And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. In response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.” And His disciples heard it. (Mark 11:13-14)
It was the Tuesday before Jesus would be crucified. The Savior and His disciples were staying at a village called Bethany, not very far from Jerusalem. On that Tuesday morning, Jesus and His disciples walked from Bethany, over the Mount of Olives, and towards the temple mount. Jesus would spend much of the day there teaching the multitudes and disputing with the religious leaders.
Somewhere on the way, Jesus saw a fig tree, one having leaves. He was hungry and looked forward to a fig or two. Yet when Jesus came to the tree, He found nothing but leaves. Ordinarily this is not the case with these type of fig trees, which normally do not have leaves without also having figs.
The problem wasn’t that it had no figs – Mark tells is that it was not the season for figs. The real problem was that it had leaves but no figs. Essentially, the tree was a picture of false advertising, having leaves but no figs. The leaves said, “There are figs here,” but the figs weren’t there.
On His walk from Bethany to the temple mount, I supposed Jesus passed by many trees. There were other trees with only leaves, and these were not cursed. There were some trees with neither leaves nor fruit, and these were not cursed. This fig tree was cursed because it professed to have fruit but did not.
Jesus both rebuked and cursed the fig tree, saying Let no one eat fruit from you ever again. The tree was cursed for its pretense of leaves, not for its lack of fruit. Like Israel in the days of Jesus, it had the outward form but no fruit. In this picture, Jesus warned Israel – and He warned us – of God’s displeasure when we have the appearance of fruit but not the fruit itself. God isn’t pleased when His people are all leaves and no fruit.
In all the works in the ministry of Jesus, this was the only directly destructive miracle. The Old Testament is filled with miracles of destruction and judgment but showed us something special in God’s character. If this was the only miracle of its kind, we must see there was a great and important lesson in it. God doesn’t approve when there is profession without reality, when there is talk without walk, image without reality.
It’s important for every disciple of Jesus Christ to never pretend to be something that they are not. Today, especially on social media, it’s easy to present an image of being special or spiritual that isn’t really true.
Beware of presenting leaves, with no fruit.