Monday In Holy Week: Mark 11: 12-19.
Jesus and the disciples are returning to Jerusalem from Bethany. We are told that Jesus was hungry. He must have said this. ‘I am hungry.’
It was from a distance that He saw the fig-tree and he moves towards it ‘to find out if it had any fruit’. Not being the season for figs, He could hardly expect to find any among the leaves. Nonetheless he addresses the tree: ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’
Is it disrespectful to say that this is a piece of theatre? Jesus is acting out the spiritual hunger of humankind, the spiritual poverty of those who call themselves the people of God, their failure to respond to God’s call to be a light to the nations and their inability to satisfy the innate spiritual hunger of humankind. Therefore God’s judgment is upon His people. Their soul is reflected in the condition of the Temple. The house of prayer has become ‘a den of robbers.’
The story is not for us merely to mourn the spiritual corruption at the heart of an ancient nation. It is for us to consider the danger of fruitlessness among the people of God in every age and culture arising from complacency before God. It is to lead us to pray with the Psalmist:
‘Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renewer a steadfast spirit within me.’ (Psalm 51: 10)
