Character Vs. Reputation

 

 

    (Sunrise in the park, across the street from our house.)

I have seen websites advertising ways to clean up your reputation. You may have an online reputation that is less than marketable. These websites promise to sanctify "you" by removing your sins (real or rumored) and producing a shiny, sparkling, attractive "you." This is called "reputation

 management." I kid you not.

Your sordid reputation can be manipulated, for a cost. But what about your character?

Money cannot help you here. Your reputation, which money can airbrush, is not your character. Your character is about the real "you." Money cannot change that unless, perhaps, you begin sacrificially, and from a heart of compassion, giving it away to the poor. 

The real "you" includes who you are when offline. This is what God cares about. God develops character, not reputation.  

Everyone has a reputation. Jesus did. Isn't he just the "carpenter's son?" "He's from Nazareth, right?" 

Reputation may align with character. You may have a reputation of being a kind person. If you are kind, in character, which means kind at home, kind on the road, kind in the workplace, kind to your spouse, kind when alone, then your reputation of being kind aligns with who you truly are.

Several years ago I was one of the presenters at an ecumenical prayer gathering. As I entered the auditorium a Roman Catholic leader approached me. He said he was surprised to see me here, because he had heard that I hate Roman Catholics. I told him that was untrue. I shared how one of our city's priests, with whom I was friends, had invited me to speak at the annual Unity Service. I have no idea where he got that from. Such is the nature of "reputation."

Forget about what people repute you to be. Focus on connecting to Jesus, who is forming himself in you. Grow and mature into Christ. Let God take care of whatever follows.

The Ancient Easter Creed

 

                                        (Cross, in my front yard.)

Yesterday was Easter Sunday. The oldest words written about the resurrection of Jesus are in the ancient creed that followers of Jesus recited, within months after the resurrection. 

It's found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7. This is the "gospel." (See 1 Cor. 15:1-2.)

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 

 he was buried, 

he was raised on the third day 

according to the Scriptures, 

he appeared to Peter

He appeared to the Twelve. 

After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 

 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

We just celebrated Resurrection Sunday!

Jesus is risen!

He's alive!

Easter Week - That Great Day!

(Johnny Lang singing one of my favorite songs, "That Great Day.")

Easter Day - That Great Day

The greatest days of my life so far are... 

... One day in May, 1970, when God became real to me in a very experiential way. I knew He existed, and that He incarnated Himself in Jesus.

                    

... August 11, 1973. I married Linda.

                    

... July 10, 1982, and September 25, 1985. My sons Dan and Josh were born. (And my stillborn son David died...)

And... the days my grandson Levi (now 5) and granddaughter Harper (now 3) were born!

My life is formed and shaped around these events. They color everything I do, and will do, for all my earthly existence.

The greatest holy day of my Jesus-life is Easter Sunday. That's today! As I worship this morning I'll close my eyes and say, for the bazillionth time, "Thank You, God, for rescuing me." It's fifty-five years since my rescue. 

My heart will overflow with gratitude this morning at Redeemer. The chains of self-hatred and death that bound me have been broken. 

I'm thinking of Romans 5:12-21. It's about the reign of condemnation and death brought about by Adam's sin, and the grace-gift of righteousness effected by Christ's death and resurrection. In Adam, death reigns. In Christ, grace reigns. Even more than this, we who are in Christ now reign in life.

Sometimes I go to a cemetery to pray. I stand in a field of tombstones. Because I am in Christ, I'm also standing in fields of grace (Romans 5:2). In the kingdom of God tombstones don't rule. Grace does. Empty tombs reign in the kingdom of heaven, because one tomb opened 2000 years ago.

Sin produces condemnation. "Condemnation," from the Greek word katakrima, has the root idea of separation or discrimination. Katakrima means: judgment coming down on someone. Because Grace Reigns, there's no more condemnation, no more separation. Grace and mercy are pouring down on me.

THIS IS HUGE! This morning I celebrate this with my Redeemer brothers and sisters and 2.5 billion others around the world.

You can't out-sin the grace of God or out-fail the mercy of God.

