4 Points I Missed

There are a couple of quick points that I would like to discuss that I missed over the last couple of days. The first thing is that the Jewish leadership rebuked Jesus for making such a commotion during His triumphal entry. The Pharisees “said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.” We know that they hate Jesus, but this isn’t a completely unrealistic request. The people were making noise, and in Jerusalem there was a fortress right next to the temple full of Roman soldiers just waiting for the Jews to make some sort of disturbance so they could come down and crush them. The Pharisees might have been justified in their fear that this commotion was about to bring the wrath of Rome down upon the whole city. Jesus is perfect, so we can’t assume that his response was anything other than a statement of fact, saying, “I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” I’ve never thought of the Triumphal entry as being such a big deal, but if we think about it, spirits on all sides of the veil had probably been waiting for eons of time for the spiritual Kingdom of God to be established on the earth. If we loved Jesus, we would be thrilled to be able to finally proclaim His Kingship and welcome him into His role as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The audience of this event probably included pre-mortal, mortal, and post-mortal beings. God Himself was probably there for the occasion, it would have been an intensely spiritual time and the very earth itself wouldn’t have been able to contain it all with silence. It was just an interesting perspective that the very earth responds to Spirit and Jesus’ innate connection with the physical world as creator.

The second point comes to us via JTC who points out that even though there was a huge commotion, the spectacle was so non-threatening “that the joyous occasion was in no sense suggestive of physical hostility or of seditious disturbance by the indulgent unconcern with which it was viewed by the Roman officials, who were usually prompt to send their legionnaires swooping down from the fortress of Antonia at the first evidence of an outbreak; and they were particularly vigilant in suppressing all Messianic pretenders, for false Messiahs had arisen already, and much blood had been shed in the forcible dispelling of their delusive claims. But the Romans saw nothing to fear, perhaps much to smile at, in the spectacle of a King mounted upon an ass, and attended by subjects, who, though numerous, brandished no weapons but waved instead palm branches and myrtle springs.” The Romans would punish any of their subjects for anything with little or no evidence, maybe I’m being too hard on them, but it seems reasonable to assume that anyone making any sort of trouble for the Romans were dealt with swiftly and brutally. The fact that Jesus, while proclaiming Himself king of the Jews was so pacifying, that those just waiting for make a move were not agitated in any way is testament to the fact that Jesus is in fact the Prince of Peace. Maybe that can be a lesson to us, live our lives with such a peaceful attitude that even our most ardent enemies can’t find provocation against us.

The third point also comes from JTC but involves the cursed fig tree that we discussed yesterday. He comments that the tree had leaves, indicating that it would have fruit since we know that the fruit appears before the leaves, and that, biologically speaking, the tree should have had at least some green figs which would have been edible. Even without any green figs, “it was a showy, fruitless, barren tree. It was destitute even of old figs, those of the preceding season, some of which are often found in spring on fruitful trees.” Thinking about the life cycle of figs, they start out juicy, but then they can be dried and preserved for later use. Applying that logic to the tree, and I tried to find out about this but couldn’t find what I was looking for, any fruit that isn’t picked might hang on to the stem and dry out, meaning that even a tree with no current fruit should at least have some dried fruit hanging on from the season before. The reason why it’s significant that this tree didn’t have any dried figs from the last season is because this indicates that this tree had not born fruit for quite some time.

JTC comments, “that leafy tree was distinguished among fig trees; the others offered no invitation, gave no promise; ‘the time of figs was not yet’; they, in due season would bring forth fruit and leaves; but this precocious and leafy pretender waved its umbrageous limbs as in boastful assertion of superiority…The leafy, fruitless tree was a symbol of Judaism, which loudly proclaimed itself as the only true religion of the age, and condescendingly invited all the world to come and partake of its rich ripe fruit; when in truth it was not an unnatural growth of leaves, with no fruit of the season… The religion of Israel had degenerated into an artificial religionism, which in pretentious show and empty profession outclassed the abominations of heathendom.” This explanation really helped me understand why the cursing of the fruitless fig tree was a parallel to Israel at the time. It’s like a spiritual mirage, you’re dying of thirst, then you see something life saving in the distance, but when you get there, it’s just more sand. We look at religion to save us spiritually, but when we get there, there’s really no salvation, that’s what Israel had become for many people.

The fourth point I neglected to discuss earlier is the contrast between the Lord’s other miracles and the cursing of the fig tree. It would be considered a miracle, but it sounds weird to say it like that because miracle usually indicates something positive and cursing a tree so it dies immediately is not that positive thing we usually attribute to the word “miracle.” JTC mentions, “the blighting of the barren fig tree is regarded by many as unique among the recorded miracles of Christ, from the fact that while all the others were wrought for relief, blessing, and beneficent purposes generally, this one appears as an act of judgment and destructive execution… To the apostles the act was another and indisputable proof of the Lord’s power over nature, His control of natural forces and all material things, His jurisdiction over life and death. He had healed multitudes; the wind and the waves had obeyed His words; on three occasions He had restored the dead to life; it was fitting that He should demonstrate His power to smite and to destroy. In manifesting His command over death, He had mercifully raised a maiden from the couch on which she had died, a young man from the bier of which he was being carried to the grave, another from the sepulcher in which he had been laid away a corpse; but in proof of His power to destroy by a word He chose a barren and worthless tree for His subject. Could any of the Twelve doubt, when, a few days later they saw Him in the hands of vindictive priests and heartless pagans, that did He so will He could smite His enemies by a word, even unto death? Yet not until after His glorious resurrection did even the apostles realize how truly voluntary His sacrifice had been.”

Perhaps one of the most difficult things to reconcile about Jesus is Him as Savior and Him as the ancient Jehovah. As the ancient Jehovah, he smites and destroys and is really all around portrayed as the fire and brimstone God of anger and jealousy. This absolutely is within His right and power to be that way, but then he comes to earth and is the lamb to the slaughter, so it would be easy to look at all His good works and believe that he only had power to perform only positive things. This type of thinking would make it difficult to see how Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion were voluntary. If he were arrested, tortured, and crucified, he only has the power to do good things, and no good thing would get him out of that situation. But he had power to do all good things and he had power over everything to do anything he wanted with them. I really like that JTC pointed out that Jesus had power over the wind and waves, the loaves and fishes, life and healing, and demonstrated his power frequently. But we don’t see his power to destroy very much, so it was an important manifestation of his complete range of power to curse the fig tree. He needed to remind them that he had the power over not only life but death as well, and he might be hard pressed to take the life of a person simply to illustrate his point, but then the fig tree presented itself, the lesson was taught, and the people were protected.