Chapter 10
We may confidently infer that Jesus, as the Omniscient Lord of the inanimate creation, knew well that fruit there was none under that pretentious foliage. We dare not suppose that He went expecting to find Figs; far less, that in a moment of disappointed hope, He ventured on a capricious exercise of His power, uttered a hasty malediction, and condemned the insensate boughs to barrenness and decay. The first cursory reading of the narrative may suggest some such unworthy impression. But we dismiss it at once, as strangely at variance with the Saviour's character, and strangely unlike His wonted actings. We feel assured that He literally, as well as figuratively, would not "break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax." He came, in all respects, "not to destroy, but to save." Some deep inner meaning, not apparent on the surface of the inspired story, must have led Him for the moment to regard a tree in the light of a responsible agent, and to address it in words of unusual severity.
What, then, is the explanation? Our Lord on this occasion revives the old typical or picture-teaching with which the Hebrews were to that hour so familiar. He, as the greatest of prophets, adopts the significant and impressive method, not unfrequently employed by the Seers of Israel, who, in uttering startling and solemn truths, did so by means of _symbolic actions_. As Jeremiah of old dashed the potter's vessel down the Valley of Hinnom, to indicate the judgments that were about to befall Jerusalem; or, at another time, wore around his own neck a wooden yoke, to intimate their approaching bondage under the King of Babylon; or, as Isaiah "walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and Ethiopia," so did our Lord now invest a tree in dumb nature with a prophet's warning voice, and make its stripped and blighted boughs eloquent of a nation's doom!
On the height of their own Olivet, looking down, as it were, on Jerusalem, that fig-tree becomes a stern messenger of woe and vengeance to the whole house of Judah. Often before had he warned by His _words_ and _tears_; now He is to make an insignificant object in the outer world take up His prophecy, and testify to the degenerate people at once the cause, the suddenness, and the certainty of their destruction! Let us join, then, the Master and His disciples, as they stand on the crest above Bethany, and, gazing on that fruitless leaf-bearer, "hear this parable of the fig-tree."[31]
Jesus, on approaching it (it seemed to be at a little distance from their path), and finding abundance of leaves, but no fruit thereon, condemns it to perpetual sterility and barrenness.
A difficulty here occurs on the threshold of the narrative. If, as we have noted, and as St Mark tells us, "the time of figs was _not yet_"--why this seeming impatience--why this harsh sentence for not having what, _if found_, would have been unseasonable, untimely, abnormal?
In this apparent difficulty lies the main truth and zest of the parable. The doom of sterility, be it carefully noted, was uttered by Jesus, not so much because of the _absence of fruit_, but because the tree, by its premature display of leaves, challenged expectations which a closer inspection did not realise. "It was punished," says an able writer, "not for being without fruit, but for proclaiming, by the voice of those leaves, that it had such. Not for being barren, but for being false."[32]
Graphic picture of boastful and vaunting Israel! This conspicuous tree, nigh one of the frequented paths of Olivet, was no inappropriate type, surely, of that nation which stood illustrious amid the world's kingdoms--exalted to heaven with unexampled privileges which it abused--proudly claiming a righteousness which, when weighed in the balances, was found utterly wanting. It mattered not that the heathen nations were as guilty, vile, and corrupt as the chosen people. Fig-trees were they, too--naked stems, fruitless and leafless; but then they made no boastful pretensions. The Jews had, in the face of the world, been glorying in a righteousness which, in reality, was only like the foliage of that tree by which the Lord and His disciples now stood--mocking the expectations of its owner by mere outward semblance and an utter absence of fruit.
The very day preceding, these mournful deficiencies had brought tears to the Saviour's eyes--stirred the depths of His yearning heart in the very hour of His triumph. He had looked down from the height of the mountain on the gilded splendours of the Temple Courts beneath; but, alas! He saw that sanctimonious hypocrisy and self-righteous formalism had sheltered themselves behind clouds of incense. Mammon, covetousness, oppression, fraud, were rising like strange fire from these defiled altars!
He turns the tears of yesterday into an expressive and enduring parable to-day! He approaches a luxuriant Fig-tree, boasting great things among its fellows, and thus through _it_ He addresses a doomed city and devoted land,--"O House of Israel," He seems to say, "I have come up for the last time to your highest and most ancient festival. You stand forth in the midst of the nations of the earth clothed in rich verdure. You retain intact the splendour of your ancestral ritual. You boast of your rigid adherence to its outward ceremonial, the punctilious observance of your fasts and feasts. But I have found that it is but 'a name to live.' You sinfully ignore 'the weightier matters of the law, judgment, justice, and mercy!' You call out as you tread that gorgeous fane--'The Temple of the Lord! The Temple of the Lord! The Temple of the Lord are we!' You forget that your hearts are the Temple I prize! Holiness, the most acceptable incense--love to God, and love to man, the most pleasing sacrifice. All that dead and torpid formalism--that mockery of outward foliage--is to me nothing. 'Your new moons and Sabbaths--the calling of assemblies--I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting.' These are only as the whitewash of your sepulchres to hide the loathsomeness within--'the rottenness and dead men's bones!' If you had made no impious pretensions, I would not, peradventure, have dealt so sternly with you. If like the other trees you had confessed your nakedness, and stood with your leafless stems, waiting for summer suns, and dews, and rains, to fructify you, and to bring your fruit to perfection--all well; but you have sought to mock and deceive me by your falsity, and thus precipitated the doom of the cumberer. 'Henceforth, let no man eat fruit of thee for ever!'"