The greatest day in history: one Passover Day around 37 A.D. (That's right.)

That Great Day when sin, condemnation, shame, and death were defeated.

And, in my life, there's one more Great Day to come...

REFLECTION

1. Take time today to thank God for...
- sending Jesus to rescue humanity from sin, condemnation, and death
- rescuing you from sin, condemnation, and death

2. Pray that you may experience and know what it means to "reign in life" through Christ, and by the Holy Spirit.

Easter Week - Jesus' Body Lies in a Tomb Owned by Joseph of Arimathea

(Ancient tomb in Jerusalem)

SCRIPTURE - MATTHEW 27:57-66

⁵⁷ As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. ⁵⁸ Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. ⁵⁹ Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, ⁶⁰and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. ⁶¹ Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb. 

⁶² The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. ⁶³ "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' ⁶⁴ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first."

⁶⁵ "Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how." ⁶⁶ So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard."

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THESE VERSES?

As a new Jesus-follower many years ago there were factual, historical pieces of evidence that strengthened my new-found faith. One fact is this: Jesus' dead body was placed in a tomb owned by Sanhedrin member Joseph of Arimathea. This provides a piece of evidence that, along with other facts (esp. Jesus' postmortem appearances), forms an inductively strong argument for the resurrection of Jesus. 

On thE Saturday following Good Friday Jesus' body lay inert in Joseph of Arimathea's family tomb. We can be certain, historically (which means "inductively certain"), that this was the case. How so? Here are two reasons: 

1) this story, in the 4 Gospels and Paul, is found in independent sources that together attest to this; and 

2) by the "criterion of embarrassment" a story of a member of the Sanhedrin helping Jesus' family is unlikely, and not plausibly invented by Christians. This argues in favor of its historicity.

1) We have sources that together attest to Jesus' burial in a tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea.

Paul Barnett writes: "Careful comparison of the texts of Mark and John indicate that neither of these Gospels is dependent on the other. Yet they have a number of incidents in common: For example, . . . the burial of Jesus in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea" (Paul Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History, 1997, pp. 104-5). Regarding the burial stories, the differences between Mark and the other Synoptics point to other independent sources behind Matthew and Luke. 

So what's the point? It's this. If, e.g., a police officer had multiple, independent (unrelated) witnesses to a crime, and they all gave the same report (even if worded differently and with variations), this would provide stronger evidence than if only one report had been given. We have this, re. the burial stories, in the Gospels and Paul. Here is the key Pauline text.

1 Corinthians 15:3 ff.: For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

About this William Lane Craig writes:

"This is an old tradition, handed on by Paul to the Corinthian church, which is among the earliest traditions identifiable in the NT. It refers to Jesus' burial in the second line of the tradition. That this is the same event as the burial described in the Gospels becomes evident by comparing Paul's tradition with the Passion narratives on the one hand and the sermons in the Acts of the Apostles on the other. The four-line tradition handed on by Paul is a summary of the central events of Jesus' crucifixion, burial by Joseph of Arimathea, the discovery of his empty tomb, and his appearances to the disciples."

2) Most NT scholars say it is highly likely that Jesus’ body was placed in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. 

Sometimes I hear someone say, "OK, but Christians just made these stories up." This is improbable. As a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin that was against Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is unlikely to be a Christian invention. In this regard New Testament  New Testament scholar Raymond Brown says burial by Joseph of Arimathea is very probable. Why? Because it is almost inexplicable why Christians would make up a story about a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin who does what is right by Jesus. This would, for a Jesus-follower in the days after Easter weekend, be an embarrassment. 

Craig Keener writes: "Given early Christian experiences with and feelings toward the Sanhedrin, the invention of a Sanhedrist acting piously toward Jesus is not likely." (Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio- Rhetorical Commentary, 690)

Why is this important? It's important because the location of the tomb where Jesus' body was placed was known. Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" (the mother of James and Joseph) knew where it was, as did the chief priests and the Pharisees. Tomorrow, this tomb will be empty. If Jesus' body was still in the tomb, it could and would have been seen or exhumed on the days following Easter. 

