before three of his disciples, proving that he is truly the Son of God. Everything seems to be going in the right direction: Jesus is walking toward victory.

But—and this is troubling for the disciples—Jesus repeats three times that he is going to Jerusalem, but that he is going there to die.

And that is where we are in the story. In today's text, which we have just read, we see that Jesus finally arrives in Jerusalem.

The triumphal entry (vv. 1-11)

Verses 1 to 11 serve as a kind of introduction to what we are about to see. Jesus told his disciples that he was going to die in Jerusalem, and yet what is about to happen here seems to contradict that idea.

Jesus and his disciples arrive in Bethany, on the Mount of Olives, just east of Jerusalem. First, he sends his disciples ahead of him and tells them to go into the village, where they will find a colt that no one has ever ridden. He tells them to bring it to him, and if anyone asks them what they are doing, to say, "The Lord needs it."

So the disciples must have wondered: How does Jesus know there will be a colt there? Why would someone we don't know let us take the colt just because we say the Lord needs it? If I were them, I would have some questions.

It's amazing, but it works—everything happens exactly as Jesus said it would. Even though he is coming to Jerusalem to die, he is in control of what is happening.

So they arrive in Jerusalem, with Jesus riding on the colt, and he is welcomed in spectacular fashion. This moment is called the "triumphal entry" for good reason. The people spread their cloaks and branches on the road, as if rolling out the red carpet for him. The crowd cheers him, shouting in verse 9:

“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

There is a lot of symbolism here, which tells us a lot about who Jesus is. By riding on a donkey that no one has ever ridden before, Jesus fulfills a prophecy about the Messiah found in Zechariah 9. The Messiah is the one who would come to save God's people, and the people know it—the word "Hosanna" they shout literally means "save." They also speak in v. 10 of "the kingdom that is coming, the kingdom of David, our father!" David is the idealized king of God's people, and everyone knew that the Messiah would be of his lineage—and that Jesus is too.

It is not just a teacher who is coming to Jerusalem. It is the Messiah, the Savior, the King of God's people. These people respond to Jesus exactly as they should.

The fig tree and the temple (vv. 12-21)

After visiting Jerusalem, they return to Bethany to sleep. The next day, they take the same route back to Jerusalem. And we see something really strange. V. 12:

12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. 13 And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

At first glance, it's a little hard to know what's going on here: Jesus curses a tree because it has no fruit, even though it's not even fig season.

In our family, two people are early risers (Loanne and Jack), and two others are definitely not. Zadie and I need a lot of time to wake up in the morning; for a good half hour (or more), we're both pretty grumpy.

So... did Jesus have a rough night? Hasn't he had his coffee yet? Why is he so grumpy?

Of course, that's not what's going on. As Mark says, it wasn't fig season, and Jesus knew it. When he went to see the fig tree, he didn't really expect to see fruit on the branches.

Jesus does what he does for a reason that the disciples would not immediately understand. So we'll wait a little while too.

After this somewhat strange moment on the Mount of Olives, Jesus and his disciples return to Jerusalem. They enter the temple, and there, the grumpy Jesus seems to reassert himself. V. 15:

15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

What Jesus does seems extreme—but again, it's not that Jesus is in a bad mood. What he does is very calculated and appropriate.

Historically, the temple was the place where God's presence resided. It was there that God's people gathered to worship Him. Jesus himself says this when he explains why he is doing what he is doing in verse 17: he quotes Isaiah 56, where God says, "My house shall be called a house of prayer" ( Is. 56:7 )... and the people who are there have turned it into a place of commerce, a "den of thieves."

What's more, all this business was taking place in the outer court of the temple, which was the only place in the temple where non-Jews were allowed to go: they were not allowed to enter the inner court. Essentially, the place of prayer for non-Jews had been stolen to be used for commerce.

