Jesus Clears the Temple
12The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard him say it.
15On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17And as he taught them, he said, "Is it not written:
" 'My house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'"
18The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.
19When evening came, they went out of the city.
The Withered Fig Tree
20In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 21Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"
22"Have faith in God," Jesus answered. 23"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."
BACKGROUND READING:
Isaiah 56:5-7
Jeremiah 7-8
Dig Deeper
Once again Mark has given us two stories in sandwich form. The outer story has to do with a fig tree, while the inner story concerns the Temple, with each part of the story helping us to understand the other part. This passage is central, in many ways, to this gospel and to what Jesus was trying to do, but unless we can begin to appreciate the situation Jesus was in, we will easily misunderstand what is going on here.
The first incident with the fig tree has been cited by some critics of the Bible as proof that Jesus was mentally imbalanced. How could he get upset at a fig tree for producing leaves and not fruit during the time of year when all fig trees produced leaves and not fruit? That’s what fig trees do. The fact is, Jesus was not being unreasonable with the tree, he was acting out a parable. He was in fact, acting out Jeremiah’s prophecy against Israel. It was Jesus’ way of announcing the coming judgment on the Temple and all that it had become for the Old Covenant people.
Many have supposed that Jesus’ actions in the Temple were a rampage against commercialization in the Temple, that he wanted to simply clean up the Temple and stop all the non-religious activity. The story of the fig tree that surrounds his actions, though, make it clear that this was not the case. This was an act of symbolic judgment on the Temple.
Jesus uses quotes here from the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah which give another clue to what Jesus was doing. The Temple was supposed to be a house of prayer but had always been more a den of robbers (a word which would be much better translated as revolutionary or brigand). His point was that the Temple had always been an ambiguous thing. Even when it was dedicated, Solomon stressed that it could never be God’s final dwelling place (1 Kings 8:27). God had promised to bless his people through the Temple, but if they began to abuse and take for granted that blessing, then the Temple itself would and could be judged. This is what the early chapters (including chpts. 7-8) are all about.
How had it become a brigand’s or revolutionary’s cave? Because Israel had a vocation to be the light of the world, but they had abused that calling and used it to become narrowly nationalistic to the extent that the rest of the world was not seen as needing to be enlightened but condemned. Rather than symbolizing God’s welcome to the nations of the world, it had, for the Jews, become a symbol of his exclusion of them. The Temple had become the very sort of place that it was meant to subvert. So, like the fig tree, the only thing Jesus had in store for it was judgment. The Temple would be taken from the people who had abused it.
The next question to ask is how did Jesus’ actions mean that he was pronouncing judgment on it? The purpose of the Temple was as a place of sacrifice. Money was exchanged as people bought animals to sacrifice. Thus, the sacrificial system depended on the exchange of money and the purchasing of animals. Jesus stopped that process, if only for a few minutes, and enacted a deeply symbolic moment. He was saying more clearly than perhaps even words could, that the Temple was under God’s judgment. The very reason for it existing was being taken away.
The sacrificial system had not only come to signify that for which it was not intended, it was also going to be unnecessary. Jesus had already, ii using sacrificial language, said that he had come to be the ransom for many (Mark 10:45). The Temple was meant to be something that pointed to what was to come, and now it was here: the work of Jesus on the Cross.
The message for the Church today is more far-reaching and far more terrifying than just being a comment on commercialization. It is a warning for us to take our vocation as the new light of the word seriously. It means remembering that the Church must always be seen as a place to enlighten the nations not merely condemn them.
This is seen even in Jesus’ words about telling the mountain to throw yourself into the sea. The mountain was a long-standing symbol for the Temple, so this is clearly what Jesus was referring to here. Yet, even in encouraging his disciples to pray for the destruction of the Temple and everything it stood for (including the enemies of God) he reminded them to forgive. It is only when we learn to forgive that we can act with Jesus’ authority against the wickedness and corruption of our day.
Devotional Thought
Jesus often used deeply symbolic ways to get his points across, in ways that were far more meaningful and memorable than words could ever be. How can you do that in your life, school, or place of work? Think about the areas of culture and life in your social circles that have become deeply unpleasing to God. How can you symbolically demonstrate that God has a new and better way of doing things?
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