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Writer's pictureChristy Schuette

Holy Week Monday

Holy Week

Monday

Scripture References-


Cursing the Fig Tree- Mark 11:12-14 (Matthew 21:18-22)

Cleansing the Temple- Matthew 21:12-13 (Mark 11:15-19, Luke 19:45-48)


Jesus returned to Jerusalem on Monday to reap the fruits of Palm Sunday. The crowds had proclaimed Him as their Messiah and should be waiting for Him. But instead His efforts to open their hearts to God had not borne fruit. First, Jesus encountered the barren fig tree. From far away, Jesus saw the fig tree filled with leaves. The fruit of the fig tree generally appears before the leaves, and because the fruit is green it blends in with the leaves right up until it is ripe. Since there were leaves on the tree, Jesus assumed there would be fruit. When Jesus and the disciples got to the tree, it had no fruit and Jesus cursed the tree saying, “May no one ever eat from you again.” This seems odd to us, until we see what He did next.


Jesus then went to the temple. When He walked in, He saw people selling and trading and moneychangers taking advantage of people who came to worship God. Instead of the holy, special place it was supposed to be, entered into in reverence and awe, they had turned it into a marketplace where they could make money and socialize. They had taken His Father’s House and turned it into a place filled with greed and corruption. He had had all He could take. He pitched a fit. He went through the temple turning over the tables and chairs, driving the moneychangers out of the temple and not letting anyone in who was selling goods.


These are troubling verses because this is not the meek and gentle Jesus we are used to. This is an angry Jesus. We like to see Jesus as loving and gentle and mild mannered because we want to be the recipient of His gentle and forgiving Spirit. We all like to think of the gentle, kind Jesus, not one who gets angry and loses His temper. We are told that Jesus never sinned, but we think of anger as sin. The motive of the heart is what makes anger sin, not the anger itself. We have to recognize that Jesus hates sin and it makes Him angry. He is loving and quick to forgive us when we recognize our sin and ask for forgiveness, but He hates our sin and will not tolerate it.


When we look at these two incidents together we see the message Jesus is trying to show His followers. Throughout scripture the fig tree is used to symbolize Israel. What Jesus saw when He came into Jerusalem that day was a people who looked good on the outside just like the fig tree. They followed the rules and did all the things they were supposed to do, but they bore no fruit. They had made their relationship with God all about a list of rules and things they had to do, but their hearts were far from Him. They didn’t exhibit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. They had made religion about works and all the things they could do to earn God’s favor. Jesus came to change that. When we believe in Jesus He comes and lives inside of us and changes us from the inside. He produces fruit in us. We cannot produce fruit on our own. It comes from His presence in our lives. The closer we are to Him, the more fruit we will bear. Fruit is the proof of Jesus’ presence in our hearts.

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