But, Jesus says in verse 17 (quoting from the book of Isaiah), God's house was not only meant to be a house of prayer, but "a house of prayer for all nations." As R.C. Sproul says, "The Jews hoped that the Messiah would purify the temple of the non-Jews, but Jesus purified the temple for the non-Jews."

Jesus "cleansed the temple" because these people—and the religious leaders who allowed this to happen—had turned the temple into something it was not meant to be.

We see in verses 18-19 that the religious leaders are furious at Jesus' actions and are looking for a way to destroy him, because the people are actively listening to him. Jesus now a real and imminent threat to them.

So Jesus and his disciples leave, returning to Bethany via the Mount of Olives, and the next morning, they take the same route again.

And what did they find? Verse 20:

20 As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. 21 And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”

Let's go back a moment. If you participated in the co group this week, you probably talked about this.

All the authors of the Gospels are excellent theologians. They often structure their stories, and sometimes even rearrange the chronology a little, in order to show us a deeper spiritual truth.

Mark, in particular, likes what I call the sandwich: he starts with one story, moves on to another, then returns to the first story to show the connection between the two.

That's what he does here:

A) The fig tree (vv. 12-14)

B) The temple (vv. 15-19)

A) The fig tree (vv. 20-21)

This is not just a matter of chronology: Mark deliberately structures his passage in this way.

The question is: what does he want us to understand?

Why did Jesus curse the fig tree?

This kind of thing is not unprecedented in the Bible. God often told the Old Testament prophets to use objects or images to illustrate their point. Amos used a plumb line. Jeremiah used a yoke. For Hosea, it was his own marriage, poor man.

Jesus does exactly the same thing here: he uses the fig tree to present an image.

And the image was not new either. The fig tree is a frequent image in the Old Testament to refer to the people of Israel.

So what is so special about this fig tree? Not much, except that, as we see in verse 13, from the outside it looks like a tree that could bear fruit—its leaves are still visible. But there is no fruit.

And that is what we see in the temple.

The temple was a place that should have produced one thing, but it produced another. Because of the self-centeredness and hypocrisy of the leaders of the people, the whole purpose of the temple is obscured. There should be fruit here, but all we see are leaves: a place that looks like the house of God, but from which God has essentially been banished.

The fig tree, which looks healthy but bears no fruit, is a perfect picture of the temple and the people of Israel who turned it from a house of prayer into a den of thieves. This miracle, the only miracle of "destruction" performed by Jesus, is a warning. Just as Jesus "judged" the fig tree, God will judge his people who have the appearance of piety but bear no fruit.

The fruit of true faith (vv. 22-25)

Jesus could have stopped there—the symbolism behind his action was already clear enough. But he continues and gives his disciples an explanation of everything they have seen. An explanation that may be a little difficult to grasp, but one that will become clearer as we move through the next chapters.

Peter is surprised that the fig tree has withered: Jesus' curse the day before has worked.

And what Jesus says in response is, at first glance, just as surprising. Mark 11:22-24 (S21):

22 And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly?, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Verses 23-24 are well known. They are often used to defend the so-called "word of faith ministries." The idea is simple: if you have enough faith, God will do what you want. At the beginning of his book Your Best Life Now, Joel Osteen recounts how, when he goes to the mall, he often prays that God will give him a parking space near the entrance. And, he says, because he prays with faith, a space opens up right in front of him!

"Jesus showed his power with the fig tree, then told us that if we have faith, we can do even more incredible things, even move mountains! So if we really believe, what we pray for will surely happen."

At first glance, that's what Jesus seems to be saying. But we must always read verses in their context: in their immediate context and in the context of the entire Bible.

Look closely at what Jesus says. He does not say—as is often quoted—“by faith, you can move mountains.” He says, “If anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and cast yourself into the sea’…”  He seems to be talking about a specific mountain, not just any mountain.

And in fact, if we remember the context, it makes sense. When Jesus said this to his disciples, they were on the road between Bethany and Jerusalem, which placed them on the Mount of Olives, outside Jerusalem, just to the east.

