Mark 11:12And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry:
Mark 11:13And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.
Mark 11:14And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.
Mark 11:15And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves;
Mark 11:16And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.
Mark 11:17And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.
We see 2 days taken up with Jesus’ attention on the Temple. We can see that all of this week is taken up with the format Psalm 24,23,22 in that order, as Jesus is preparing for the full work to bring in the New Covenant. I love the passage cited in Mark 11, as it is given in a chronological form, connecting His Entry, the examination of the fig tree and subsequent cursing, the examination, and the expulsion of the moneychangers in the Temple.
Whenever God desires to prepare us for something new, there are radical things that must change, must be confronted, must be expelled from our midst. It is not different in this Easter week.
What interests me in this passage is something that appears in Mark and not the other Gospels. Jesus makes 2 visits to the Temple. Just after His Triumphal Entry He enters the Temple, almost unnoticed. He goes to examine. Contrast this with Malachi 3, when it says that “suddenly He shall appear” and there, in the passage in Malachi there goes on a very vigorous purification, as of gold and silver. I see from Psalm 12, that David likens the Word of God as silver purified 7 times over. In Revelation 3, Jesus exhorts the Church to bring Him gold tried in the fire, symbolizing their faith. So this suddenly happens in Mark 11 as we have based this chapter on, but what does Jesus do? He is silent, examining everything. Rather like the words of Zechariah 4, the man going with the plumbline around the foundations of this same Temple.
We can sometimes equate the visitation of the Lord as being dramatic but here, its a silent examination and then He leaves. We know that He returns the following day and the result of the day before His demeanour changes. He gets hold of a girdle or belt and begins to overturn the tables of those doing business in the Temple outer court. Jesus establishes in this act the true role of the Temple as a place of prayer for all nations. It is the centre of God’s priestly ministry in the earth. The analogy of the fig tree, and we have spoken of this before, but the show of leaves meant that there would be no fruit.
In this 2nd visitation Jesus is looking for fruit. It is not by chance that in John 15 we see Him teach His disciples concerning the importance of fruit. The main fruit I think Jesus was looking for is demonstrated in His teaching on faith. We really thought that the teaching on the faith to move mountains, is a faith to get, not a faith to transform. We missed its context and its application. In fact Jesus once asked “Will it be that when the Son of Man returns He will find faith in the earth”? So we need to ask ourselves what is this faith? It is this faith to maintain the status of functioning in the central purpose of what God instituted, that is a House of Prayer. When historically they began to forget so the sales of animals, offerings, started to change the emphasis of the House of Prayer.
Its so easy to believe we have to find strategies that become gimmicks for us to rest our assurance of results on. This is what was happening there. I believe that in following our pattern surely the question of Psalm 24:1 stands firm; “who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?” That is to prepare for His coming, to us, for us, with us, we must examine whether we are qualified for ascending, for our ascending is key to His descending as we saw in the first chapter of this series.
The Lord must examine us before He expels that which disqualifies us. If we cannot ascend, He cannot descend. The whole Passover work in this week, which we celebrate , we have to walk out Psalms 22, in identifying with the Cross of Calvary, Psalms 23 submitting to Him as Shepherd and Lord of our souls, and then Psalm 24 submit and prepare for Him who is King and Judge of the Earth to come to us, for us and we come with Him to bring the final judgments. The fruit, that Jesus is looking for is faith, not our understanding of it, no, the one centred on Jesus’ person, purpose and power. This power to save, this purpose to redeem and power to institute a new heaven and earth.
May we submit to His examination, so that that which we have strayed from, that has prevented us from producing the fruit of faith, may be corrected and may we bear the fruit that sows into the fullness of His eternal purpose and Kingdom.
Maranatha!
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