NOTHING BUT LEAVES

A DISCOURSE ON FAITH

“He found nothing but leaves” Mark 11:13

When Jesus examines your life closely, what does He find? Because Faith always produces fruit. The effects of your faith can always be found in the outflow of your life. Religion, on the other hand, produces nothing worthy. It is all for show, a presentation for other people, a mirage in the desert. Religion is nothing but leaves.

Jesus journeyed to and from Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives on the week of his execution. It was early in the morning, on the side of the road, that Jesus saw a fig tree in full bloom. This indication of life and fruit drew Jesus closer with hunger and expectation, only to find the tree fruitless. The leaves of the tree drew in the Savior only for him, upon further examination, to find no life attached to the leaves. He cursed it. Why? You might ask. Did Jesus lose His temper? Was he unjustified in His reaction towards His Creation? This strange story has perplexed people for many generations, causing many to chalk it up to an aberration and move on to more understandable aspects of the Gospels. But what if Jesus’s actions weren’t random, and what if they had massive implications then and now? What if Jesus cursing the tree was a message to us?

The truth is, Jesus is looking for Faith, and He expects there to be fruitfulness. This truth is difficult for a generation that resists expectations as evil. We are sworn only to ourselves and the sway of our emotions. We push against boundaries, despise labels, and claim truth as relative. We say things like “love means never having to say you’re sorry,” or your expectations do not define me. These beliefs are at cross-purposes with a God that expects much of His creation. The Church hasn’t helped much in this area, casting God as one who loves you, and anything you do, with nothing required from you. Whereas the Gospel says that God loves you, died for you, and now demands that you live completely for Him. He closely examines the tree of our lives and desires to see Faith and all its consequences. When God fails to find fruit, it is unacceptable to Him, and if the tree is to bear no fruit for God, may it never bear fruit for anyone else, for “apart from me you can do nothing.”

From these words, the tree begins to whither because that is the consequence of all things absent from God. When your mind, body, and spirit are without the light of Christ, they begin the long process of withering in darkness, falling under the curse of death. Thankfully this curse is reversible as Jesus took it upon Himself by hanging on a tree- He became the first fruits of all creation, offered to the Father in our place. His death stretched back to the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve hid their sin from God- and covered themselves in fig leaves. His voice echoed back from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Now, through the cross, we have a new opportunity to not settle for excuses in the place of righteousness; we no longer have to cover our shame with a presentation of religion, and we no longer have to hide from the voice of God. We are offered Faith, and we must grasp it with all that we have and allow it to work in our lives to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”

Jesus is standing in front of your life and examining- will He find Faith?