From that vantage point, there was one building in the city that would have been visible above all others.

You guessed it: it was the temple, which was built on the highest hill in the city—a bit like Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre. Even today, this hill in Jerusalem is called the Temple Mount.

So which mountain is Jesus talking about? It is either the Temple Mount or the Mount of Olives, where Jesus and his disciples are standing. And in both cases, what he says makes sense.

Why? Because Jesus had just cursed the fig tree.

We remember that the cursed fig tree was a living parable of the judgment that God would bring upon a people who did not bear fruit.

In the year 70, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army, and the temple was destroyed. Most theologians consider this event to be the beginning of what Jesus called "the last days." The temple disappeared—today, in its place stands the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

As for the Mount of Olives, in Zechariah 14, God speaks of the day of Christ's return, when Jerusalem will be judged. This prophecy says (perhaps figuratively) that on that day, the Mount of Olives will split in two, and the faithful who are in Jerusalem will escape through the valley created by this fissure—like an emergency exit opened by God Himself to allow them to flee judgment.

In both cases, the message is clear: Jesus tells his disciples that God's plan will be fulfilled. Soon, all of this—all of these manifestations of pride and hypocrisy on the part of a people in rebellion against God—will be judged.

But you, my disciples, will be spared, because you will be different. You will not be like the fig tree that looks healthy but bears no fruit. 

Do you see what Jesus is doing? In the context of this entire discussion, Jesus distinguishes true faith from hypocritical faith. He contrasts Jerusalem—a city that resembles a people who worship God but bear no fruit—with those who will truly be his disciples, those who will bear fruit.

And he gives them two concrete ways to recognize this fruit—and thus, Jesus summarizes the entire spiritual life of a true disciple, represented by an inner aspect and an outer aspect of the life of a faithful disciple.

The internal act is prayer: he tells them to pray with faith.

Those who bear fruit for God have an intimacy with God that compels them to pray, and to pray in a certain way.

There are two traps we can fall into when we pray. The first is the "word of faith" mentality we talked about earlier: believing that God will do whatever I say just because I have faith. I don't think Jesus encourages us in this way, and I think the rest of the Bible makes that pretty clear. (See Paul’s prayer to God in 2 Corinthians 12 if you doubt me. If we take this verse out of its context and read it in its most literal sense possible, the only conclusion we can make is that Jesus is lying when he tells us we will receive whatever we pray for. When we keep it in its context, Jesus’s words are still difficult to understand, but we can at least see that he’s aiming for something deeper than God-as-divine-vending-machine prayers.)

But there is also a second trap we can fall into, and that is praying because God tells us to pray…but without much hope that it will change anything, because in any case, God will do what He wants.

We must be careful how we apply these words of Jesus—they can easily be twisted and cause a lot of damage. But what is undeniable—and impossible to miss when reading this text—is that in these verses Jesus encourages his disciples to pray with confidence, to expect that God will truly answer their prayers.

I bake really good cookies. When my kids ask me for one, I want to say yes, because they really are very good. But what do I do if they ask me for a cookie for breakfast? Then I say no. Not because the cookie isn't good, but because it's not good for them at that particular moment. When I say no, they'll be disappointed... but not disillusioned: they know I love them and that I have a good reason for saying no. My relationship with them isn't affected.

Those who truly know God, who have a real relationship with Him, know that God hears their prayers and answers them—even if sometimes the answer is no. As John Piper said, "God always gives His children exactly what they ask for in prayer...or something even better. " He doesn't always give us what we want, but He always gives us what is good for us.

And so we pray with confidence in the goodness, wisdom, and power of our God. We expect him to answer our prayers. In fact, the most fundamental prayer we can offer is that God will fulfill his plan: that he will judge sin, return to raise up his people, and take them to eternal life with him—exactly what Zechariah 14 announced, and what Jesus refers to here.