Why would Joseph of Arimathea do such a thing? The answer is: he had become a disciple of Jesus. (Matt. 27:57) Both he and Sanhedrin member Nicodemus saw something in Jesus and stepped out of the box to follow Him. Joseph is a risk-taker who is willing to put aside his place of political and religious power to go after the truth and love he sees in Jesus. He doesn't realize what's going to happen on Sunday. But he wants to make sure his new Lord receives a proper Jewish burial. 


REFLECTION

1. Joseph of Arimathea risked his reputation and career to follow Jesus. Reflect on if and how you are risking all for Jesus
.

Easter Week - Jesus Screams In the Absolute Darkness

 

                                                       (Mount of Olives, Jerusalem)

SCRIPTURE - MATTHEW 27:45-46

From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THESE VERSES?

As Jesus hung suspended on a cross an unnatural darkness began in the middle of the day and continued into the natural darkness of sunset.

New Testament scholar R. T. France writes: “Given the symbolic significance of the darkness as a divine communication there is little point in speculating on its natural cause: a solar eclipse could not occur at the time of the Passover full moon though a dust storm (‘sirocco’) or heavy cloud are possible.” (France, Mark, 651)

N.T. Wright writes: “It can’t have been an eclipse, because Passover happened at full moon, so that the moon would be in the wrong part of the sky.” (Wright, Mark for Everyone, 215)

Craig Keener says that the darkness "could come from heavy cloud cover. But the Gospel writers use it to convey a more profound theological point. (Keener, Matthew, 685)

However it happened, this was a God-caused darkness. Jesus is bearing the load of the sins of all humanity. Sin causes separation; in this case, essentially from God. Sin separates us from Light. Sin and light cannot coexist.

Years ago Linda and I and our sons visited Cave of the Winds in Colorado Springs. We were guided into the depths of these tunnels to a place where we were told that, when the lights in the cave were turned off, we would experience "absolute darkness." I thought, "This is cool!" 

The lights went off. We stood there, for several seconds. Our guide said, "You are now experiencing absolute darkness. Place your hand right in front of your eyes. You will not be able to see it." 

Our guide was right. It was so completely dark that I could not see what was right before me. Had the lights failed us that day, we would not be able to see each other. I imagine we would say things like, "Are you still near me?" "Are you here?" "We've got to stay close to each other!" And, "Don't abandon me while I'm in this darkness!"

On that day 2000 years ago the darkness that covered the land was not absolute. But the existential darkness was. The thickness of all this world's sin and failure and shame and guilt weighed on the heart of One Man. Out of this physical and ungodly darkness Jesus screamed. 

"Screamed?" I think so. The Greek wording here is: ἐβόησεν  ὁἸησοῦς φωνῇ μεγάλῃ. Those last two Greek words are transliterated: phone megale. A mega-phone! Jesus mega-screamed these words over and over and over again and again, since the verb indicates continuous action.

He doesn’t call God “Father” but Ὁ θεόςμου ὁ θεός μου… “My God… My God…” Jesus is in relationship with Abba Father God, but it now feels like abandonment. Six hours after he was placed on the cross, three of them being hours of darkness, Jesus feels abandoned by God. 

We don't know how long the feeling lasted. Assume three hours. Perhaps He screamed over and over for that long. And know that, for Jesus, it was utterly real and all-embracing. (Craig Keener comments that "the early church would hardly have invented Jesus’ cry of despair in uttering a complaint about alienation from God, quoting Ps. 22.” Keener, Matthew, 682)

As the weight of this world’s evil converged on Jesus He was giving his life as “a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:28). The sins of the “many,” which he is bearing, have for the first and only time in his experience caused a cloud to come between him and “Abba” – Father God. 1 Peter 2:24 explains it this way: 

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. Paul, in Galatians 3:13, writes: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."

The curse of sin is that it makes a great divide between us and God. Sin breaches relationship. As Jesus bears our sin He experiences the Great Separation. Listen to how N.T. Wright expresses this.

