Holy Week Devotional - Monday (A Tree and A Temple)

Hello, and welcome to our first day of our Holy Week study, our podcast on Holy

Week, and excited to get started.

What we want to do here is just walk through Monday through Saturday,

and of course end on Sunday at church, as far as what is Jesus doing in these days?

What is He spending His days leading up to His ultimate purpose for coming,

which is his death, burial, and resurrection on the cross, save his sheep to

save and adopt his children back into his family. What is he trying to accomplish?

We start today at Mark 12, and what we see is that Jesus, I'm sorry,

Mark 11, what we see is that Jesus does two things in Mark 11,

and this is the most concise version of this day.

He curses a fig tree, and he cleanses the temple. And I want to take some time

real quick to talk about how these two things are incredibly related.

And so in Mark 11, verse 12, we see that it's on the following day.

Mark 11:12

So after his triumphal entry, after Palm Sunday, he comes in to shouts of Hosanna.

They quote the Psalms to him. They quote Zechariah to him.

He is the one that's going to save them from Roman oppression and Roman rule,

and he's going to bring them up to their proper place.

These are God's chosen people. And like David did, and like all of the kings

of old that they revered did, he's going to restore them to power.

Of course, that's not Jesus' ultimate goal, but he comes to this fig tree. And so...

He sees it at a distance, and he knows, just as well as his disciples,

that it's not fig season.

It's not time for figs to be growing, and yet he walks up to this fig tree,

and verse 14, he says to it.

Real quick note, when he talks to this tree, if you were walking through the

park, and you saw someone talking to a fruit tree and saying anything to it,

you would have real questions about that person's sanity.

But this is a reminder, a quick reminder that Jesus is Lord over all things.

Colossians tells us he is the creator of all things.

All things are made by him and through him, and all things exist for him to

bring him glory and praise.

The psalm tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God,

and Jesus is God in the flesh.

And as he talks of this tree, it's a reminder that he is sovereign over even the trees.

We learn in Holy Week that as he comes in, that if these people do not cry out

to him, the rocks will cry out.

He's sovereign over the world. He is the Lord of the world. He says to this

tree, may no one ever eat fruit from you again.

Now that seems like a very random thing to do. But as we move into Jesus cleansing

the temple in verse 15, we're going to see him draw these parallels between

that fig tree and what's going on at the temple.

And so as he comes into the temple, he says in verse 15, he begins to drive

out those who sold and those who bought and the temple. He overturns tables.

He would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.

So what does that have to do with the fig tree? Well.

When Jesus curses that fig tree, and then he goes to the temple,

he's trying to paint a picture specifically for his disciples,

that this tree that was planted long ago,

that Israel and the temple and all the things that God instituted in the Old Testament,

remember he tells Abraham, God tells Abraham, I'm going to bless you and the

nations will be blessed through you.

Well, how are the nations supposed to be blessed through Israel?

Well, of course, ultimately, in the person and work of Jesus,

but Israel was supposed to be a blessing to the nations because this was the

place where people could come to know the one and only true God,

the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and David, the God who forgives

iniquity and sin, the God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love

to a thousand generations.

Israel was supposed to be a fruit producer that people could come and eat from

this tree and know the true God.

And what Jesus experiences when he comes into the temple is the exact opposite of that.

They aren't producing fruit. In fact, they're extorting people.

They're taking the fruits and the labors of others. They're gouging them at

the temple so that people can buy sacrifices.

This has become, as he says, a den of thieves.

It's the exact opposite of this tree growing up, producing fruit and blessing

the world. It's a curse to the world.

It's projecting an image of God that is the exact opposite of the image of God

that Jesus has put on display.

He says in verse 17, famously, is it not written that my house should be called

a house of prayer for all the nations?

Again, echoing the promise that God made to Abraham, that this should be a house

of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it into a den of robbers.

This is what Jesus is trying to drive home on Monday, that there was a tree that was planted.

It was supposed to bear fruit. The nations were supposed to be blessed through it.

And he says to this fig tree again in verse 14 of Mark 11, may no one ever eat fruit from you again.

Well, of course, the question and the beautiful answer that Easter gives us,

well, if we can't come to Israel, if we can't eat the fruit that this tree of

Israel was supposed to provide for us, where do we go?

And of course, the answer is we run to Christ.

We run to Christ. He is the embodiment of Israel.

All of the nations will be blessed by Him.

All of the nations will be invited into His kingdom, into His presence.

They will eat from His table.

They will eat the fruit of his labor, all because of his life and his death

and his resurrection will people be blessed, not because of anything that they

have done or a fruit that they've produced, but because of what Christ has done for them.

Now, of course, in turn, we want to be fruit producers. Of course we do.

We want to be the church. We want to be the blood-bought people of God that

produce fruit, that people can come and they can eat of the fruit that we've

produced. But when they come to eat the fruit that we produce, we don't brag about it.

We don't say, yeah, look how awesome I am. Aren't you glad that I'm here?

What we say is, can I tell you about the reason that I have fruit,

that I have food, that I have things to give you?

We have that because of the sacrifice that Jesus is going to make,

that we don't become like the corrupt temple of Jesus' day.

The people don't come to us and we ask them for things and take from them.

Him and, hey, if you give me enough stuff, if you can give me what I want,

then I'll give you what you want.

This isn't an exchange that we're looking to do with people.

Jesus is the blessings to the nations. And we see that his plan is put into

place in verse 18, says the chief priests and scribes heard what he says,

and they were seeking a way to destroy him.

Why do they want to destroy him? For they feared him because all the crowd was

astonished at his teaching.

Now, they're astonished by it, but it won't be but a couple days before they

will be yelling to crucify Jesus, because they want a Savior from problems that

are not as important as the one he's come to solve.

They are blinded by their sin. They're blinded by the strife in this world.

They're blinded by Satan and his minions to believe that our biggest issue is the Romans.

Just like sometimes we get blinded in the fact that sometimes we think our biggest

issues are our financial situation, our work, our school,

our studies, what's going on in the world around us when really our biggest

issue is that we have a sin problem.

What affects us the most is not what goes on around us, but what happens within us.

And this is what Jesus has come to take care of.

It says, when evening came, they went out of the city.

So consider that today. Consider that in your own life, in your own struggles?

Are you looking to Jesus to provide something for you so that you can feel better

today? Are you looking to Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins?

Are you going to Jesus as someone to eat of his fruit, to stay connected to his vine?

Are you going to Jesus so that he might just solve a few problems in your life?

Jesus is so much more. He is true Israel.

He is where people come to know God, to experience forgiveness and restoration.

May that be true of us. Thank you for joining us today. We'll talk to you tomorrow.