As we continue to explore sin, its contexts, and our salvation, we turn our attention to a seemingly peculiar story often invoked on Holy Tuesday: the cursing of the fig tree.
Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.
Mark 11:13-14 NRSVue
Jesus curses this fig tree as a symbolic rebuke of the religious leaders of His day, who claim piety but neglect to produce the good fruit characteristic of a Spirit-led believer (Galatians 5:22-23). This act of cursing the fig tree can be seen as a prologue of Pentecost, in which the Spirit falls on believers and enables us to produce good, godly fruits despite our mortal, sinful flesh. John the Baptist, who leads the way for Jesus’ ministry, foretells of this symbolic act:
Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
Matthew 3:10 NRSVue
As we journey into better understanding our sinful ways, we also need to consider our propensity towards apathy, the idea that if we simply avoid doing bad, we have fulfilled the requirements of the New Covenant. Instead, Jesus calls us towards more than simple repentance from sin but also towards the production of good fruit. As such, as Believers, we need to participate in God’s vision for the world. When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer for “Thy will (to) be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we’re surrendering to God’s vision for the world while offering ourselves in sacrificial surrender to become God’s instruments. As Tyler Staton writes in Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: “The assumption of biblical prayer is that God’s action always precedes my request. The aim is not to get God in on what I think he should be doing. Rather, the aim of prayer is to get us in on what God is doing, become aware of it, join it, and enjoy the fruit of participation… Intimacy leads to fruitfulness, not the other way around.”
Did you catch that last part? As we seek to fight against our inborne apathy in pursuit of the production of good fruit, we need to become closer to God. Thus, as we pursue God as we discussed on Sunday, we become equipped to produce good fruit through the help of the Spirit.
God expects a lot of us and actually quite little. As we grow closer to God, the purposes God has for us become clearer and it becomes easier to both avoid evil and actively participate in good. Again, we see an invitation to pursue who God is relationally, not just religiously. To become a follower of Christ is not to simply follow a checklist but to become his bride – to serve the Prince of Peace as though we actually believe He is real and hungering after us.
One practical way to grow good fruit in your life is to spend time in silence and await God’s speaking. As we spend time alone with God, as Jesus did, surrendering our energy and time to holy, higher purposes, we will find that we naturally begin to flee from the Devil’s temptations towards apathy and start to produce good fruit.
This post borrows wisdom from Tyler Staton. I encourage you to check out this resource or look into the church he leads, Bridgetown. Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Bryce Van Vleet is the #1 selling author of Tired Pages and Before We All Die Let’s Have One Last Chat by the Fireside. He also hosts the podcast Death in Dakota, sells poetry art here, and masquerades as the spoken word artist Liihey. You can support him by clicking through blog posts or donating (scroll to the bottom of the page).
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