“Out of the unexplained cosmic darkness comes God’s new word of creation, as at the beginning… And it all happens because of the God-forsakenness of the son of God. The horror which overwhelmed Jesus in Gethsemane, and then seems to have retreated again for a few hours, came back in all its awfulness, a horror of drinking the cup of God’s wrath, of sharing the depth of suffering, mental and emotional as well as physical, that characterized the world in general and Israel in particular. The dark cloud of evil, Israel’s evil, the world’s evil, Evil greater than the sum of its parts, cut him off from the one he called ‘Abba’ in a way he had never known before. And welling up from his heart there came, as though by a reflex, a cry not of rebellion, but of despair and sorrow, yet still a despair that, having lost contact with God, still asks God why this should be.” (N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, 216-217)

REFLECTION

1. Take time today to slow down in your heart, get alone by yourself, bow before God, and think of the passion of the Christ.

2. Resolve in your heart to never again take for granted what Jesus has done for you. Consider how and what it means that He bore your sins, and by His stripes you are healed.

3. Express in your own words thanks to God for what He has accomplished on the cross, which is: your justification; your being set right with God.

RESURRECTION DECLARATIONS

 

·        RESURRECTION DECLARATIONS

o   THIS is the day the Lord has made.

o   I will rejoice and be glad in it!

o   Jesus has given me life abundant, … NOW.

o   I NOW am seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

o   I NOW am clothed with garments of righteousness.

 

o   I live NOW as someone who knows my future destiny.

 

o   I live NOW as someone who knows Christ conquered death.

 

o   I am a resurrection person.

             o   I believe the day is coming when I shall be raised to                                eternal life.

             o   I am growing in knowledge of Christ and the power of the                resurrection.

             o   Death has no hold on me.

 

o   The same power that raised Jesus from the grave lives in me.

              o   I believe Christ was buried.

o   I believe Christ was raised on the third day.

o   I believe Christ appeared to many.

o   Because Jesus conquered the grave, I can face tomorrow.

o   Because Jesus conquered the grave, I can face today.

Easter Week - Jesus Suffered and Died on a Cross

(Jerusalem - some think this is Golgotha)

Jesus died on a cross. 

He died as he lived; viz., below the bottom rung of the honor-shame ladder. Jesus, the Supreme Somebody, was viewed as a nobody, and killed as a nothing.

"Jesus was executed in the manner regularly reserved for insurrectionists." (N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 148)

God identified with the abandoned and godforsaken because Jesus the Son was executed in a manner regularly reserved for such people. The Word became expendable flesh, and suffered, and died as one of us. Tim Keller writes:

"Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment. On the cross, he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours. In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken." (Keller, The Reason for God, 29-30)

On a cross, God suffered. Can God suffer? Theistic philosopher Alvin Plantinga writes:

"As the Christian sees things, God does not stand idly by, cooly observing the suffering of His creatures. He enters into and shares our suffering. He endures the anguish of seeing his son, the second person of the Trinity, consigned to the bitterly cruel and shameful death of the cross. Some theologians claim that God cannot suffer. I believe they are wrong. God’s capacity for suffering, I believe, is proportional to his greatness; it exceeds our capacity for suffering in the same measure as his capacity for knowledge exceeds ours. Christ was prepared to endure the agonies of hell itself; and God, the Lord of the universe, was prepared to endure the suffering consequent upon his son’s humiliation and death. He was prepared to accept this suffering in order to overcome sin, and death, and the evils that afflict our world, and to confer on us a life more glorious than we can imagine." (Alvin Plantinga, "Self-Profile," in Alvin Plantinga, ed. James E. Tomberlin and Peter Van Inwagen, Profiles, vol. 5, 36)

He bore our scandal.

By his stripes we are healed.

***

For a deep dive into the matter of the suffering of God, see Divine Impassibility: Four Views of God's Emotions and Suffering.

Four Books from Kindle Unlimited

                                                                      (Monroe County)

I pay a monthly fee to access Kindle Unlimited. This allows me to load qualifying books on my Kindle, for free.

Sometimes there's a surprise. Today there were four of them. For free, I got...

The Deepest Place: Suffering and the Formation of Hope, by Curt Thompson, M.D.

The Challenge of Acts: Rediscovering What the Church Was and Is, by N. T. Wright.

