As we journey through the Gospel of Matthew, we’ve come to this unusual story of the fig tree and the moving mountain. It raises at least three big questions:
1. Why does Jesus curse the fig tree?
2. What is this mountain that faith will move? Then the biggest one:
3. What is the point (or the points) that Jesus is making?
Let’s walk through these questions, and hopefully we can get some answers as we ask the Spirit to speak to us through his Word.
1. Agricultural question: Why does Jesus curse the fig tree?
There are three reasons why this is a highly unusual miracle.
First, Jesus never did another destructive miracle.
Have you thought about that? If you had unlimited power, would you not be tempted to break some things? You’re driving to an important appointment, and people in front of you keep getting in your way. Just with a thought, you can move them off the road. Would that not be tempting?
But think about it: Jesus always used his power in restorative ways…except maybe one other example. Can you think of it? Good. The pigs. If you were a pig, you would say that was destructive. That’s when Jesus delivered the demoniac. But it wasn’t a destructive miracle. The miracle was the delivery. The fallout from the delivery is Jesus allowed the spirits to enter some pigs, who plunged off the cliff. But it was not directly a destructive miracle. This one is. Unusual.
Second, Jesus never allowed his appetite to drive his agenda.
Think about going 40 days without food or drink, miraculously sustained in the wilderness. Or when he was talking to the woman at the well (the Samaritan woman), and his disciples were trying to get him to eat some food. He hadn’t eaten in a long time, and he said, no, “my food is to do the will of him who sent me” (John 4:34).
So Jesus was not driven by his appetite, even though he knew what it was like to have a rumbling stomach or dizziness from low blood sugar. He was a real human being. However, we know he would not have cursed the fig tree simply because he was hangry.
Third, Jesus cursed a figless fig tree during the season when fig trees don’t produce harvestable figs.
Mark 11:13 says, “he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.”
So why would Jesus curse a fig tree for being figless when it was supposed to be figless at that time? A couple of things about figs:
Fig trees produce what are called early figs (in Hebrew, it’s “paggim”) in early spring. These are small, hard, edible, but not tasty, and they usually appear with the leaves. If there are no early figs, there will be no harvestable figs. Just leaves.
The later figs (te‘enim) appear in late summer. These are what we think of when we think of figs (sweet, honeyish, tasty). So, even though it was not harvest time, the leaves should indicate the presence of the early figs. No early figs means no later figs, which means no harvest. Let’s summarize it in a sentence:
Jesus curses the figless fig tree for having beautiful leaves, giving the appearance of fruitfulness, but not actually bearing fruit.
So Jesus curses the fig tree for false advertising or hypocrisy (foliage without fruit).
2. Geographical question: What is the mountain Jesus is referring to here?
On Tuesday morning, the disciples noticed the withered fig tree. They marveled that it withered so quickly, so it’s obviously not just a naturally dying, withering tree. Rather than asking why, they ask (verse 20) how? How did the fig tree wither at once? Verse 21,
“And Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,” it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith’” (Matthew 21:21-22).
So what is this mountain?
Three options:
1. Herodium. Herodium could be seen from the Mount of Olives. It was a very distinctive mountain because it was the only mountain that was moved. Herod built it in 24 B.C. On top, it had a rounded fortress with a circular hall. Herodium was constructed with an unnatural symmetry because it was essentially a man-made mountain.
According to John Beck, Herodium represented everything wrong in the world: paying taxes for opulent buildings that you will never experience while you languish in poverty, being occupied by Roman brutality and pagan corruption, and contaminating the natural horizon with an unnatural edifice. If this is the mountain Jesus is referring to, he is saying prayer has the power to remove immoral or immovable obstacles into the sea.
A bunch of us were just there in December. When we were on Herodium, you could actually look east and see the Dead Sea. So that idea of taking all these immoral, immovable objects and throwing them in the sea of death.
2. Mount of Olives
Remember, Jesus is traveling over the Mount of Olives each day as he goes back and forth to Bethany from Jerusalem. Most likely, they were staying with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. The Mount of Olives is featured in prophecies like Zechariah 14, referring to the day of the Lord. Verse 3,
“Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward” (Zechariah 14:3-4)
What is that communicating? That’s communicating that God will supernaturally make a way of escape for the people of God. He moves mountains to fight for his people. Both of these options are possible. Let me give you one other one.
3. The Temple Mount
When Jesus and his disciples were leaving the temple, they went down into the Kidron Valley and then up to the Mount of Olives.
This is our most recent team. We are on the slope of the Mount of Olives. If you look beyond Davy’s beautiful head there, you will see the Dome of the Rock. That’s on the Temple Mount.
