Tuesday - The Barren Fig Tree

 

I like to read about the Holy Week from Dr. Hershel Hobbs book which I bought when I was a freshman in college and have kept it ever since.  Dr. Messer used it in his "Life of Christ" class which I still vividly remember.  Dr. Messer kept talking about Christ facing his impending death and how it made him do what we would call "lash out" at the humanity around him.  Like a fig tree that did not produce like a fig tree was supposed to produce.  The tree was supposed to have fruit but it had nothing and Christ cursed the barren tree and said it would forever be barren and the tree immediately began to wither.  It had leaves but no fruit, promise but no delivery.

On Tuesday morning as they were going into Jerusalem, the disciples pointed out the wilted tree to Jesus.  Jesus talked to them about the element of faith that "could move mountains."  He seemed to be saying that certain useless things would fall along the journey but those who remained faithful would find victory.

Hans Kung, one of the major theologians of this century, sums it up for me:

"For Jews and Christians, this one true God is not the unknown God.  He is the good God, the God who looks on human beings with kindness, the God in which men and women can place an absolute trust even in doubt, suffering and sin, in all personal distress and all social affliction--the God, in fact in whom we can place our faith."

I'm hanging on in faith, though some would call me a bit barrened and turned off by the church.