Into the Heart of Romans: A Deep Dive Into Paul's Greatest Letter, by N. T. Wright.

Paul: A Biography, by N. T. Wright.

I began reading Paul yesterday. It's going to be good!

Easter Week - Jesus Takes the Second Cup

 

(Linda, walking in Jerusalem)

SCRIPTURE - LUKE 22:14-18

¹⁴When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. ¹⁵And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. ¹⁶For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God." 

 ¹⁷After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. ¹⁸For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." 

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THESE VERSES?

The cup Jesus takes is one of the four cups taken at the Passover meal. New Testament scholar Joel Green thinks it was the second cup. This is important.

Cup #1 – the head of the family gave a blessing over that cup. Cups 3 & 4 came after the Passover meal, and then Psalms 114-118 were sung – "The Great Hallel."

Cup #2 – that’s the point in the Passover Meal where the youngest son in the family asks the father, "Why is this night different from other nights?” “Why is unleavened bread eaten on this night?” And other questions…

Jesus, on that night 2000 years ago, took the second cup. It was a different night, and would change the world.

At the Passover meal the father, on taking Cup #2, would tell the story of the exodus, and give a message on Deuteronomy 26:5-11. The meal was interpreted as and seen as an act of remembering and thanking God for his past liberation of an oppressed people. It was a celebration of God’s faithfulness and hope for the future deliverance of God’s people.

They would eat lamb and bitter herbs. They would drink the series of four cups of wine.

At the original exodus Passover lambs were slaughtered. The blood of these lambs was applied to the doorways of the Jewish homes as a sign for the Angel of Death to pass over their homes and spare the life of their first born. When the father tells this story, the Jews at the meal imagine themselves right back in the world of Moses in Egypt. Haven't you ever heard someone tell a story in such a way that you feel as if you are right there? You feel the emotions that were felt back then, as if you could smell the food being described and sense the oppression yourself, and then... 

            … experiencing the incredible thing of being set free!

Here, unknown to Jesus' disciples, it was one of those different nights. The Jewish Meal of all Meals was happening, for the one-thousandth time. The original Passover WAS a night different from all other nights. It was the night when the avenging angel of death “passed over” the homes of the Israelites so God could liberate the people of Israel! But this night, recorded in Luke 22, is going to be very, very different from any other night. And it will be remembered forever, not just by Jews, but by the peoples of the world.

This quite-and-very-different night begins by Jesus talking, not of the Moses-Exodus story, but about His impending death, and His Kingdom that is coming in its fullness. Jesus is changing the meaning of Passover. This is shocking and unexpected.

Can we just stop here for a moment?

Change is hard. This change is beyond hard. Because up to this point Passover was celebrated in the SAME WAY ALL THE TIME! "We always have done it this way!” (These, BTW, are the 7 Last Words of the Church.) The same questions are asked. The same answers are given. And it has been this way, this very same way, for hundreds of years.

But ON THIS NIGHT, as Joel Green says: “Instead of the expected focus on the historic deliverance enacted by God in Israel’s past, Jesus talks about his own death and vindication, and the coming of God’s dominion.” (JG, Luke, 761) "As you drink Cup #2, this cup, remember Me. "What Jesus does on this night draws on the Exodus story. But, as N.T. Wright is so fond of saying, this is the "New Exodus.""

"After taking the [second] cup, Jesus gave thanks and said..." He did this on a night that is different from any before it, and from any that will follow. Jesus was showing that He was the "New Moses" who was leading not only Israel but all of humanity in the New Exodus and the liberation of all humanity.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, Jesus lifted the second cup.

It was the night before the day when all humanity would be set free.

REFLECTION

1. Had you been one of Jesus' disciples at that Passover Meal, how would you have felt when Jesus reinterprets hundreds of years of tradition in terms of His own life and sacrificial death?

2. Think of how Jesus has liberated you from your enslavement to sin. Count the ways He has done this. Give thanks to God for this. 

The Atonement - My Blog Posts

                                                       

                                                                       (Jerusalem)

My blog posts on The Atonement...