So when Jesus was talking with his disciples, teaching these words, he could have very easily referred to this mountain or this mountain, but I believe he was referring to the Temple Mount. Also called what? Mount Zion. Also known further back (think Abraham, Isaac) as Mount Moriah. Same Mount.
This seems the best interpretation to me simply because of the context, although the others could be it. There’s a tight connection between the cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple, which is what we focused on last week.
So what is the connection between the cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the Temple? That leads to our third big question:
3. Theological question
What is the point? Or points? And what is Jesus saying to us through this? There are two major points, I believe, that arise from this passage.
1. This is a call to repent of hypocrisy.
Where is the hypocrisy? The fig tree was covered with leaves, giving the image of fruitfulness without the reality. Look at verse 19,
“He went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves” (Matthew 21:19b).
What kind of leaves? Fig leaves. Does that sound familiar? Genesis 3. What did Adam and Eve cover themselves with? The fall of man. Yeah, fig leaves, when we’re more concerned about appearance than repentance. We’re more concerned about covering than repenting.
Do you see the connection with the mountain as well? The Temple Mount, we saw last week, was teeming with religious activity — sacrifices being made, animals being sold, pilgrims coming from all over the world.
Tons of religious activity, but Jesus confronts them and says, “You’ve taken this house of prayer and you’ve turned it into—” a what? A den of thieves! There are all sorts of religious leaves, but no fruit.
Let’s pause for a minute and ask ourselves what might be here for us. Obviously, Jesus is directly confronting Israel at this time (specifically the religious leaders), but this is recorded for our good as well.
What are some signs that I may be more interested in leaves than in fruit?
Can you think of any? I want you to call out some. What are some signs that I may be more interested in leaves than in actual fruit?
Pride. How does that manifest itself? Other examples?
Fear of man. I’m more worried about what people think of me than about the actual condition of my heart. Good. What else?
What is my motivation? What is driving me? People pleasing, impressing others. Anything else?
I’m surrounding myself with people who agree with me, will affirm me.
Let me add one more. These are all true. The one that the Spirit has really been working into my heart is when I am longing more for relief than for fruit.
When I’m going through a trial—and there’s nothing wrong with wanting a trial to end—but when I want relief more than I want the fruit that God is bearing in my life or through my life, I might be more interested in leaves. Kind of like this tree right here that is plastic, giving the image of life rather than the reality.
Margaret was a quiet Scottish woman who was dying of cancer. She was emaciated. She had throat cancer, so she had lost the ability to speak, and people would come, her friends/family would come and visit her and express compassion for her condition.
At one visit, someone expressed something like, “This is the worst thing that could happen to someone.” Just expressing compassion. Margaret couldn’t speak, but she wrote these words:
“This is not the worst thing to ever happen! Cancer is so limited.”
Pause. Take that in: a woman who’s dying of cancer, can’t speak, emaciated…”Cancer is so limited.” Can you say that about your trial right now?
What is it? Financial need, marital conflict, relational difficulty, jobless? All these things we could list, that all of us will go through at some time or another, can we say with Margaret (not minimizing the difficulty), “It’s limited.”
Margaret, we need some help. What do you mean by “limited”? She goes on:
“It cannot cripple love [cancer can’t do it; it cannot] shatter hope, corrode faith, eat away peace, destroy confidence, kill friendship, shut out memories, silence courage, quench the Spirit or lessen the power of Jesus.”
Amen? Cancer can’t do it. It can do a lot of things, but it’s limited.
What is Margaret expressing? She’s expressing the fruit that is being born in her and through her, even though she is experiencing something very difficult. Look at that list: love, hope, faith, peace, confidence, friendship, memories, courage.
You can’t quench the Spirit. That means the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) can all emerge despite this trial because he is stronger! Than cancer. Than joblessness. Than loneliness. Than anything else that tends to consume us. Our fears…
This is why Jesus confronted the church at Sardis with a similar confrontation that he spoke in Matthew 21. Revelation 3:1,
“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead—”
What is he saying? You’re like this plant. You look alive, but you’re not. You have leaves without fruit! What should we do? Wake up! This is Jesus speaking to a church like ours.
“…Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you” (Revelation 3:1-3).
Matthew 21, like Revelation 3, is Jesus calling us away from the emptiness/fruitlessness of hypocrisy into a life of abundance. Real fruit, not fake. This is a call to repent of hypocrisy.
2. This is a call to pray in faith.
Jesus here is warning of judgment, specifically to Israel (Romans 11 applies it to us), but he’s also equipping the disciples to pray.
Last week, we saw when Jesus cleansed the den of thieves and restored the house of prayer. We defined “house of prayer” today could mean when people of prayer gather to pray in Jesus’s name. That’s what we do each week as we gather.
Here, Jesus is building on this, widening the application. Look at verse 22:
“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” (Matthew 21:22).
