Matthew 21
The cursing of the fig tree in Matthew 21:18-22, might be viewed as a capricious, petty, and negative miracle. Of one thing I can be certain, Jesus was not capricious or petty ever, but especially not during this last week of His life of ministry. Nor was Jesus promising carte blanche power to literally rip mountains from their roots and plunge them into the Mediterranean or Dead Sea. This section of Matthew has a context in the chapter, and one that reaches back to Prophets and Psalmists such as Zechariah, Jeremiah and David.
Chapter 21 opens with the triumphal entry, where Jesus enacts Zechariah 9:8-9. The Lord will encamp in His Temple, and the King of Peace will humbly come on a donkey. Meanwhile, the people respond, from Psalm 118, shouting “Lord, save us (Hosannah),” and from the “House of the Lord,” cry, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” As in Psalm 118:22-27, the destination to which they go, palm branches in hand, is the horns of the altar.
Jesus did go to the Temple, where He drove out the moneychangers, citing Jeremiah 7:11, Jeremiah’s “Temple Sermon,” that warns that without acting justly, the Temple will not protect the people of Judah. The same warning is presumed with Jesus’ quoting Jeremiah. As the Babylonians destroyed the first temple, the Romans would destroy the second. The section closes with Jesus quoting Psalm 8:2.
It is after these passages that Jesus curses the fig tree. This is a prophetic act, not personal pique. In this context, it points to the fruitless nature of official religion, which will lead to its destruction. Unlike Mark 11, Matthew compresses the cursing of the fig tree and its withering to a single event. (1) This strengthens the connection to the Temple Jesus just cleansed. Jesus then points to, not mountains, but this mountain. What mountain was “this” mountain? From the context, I believe that this is the Temple mount, that was standing against Jesus and the disciples. At this point Jesus returns to Zechariah. In 4:7 the prophet said, “What are you, mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of ‘God bless it! God bless it!’” (NIV). The context in Zechariah is about the building of the second Temple. Ironically, that Temple became the mountain of opposition. Through faith and prayer, the disciples will overcome all such mountains of opposition.
Michael Greene sounds a warning for Christian churches:
Matthew’s church leaders need to take note, for dead religion in Christian churches will fall under his judgment just as surely as Israel’s failure evoked it. God is no more bound to Christian churches with a long pedigree than he was to Israel with an even longer one. If there is no fruit (in prayerfulness, in evangelism, in love and ministry to the community), God will judge such churches and they will die. (2)
We, too, can be full of the leaves of promise, but without the fruits of faithful and just service. However, we also can overcome the mountains of opposition before us in the name of our Lord, as Zechariah said in 4:6, “... Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” (NIV)
Tim Kelley
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(1) A comparison of Mark 11 with Matthew 21 is helpful.
(2) Green, M. (2001). The message of Matthew: the kingdom of heaven (p. 223). InterVarsity Press.