Atonement - The Death of Jesus on a Cross Heals the Separation Between Us and God

The Atonement - What Did God Accomplish?

Atonement as At-One-Ment

Atonement Lies at the Heart of the Christian Faith

Atonement - Jesus Died In Our Place

The Atonement of Christ - Some Resources

Atonement and Substitution

Atonement and the Scandal of the Cross

The Atonement Is Not "Morally Outrageous" (No "Cosmic Child Abuse" here)

Atonement and the Crucifixion of Christ

The Meaning of 'Atonement'

Atonement: Colossians 1:21-23

Atonement and Expiation

The Atonement | Progressives & William Lane Craig with Alisa Childers

Atonement and Jesus, the Suffering Servant

Christ Is the Atoning Sacrifice for Our Sins

Atonement - Michael W. Smith

Cross By the Road (Visual Symbol of The Atonement)

In the Atonement the Wrath and the Love of God Meet

The Atonement as Entertainment

By Christ's Atoning Sacrifice, All Who Believe are "Reckoned" as Righteous

ATONEMENT - The Cross Was God's Idea

William Lane Craig and Greg Boyd on Penal Substitution Atonement

The Mind-Crushing Paradox of the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ

Good Friday - Jesus Screams In the Absolute Darkness (The Atonement)

LISTEN TO MY SERMON ON THE ATONEMENT here.

Jesus Died On a Friday and Rose "On the Third Day"

 

(Cross, on our front yard.)

See this excellent article by New Testament scholar Andreas Köstenberger.

"Did Jesus Rise on the Third Day?"

Easter Week - The Cursing of the Fig Tree Is Really About the End of the Temple

 

(Woman praying in Jerusalem)

MONDAY, MARCH 25

This is Easter Week - the days leading up to Good Friday and the cross. After Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to the shouts of "Save us now!" ("Hosanna!"), he did some radical and revealing things in the city. One of them was His "cursing of the fig tree."

SCRIPTURE READING - MATTHEW 21:18-22

¹⁸ Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry.¹⁹ Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!”Immediately the tree withered. 
²⁰ When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked. 
²¹ Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. ²² If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THESE VERSES?

Jesus and his disciples are walking up Mount Zion, upon which Jerusalem is seated. On top of the mountain is the Temple. The Temple was in full view as they ascended. It's probable that the fig tree was higher up on the road, between Jesus and the Temple. As they walk to the Temple, Jesus see the fig tree ahead.

As He points to the fig tree, he is really pointing to the Temple. The barrenness of the fig tree is a visual analogy for the barrenness of the presence of God within the Temple. God is no longer showing up in the Temple. The religious leaders, instead of welcoming God's presence and introducing people to that presence, shut the door of heaven in people's faces and themeselves do not enter in. (Matthew 23:13) Their "religion" was rule-based and filled with self-centered pride.  Nothing worse could be said of a religious leader; viz., that they do their religious thing and bar God from the activities.

In the case of the Temple, God himself exited. How sad and worthless this is, since what people need is God and His manifest "with-us" presence.

When Jesus curses the barren fig tree and talks about "this mountain" being thrown into the sea, he's not referring to just any mountain, but to Mount Zion. Some people talk about a faith that can move mountains and use this passage as an example, but Jesus was really talking about a new kind of faith that would exist without the Temple. The Temple, where God had showed up for hundreds of years, was going down, never to be inhabited by God again. The day was near when true worship will not happen on this mountain or any mountain. Thus, "this mountain" (Mt Zion) can be cast into the sea.

Later, as Jesus and his disciples are walking down Mount Zion from the Temple area, his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ² “Do you see all these things?” he asked.“Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” (Matthew 24:1-2)

With the Temple now God-less, where will God manifest Himself? The answer, as the disciples will realize on the Day of Pentecost, is that the dwelling place of God will be in His people, both individually and corporately. The great, revolutionary new truth of Jesus in this story is that if you are a Jesus-follower then you are a temple of the presence of God. You are, as Richard Foster has written, a "portable sanctuary."

You host the presence of God.

REFLECTION

1. Consider ways in which you will welcome God's presence in your life today, ways in which you will welcome his presence.