Holy Week 2023 Reflection
Honestly, when I first read this passage, I didn’t know what to make of it.
In Matthew 21:18-19, we read that Jesus was hungry and went up to a fig tree. But the fig tree bore no fruit, it was all leaves. So He cursed it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the fig tree withered.
Wait. Wasn’t that a tad harsh? Couldn’t He just tell the tree to produce fruit?
It was as of Jesus was not just hungry but hangry.
One scholarly interpretation is that the fig tree represented fruitless Israel. In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was likened to a vineyard or tree. It was supposed to be a blessing to the world (Isaiah 27:6), but God found it to be barren. In fact, it found itself under Roman subjugation. Fruitlessness was seen as a divine curse (Deuteronomy 11:17) and Jesus only made the picture starker.
We are under the same peril. We all have broken God’s laws. I doubt there’s someone who can say he has perfectly obeyed the Ten Commandments. Therefore, we are cursed (Galatians 3:10).
But the astonishing Good News is that instead of Jesus cursing us as He did with the fig tree, He took up the curse Himself. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole” (v 13). In other translations, the last word is not “pole” but “tree.”
Think about it:
- Jesus has every right to curse us for our sins. But instead, He took up the curse so we have every right to become children of God.
- Jesus cursed a fig tree. But to become a curse for us, He had to hang from a “tree”, the Cross.
- If we can get to heaven on our own, then why did Jesus have to take up that curse? Therefore, we receive eternal life not by our works, but by faith.
April 4, 2023
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