If you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Matthew 21:21-22
Standing out in Matthew 21 as an apparently misfitted scene to the rest of Matthew’s portrayals of Jesus’ kingship is this three-paragraph vignette about a fig tree. It’s the change in mood after the intense drama of Jesus’ conflict with the teachers of the law. It’s the flash of the camera into the bleachers of a stadium after the showing of replays and controversial referee calls at a ball game.
Jesus stops along the road looking for fruit on this unassuming fig tree. Finding none, he curses it. Granted, Jesus may have been experiencing one of his more human moments since this takes place early in the morning and he’s hungry. Maybe memories of the previous day’s confrontations were still getting on his nerves. But cursing? Really, Jesus. Was that necessary? I teach my children not to throw tantrums and misbehave when they don’t get what they want. It appears that you have acted the same way.
But Jesus was making a point. More was at stake here than satisfying his own hunger. The day before, Jesus rode into town as a proclaimed king challenging the political scene. Then he goes straight to the temple and challenges the religious scene with his declaration that his house will be called a house of prayer (Matthew 21:13). The temple courtyard was filled with businessmen eager to make a profit aided and supported by the chief priests. But the rituals themselves were empty. Barren of any meaning. The temple was the place to meet with God, to hear his voice, to feel his presence. But the commercialized version of sacrificial worship no longer assisted a person in contact with God.
Something must change. Jesus comes riding in as the solution. He’s not only the King, but the High Priest too. He’s the sacrifice, the mediator between God and man, and the intercessor with the power to forgive sin. He’s greater than the temple and the current broken religious system.
This passion for the temple’s integrity still lingered the next morning as Jesus passed the leafy, yet fruitless tree. The temple with its barren rituals is as fruitless as the figless tree. It appears promising but provides nothing, just like what the godless temple worship had become.
The leafy yet fruitless tree is also a symbol of the hypocritical life. Jesus repeatedly engaged with the chief priests and teachers of the law in Israel because they were actors. They didn’t know God. Sure, they knew how to keep the rules. They’d even invented a few of them, but they couldn’t accept Jesus. And when it came to prayer, fasting, and giving, all these actions were a big show, not done for God but for themselves.
When Jesus cursed the fig tree, he did it because it had the appearance of being fruitful, but on a closer look, it was all leaves and no harvest.
It was a hypocritical tree.
Like the commercialized worship practices at the temple, it gave a false impression. How easy for our lives to do the same. The fig tree stands as a picture of the choices some have already made and as a warning to choose differently.
The winds of Jesus’ teaching whispers through it telling us to guard our hearts, lives, and priorities from the false, the insincere, and the performance. This could be why Jesus answers the disciples with a statement about faith. His words hold power because they are true. And whether the item is a life, a heart, a commercialized temple, or a leafy fig tree, Jesus’ words will wither it because, like a refining fire, the truth will burn away anything fake.
The opposite of they hypocritical quest for attention and show is faith in God. Having faith means trusting God to keep his word. Not doubting means to allow no default into hypocritical, insincere practices. The phrase if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer means working in partnership with God. He guides, leads, and speaks. We respond. Then he rewards.
When Jesus rides across a life as the King, sincerity and devotion are the natural response. By the power of the Holy Spirit, faithfulness takes root and produces an ongoing harvest of faithfulness.
