After his entrance into Jerusalem, Jesus did what the people expected of him. He became a prophet. He became a judge. Of course, he did, as was so often the case, in a way which was contrary to their expectations and desires. He came to judge the claims of Israel about herself. “On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard it” (Mark 11:12-14). He professed his judgment – and what a judgment it was! He professed judgment on the fig tree, an image of Israel. “Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree, in its first season, I saw your fathers” (Hosea 9:10a). The populace wanted a messiah they could use, a messiah whose judgments would be blessings to Israel and curses to all her enemies. But instead, he came and judged Israel. They should have known and expected this; did not the prophets, in bringing the word of God to them, do the same? What he revealed to the people stirred up so much hate, so much bitterness, that calling for his death was the only possible answer they could have for him.
Before we can appreciate the judgment and its point, there are a few things which need to be said. As Scripture indicates, Israel was special, dear to God’s heart. Her people were a chosen people. But for what were they chosen, and why were they a special? The people themselves often misunderstood this. They thought of God as their exclusive property. They thought themselves above everyone else. They tried to bring in God’s glory and hold it to themselves. In reality, however, they were established as a holy people for one purpose: to bring to the world the God-Man, Jesus Christ. The glory of Israel came through the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary, whose son came into the world not only for the sake of one small nation-state, but for the whole world. “A hereditary holiness, assisted by the grace of the Holy Spirit, had accumulated for centuries and millennia in the Old Testament church; this holiness, tried by fate and temptations and formed by the entire gracious life of the Church, had ascended higher and higher above the level of fallen humanity. In this way, in its creaturely and human aspect, the Incarnation was prepared from ancient times by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the action of the Third hypostasis. The peak of this holiness was attained in the Mother Holy Virgin, whose purity was such that She was ‘full of grace,’ overshadowed even prior to the Incarnation by the constant illuminations of the Holy Spirit,” Sergius Bulgakov, The Lamb of God. Trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), 178.
If Israel fulfilled its purpose in the glorious fruit of Jesus through the Theotokos, why would Jesus, in prophetic utterance, judge the fig tree as barren? Simply put, the judgment was of Israel’s idolatry of itself, where they viewed themselves as separate and special before God in a purely nationalistic sense. They did not appreciate that they were chosen for a sacred and glorious purpose that would bring God’s glory to the whole world. They thought they were chosen for their own sake, and God’s glory would be theirs alone. Throughout his ministry, Jesus set out to overcome this misunderstanding. He went beyond the boundaries of Israel and ministered to the outcasts, to the gentiles, even to the hated Samaritans. He was willing to teach, help, and heal anyone who would come to him and listen. He preached to the people of Israel; he told them that the purpose of their covenant was love. They were to love God and neighbor, and their neighbor was everyone, especially the poor outcasts who they otherwise despised. The belief Jewish people held, the belief that Israel was a special nation which has exclusive claims to God had to come to an end; it founds its end in Jesus’ judgment of the fig tree. “And Peter remembered and said to him, ‘Master, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered.’ And Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, `Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses’” (Mark 11:21-25).
But we must not mistake what Jesus said and did was only about Israel. The Jewish people were special, and one could say, of all people, they were the ones most justified to think along the lines of nationalistic exceptionism (although it was wrong for them to do so). If Christ’s judgment on their claim shows how fruitless that view is, we must see how even more fruitless it is for everyone else. The judgment of the fig tree is a judgment of all such exclusivistic claims founded upon national or racial terms. Christ came to restore fallen humanity, to overcome self-seeking divisions. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Any claim to national exceptionism has already been judged, and it will find that its fruit is the fruit of the barren fig tree. Christ’s judgment remains.
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