Let’s talk for a moment about the tension that is built in regarding prayer in the gospel of Matthew. If we had a few hours, we could trace the theme of prayer through Matthew. It’s quite extensive, so I want to focus just on one part of that.
Have you noticed that depending on your tradition, Christians tend to put the accent on prayer in different places?
For example, if you come from a more Pentecostal or charismatic background, you tend to put the accent on confidence. Like, believe! Speak! Confidence in prayer. Like verse 22 says, God can do anything! You have to believe it!
If, however, you come from a more Reformed or Baptist, Methodist, broadly evangelical background, you tend to put the emphasis in prayer on dependence. When you pray, you don’t just state what you want. You say what you want, and then you add what? “Lord willing.” Yeah, “If it’s your will.” You’re dependent. God is sovereign. You’re not sovereign.
Which one of those is biblical? Don’t you love those questions? Let’s look at a few examples.
First of all, confidence.
We should pray with confidence. Verse 22 is obvious:
“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” (Matthew 21:22).
We saw it back in chapter 7:
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).
We could go beyond Matthew and look at other examples in the Bible, like Jeremiah 33:3,
“Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”
Psalm 34:17,
“When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.”
That’s confidence.
How about dependence? Think of when the Lord taught us to pray the Lord’s prayer,
“Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10b).
Or Matthew 6:8, “Do not be like them [the pagan prayers with many words] for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
He knows. It’s okay. He knows.
Or Jesus’s example in Matthew 26:39b,
“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
1 John 5:14 brings the two together:
“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.”
Do you feel the tension? And this is an intentional tension. Because if we are prone to pray just with confidence, we can easily slip into presumption. But if we’re prone to pray just in dependence, we can easily slip into passivity (e.g. “God’s going to do what God’s going to do”).
The Bible holds both up and calls us to pray both. That’s something the Spirit has been driving home to me for the last couple of years: “Peter, I want you to pray extravagantly big prayers, totally dependent on me.”
Are you praying those kinds of prayers? Right now, are you praying for things that only God can do, only He can answer? If he doesn’t come through, it’s not going to happen. Extravagantly big prayers, completely dependent. “Lord, you know, your will be done.”
As Christians, we tend to fall off the cliff on either side, but Jesus is bringing these together. Now, let’s see if we can bring it all together.
What does this have to do with hypocrisy? For some of us, the biggest miracle we need right now is the miracle of fruitfulness. There is the appearance of life without the reality, which is what this passage is getting at.
If you look at those blanks at the end of your notes — This may be helpful for some of you, maybe not for others. It just guides our thoughts in bringing all of this together.
“I have been presenting myself as…” Blank. I come across to people as what? I’m concerned that people think of me…blank. You fill that in.
“But in actuality, I am/have been…” What? Pray into that. What’s the disconnect?
Then, if the Spirit is speaking to you this morning, “I repent of this…” I am asking our Father through the Gospel of Jesus to what? That should be a mountain-moving prayer.
The reason we pray through the gospel of Jesus is that it is the best news. All of us who are like this tree right here— I’m killing it. I’m just making sure it’s actually fake. I don’t want to malign the tree. It’s fake.
Jesus died for hypocrites. Isn’t that amazing? He confronted hypocrisy harder than anything, and then he died for us. He calls us to repent, and then he pays for the sin of hypocrisy so that we can become what we could not become apart from him. Isn’t that amazing?
So if you feel pressed down or crushed by the strong words of Jesus calling us to repentance, just know he’s already bought your freedom. He produces life through you.
“Apart from me,” he said, “you can do nothing.” But when you’re tapped into the vine, he bears the fruit. It’s not something that you have to try harder to get this week. It’s repent and run to Jesus. He says, “Come to me.”
Let’s take a moment and do that. If the Spirit is speaking to you, you might want to write some of these things out in those blanks, or just talk to him. He’s inviting. And then I’ll pray.
Father, you know how hard it is to be honest, for us to be honest. We are people of pretending and appearance, image. We need your grace to reject appearance and embrace repentance. Our reputations are addictive. Every hit gives us a bit of a high. We need your help.
We realize the kind of fruitfulness that you desire to produce in us may require some pruning, and pruning is painful. Some of us would rather have a pain-free life than a fruitful life, Lord, and we repent of that. You don’t prune us because you hate us. You prune because you love us, and you desire to bear more fruit.
So Lord, wherever we are this morning, we’re coming to you together as a family, knowing we’re in this together. We all tend to pretend. We tend to show a part of ourselves that we want others to see, and other parts we don’t want people to see. It keeps us from coming to you openly, honestly, in humility.
We know if we don’t humble our hearts, we don’t get grace, and grace is what we need. So hear hundreds of cries as we call out to you. Do your work, we pray, in Jesus’s name, amen.
