Essential Skills for Our Journey with Jesus

Reading the Bible Well (Pt. 11) A deep dive into Mark 11:20-21.

Mark 11:12-17 has surfaced at least three questions we are still struggling to answer:

• Why was Jesus angry at a fig tree?

• Why did Jesus’ anger intensify when he entered the Temple in Jerusalem?

• How do the two stories complement one another?

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Though we are still looking for answers, Mark 11:18 tells us Jesus’ teaching connected with the people in the Temple; so much so that the religious leaders felt threatened.

^“The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.”

Peter was still trying to understand Jesus’ teaching. But the next morning he had an “aha” experience.

^“In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig-tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig-tree you cursed has withered!’” (Mark 11:20-21)

What was it that dawned on him? There is a clue in the way that Mark describes Peter’s newfound awareness. could have written “Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig-tree you cursed has withered.” without losing any meaning. But he adds “Peter remembered…” to help us to understand Peter remembered something more than the fig tree. But what?

Mark left a similar clue in verse 14.

• “Then (Jesus) said to the tree, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard him say it.”

Again, Mark could have written “Then (Jesus) said to the tree, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’” We would have understood that the disciples heard him say it. But Mark phrases it this way to reinforce the intercalation, or the sandwiching of one story around another to make a particular connection between the two.

The phrasing of verse 14 and of verses 20 and 21 frame the story of the Temple with the two parts of the fig tree story. Mark wants us to understand that Peter “remembered” more than Jesus cursing the fig tree. The withering of the fig tree at Jesus’ word is meant to foreshadow the effect of Jesus’ judgment of the Temple.

This fits within the wider story of the Bible. Old Testament prophets use the fig tree as a sign of God’s judgment. Here is one example from Jeremiah 8:12-13:

Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct?

No, they have no shame at all;

they do not even know how to blush.

So they will fall among the fallen;

they will be brought down when they are punished,

says the Lord.

‘“I will take away their harvest,

declares the Lord.

There will be no grapes on the vine.

There will be no figs on the tree,

and their leaves will wither.

What I have given them

will be taken from them.”’

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Now we can begin to answer our questions:

• Q- Why was Jesus angry at a fig tree?

• A- His anger at the fig tree was a proleptic act.

• Q-Why did Jesus’ anger intensify when he entered the Temple in Jerusalem?

• A-Jesus, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, hungered for an institution that fulfilled God’s promise to bless all peoples through Abraham and his descendants. Rather than transcending social barriers “in and out of season” the religious institution reinforced them.

• Q-How do the two stories complement one another?

• A-When Peter remembers and says, “‘Rabbi, look! The fig-tree you cursed has withered!’” He understands what happened to the fig tree will happen to the Temple in Jerusalem. Forty years later it was destroyed and has not been rebuilt since.

The big question is, how will the promise continue without the religious institution?

This will be the focus of our next post.

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