So how do we pray as disciples of Christ? We pray with confidence and hope, wherever we are, because we know our Father. Our intimacy with him gives us confidence in him.

That is the internal aspect. But there is also an external aspect to true faith, which Jesus summarizes in verse 25.

25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

I want to be sensitive here, because I don't know what you're all going through. Forgiving is never easy, and the degree of difficulty increases with the severity of the hurt. It's hard, and recovering from such a hurt often takes time to heal. We don't necessarily feel full of grace.

That is not what Jesus is talking about; he is not talking about a feeling.

He is talking about a deliberate refusal to forgive others.

It's hard to hear, and I don't want to be too harsh, but it must be said: anyone who prays to God while refusing to forgive those who have wronged them is committing a deeply hypocritical act. (Again, I'm not talking about the emotion of it, but the decision not to forgive.)

When we come to God in prayer, we know that the only reason we can approach him without being judged on the spot is because Christ was punished in our place for our sins on the cross. We have access to this intimacy with God because our sins have been forgiven.

So how can we, who have been forgiven, refuse to forgive others? How can we claim that our faith is real if our response to the sins of others is deliberately opposed to God's response to our sin?

You see, here Jesus gives only two examples of what the “fruit” of our salvation looks like. If our faith is real, there will be an inner change—in our spiritual life and our intimacy with God—and there will be an outward change—in the way we behave and treat the people around us.

There are attitudes and actions that simply make no sense to someone who has understood and accepted the gospel of Christ.

Those who bear fruit for God are not those who perform the right rituals or who are content to "obey" on the surface. Those who stop at superficial obedience will be judged as the hypocrites that Jesus denounces in this passage.

In contrast, those who have true faith are transformed. We are different. We are "new creatures," as the apostle Paul said. And this change is visible.

Conclusion

I mentioned my diagnosis at the beginning. Others have had similar experiences, where a diagnosis like this is truly life-changing. It changes the way we look at our whole life. It helps us see things as they really are. And it helps us know how to move forward. This text should have the same effect on each of us.

Some of you think that everything is going well in your Christian life, when in fact it is not. "Look at everything I do, all the Christian activities that fill my schedule." Yes, you are doing all the "right" things, but if we pay attention to the "fruit" that, according to the Bible, true faith bears in us, we see that these "right things" are not the things that God really wants to produce in you. You are playing a role, but you do not know God—or you know Him as you know that distant uncle you see once in a while. You don't trust Him. You don't depend on Him. You live your life as if God were involved, but in reality, you keep Him at a distance, because you know very well what He will expect of you if you really give Him access to the deepest corners of your life.

Others among you feel that you have a hard time living for Christ. You struggle, and so you tell yourself that you are doing something wrong. But you pray. You implore God to help you, and you depend on him, trusting him as best you can to bring you where you need to be. And the people around you—even if you have a hard time seeing it—are edified by your presence in their lives. You are bearing fruit, even if you don't feel like it. This text helps us to know what is true about ourselves, and thus to grow.

In any case, this text invites us to examine ourselves seriously. What kind of Christians are we becoming? Are we like fig trees covered with leaves but without fruit? Do we only give the appearance of being disciples of Christ, without the inner and outer transformations that He works in us?

On our own, we are incapable of bearing fruit. But thanks to what Christ has done in us, we can now do so, with his help. It is not an easy change—this transformation is as difficult as telling that mountain to move and throw itself into the sea.

But Jesus tells us to have faith in God: to trust that all the power he possesses is at our disposal so that we may be transformed—so that we may not be content with superficial obedience, but bear true fruit. He will do it: the King who was welcomed in Jerusalem with cries of “Hosanna” is the same one who lives in us today.

So let us examine ourselves. Let us ask God to show us the areas of our lives where we are content with a mere appearance of faith. Let us ask him to convict us by his Spirit, so that we may return to him and submit every area of our lives to him, even if it requires radical change.

And let us trust that if we come to him in faith and ask him to bring true faith to life in us, he will do so.