The Tree That Dried Up

Read aloud

The day before, Jesus had been hungry, had walked over to a fig tree in leaf, and had found only leaves. He spoke against the tree, then went into Jerusalem and cleared the traders out of the temple courts. The same road brings them back past that tree in the morning, and they see it withered down to the roots. Mark has wrapped one story around another here: the tree on the outside, the temple in the middle. That arrangement invites us to consider them together.

Mark 11:13 says it was not the season for figs. That detail makes the scene puzzling; we should not explain it away by saying leaves always promise ripe fruit. The prophets give us another way to consider the tree. Jeremiah 8:13 describes judgment with no figs on the tree and even the leaf withering. Micah 7:1 longs for an early fig and finds none; Hosea 9:10 recalls Israel as the firstfruits of a fig tree. Against that background, and beside the temple scene, the withered tree can be read as an acted warning of judgment.

In the temple, Jesus confronts buying and selling with words from Isaiah about a house of prayer for all the nations and from Jeremiah about a den of robbers. His rebuke exposes a betrayal of the house's purpose. Religious activity is no protection from judgment when it shelters what God condemns.

Peter points at the dead tree, and Jesus tells the disciples to have faith in God. He speaks of a mountain being thrown into the sea and calls them to pray with confidence. The command directs their trust to God Himself, whose power exceeds the obstacles they can see.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Read by itself, that promise might sound like a lever: want it badly enough, keep the doubt out, and the thing arrives. But Jesus has said to have faith in God, and His next words place prayer within a relationship with a forgiving Father. We approach a person we trust, not a power we can control.

And when you stand to pray, if you hold anything against another, forgive it, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your trespasses as well.

Later, in Mark 14:36, Jesus asks His Father to take the cup of suffering from Him. He says all things are possible for the Father, then prays, “Yet not what I will, but what You will.” He goes on to the cross. His trust was not deficient because suffering remained. We can bring our requests boldly and still entrust the outcome to the Father. An unanswered request does not, by itself, show that we failed to believe hard enough.