Cursing of The Fig Tree

Remember in Mark 11:12 when Jesus is walking out of a Bethany, is hungry, sees a fig tree off in a distance, walks to it to eat, finds it is barren (had no figs) and then curses it? Which we find later to have withered from the root up in verse 20.

Well, until today I found it almost a temper tantrum kind of passage. And I’m not sure why I did because our Lord and Savior wouldn’t retaliate in sin but I guess my ears and eyes weren’t ready to be opened yet.

But today he opened them.

Essentially the fig tree was false advertising. You see a fig tree only has leaves if it has figs. If it doesn’t have figs it shouldn’t have leaves.

So it was all leaves and no figs.

Jesus cursed the tree as an example to us and to Israel. He was warning to not just have the outward form, or just the appearance of having fruit but to also have fruit it self. He wasn’t cursing the tree because it didn’t have fruit but because it professed to have fruit but did not. It was all talk and not walk - all leaves and no fruit.

I also read that this is Jesus’ only destructive miracle. There were a lot of destructive miracles on the Old Testament but Jesus only had this one. So we should see this miracle with great importance. Are we all leaves and no fruit? Do we profess or give off the appearance to have fruit but really our lives are barren?

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