The unconscious Tree listened! One night only passed, and the morrow found it with drooping leaf and blighted stem! On yonder mountain crest it stood, as a sign between heaven and earth of impending judgment. Eighteen hundred years have taken up its parable--fearfully authenticated the averments of the August Speaker! Israel, a bared, leafless, sapless trunk, testifies to this hour, before the nations, that "heaven and earth may pass away, but God's words will not pass away!"[33]
But does the parable stop here? Was there no voice but for the ear of Judah and Jerusalem? Have _we_ no part in these solemn monitions?
Ah! be assured, as Jesus dealt with nations so will He deal with individuals. This parable-miracle solemnly speaks to all who have only a name to live--the foliage of outward profession--but who are destitute of the "fruits of righteousness." It is not neglecters or despisers--the careless--the infidel--the scorner--our Lord here addresses. He deals with such elsewhere. It is rather vaunting hypocrites--wearing the garb of religion--the trappings and dress of outward devotion to conceal their inward pollution; like the ivy, screening from view by garlands of fantastic beauty--wreaths of loveliest green--the mouldering trunk or loathsome ruin! We may well believe none are more obnoxious to a holy Saviour than _such_. He (Incarnate TRUTH) would rather have the naked stem than the counterfeit blossom. He would rather have no gold than be mocked with tinsel and base alloy! "I _would_," says He, speaking to one of His Churches at a later time, "I would thou wert cold or hot." He would rather a man openly avowed his enmity than that he should come in disguise, with a traitor-heart, among the ranks of His people. Oh that all such ungodly boasters and pretenders would bear in mind, that not only do they inflict harm on themselves, but they do infinite damage to the Church of God. They lower the standard of godliness. Like that worthless Fig-tree, they help to hide out from others the glorious sunlight. They intercept from others the refreshing dews of heaven. They absorb in their leaves the rains as they fall. Many a tuft of tiny moss, many a lowly plant at their feet, is pining and withering, which, _but_ for _them_, would be bathing its tints in sunshine, and filling the air with balmy fragrance!
Solemn, then, ought to be the question with every one of us--every Fig-tree in the Lord's plantation--How does it stand with _me_? am I _now_ bringing forth fruit to God? for remember what we are NOW, will fix what we _shall_ be when our Lord shall come on the Great Day of Scrutiny! We are forming _now_ for Eternity; settling down and consolidating in the great mould which ultimately will determine our everlasting state; fruitless _now_, we shall be fruitless _then_. The _principle_ in the future retribution is thus laid down--"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still." The demand and scrutiny of Jesus will on that day be, not what is the number of your leaves, the height of your stem, the extent of your branches? not whether you have grown on the wayside or in the forest, been nurtured in solitude or in a crowd, on the mountain-height or in the lowly valley: all will resolve itself into the _one question_--Where is your _fruit_? What evidence is there that you have profited by My admonitions, listened to My voice, and accepted My salvation? Where are your proofs of love to Myself, delight in My service, obedience to My will? Where are the sins you have crucified, the sacrifices you have made, the new principles you have nurtured, the amiability and love and kindness and generosity and unselfishness which have supplanted and superseded baser affections? See that the leaves of outward profession be not a snare to you. You may be lulling yourselves to sleep with delusive opiates. You may be making these false coverings an apology for resisting the "putting on of the armour of light." One has no difficulty in persuading the tenant of a wretched hovel to consent to have his mud-hut taken down; but the man who has the walls of his dwelling hung with gaudy drapery, it is hard to persuade him that his house is worthless and his foundation insecure. Think not that privileges or creeds, or church-sect or church-membership, or the Shibboleth of party will save you. It is to the _heart_ that God looks. If the inner spirit be right, the outer conduct will be fruitful in righteousness. Make it not your worthless ambition to APPEAR to be holy, but _be_ holy! Live not a "dying life"--that blank existence which brings neither glory to God nor good to men. Seek that _while_ you live, the world may be the better for you, and when you die the world may miss you. Unlike the pretentious tree in our parable-text, be it yours rather to have the nobler character and recompense, so beautifully delineated under a similar figure three thousand years ago--"He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf, also, shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."[34]
Let us further learn, from this solemn and impressive miracle, how true Christ is to His word. We think of Him as true to His _promises_, do we think of Him, also, as _true to His threatenings_? Judgment, indeed, is His strange work. Amid a multitude of other prodigies already performed by Him, this "cursing" of the fig-tree formed the alone exception to His miracles of _mercy_.[35] All the others were proofs and illustrations of beneficence, compassion, love. But He seems to interpose _this_ ONE, in case we should forget, in the affluence of benignity and kindness, that the same God, whose name and memorial is "merciful and gracious," has solemnly added that "He can by no means clear the guilty." He would have us to remember that there is a point beyond which even _His_ love cannot go, when the voice of ineffable _Goodness_ must melt and merge into tones of stern wrath and vengeance. The guilty may, for the brief earthly hour of their impenitence, affect to despise His divine warnings, laugh to scorn His solemn expostulations. Sentence may not be executed speedily; amazing patience may ward off the descending blow. They may, from the very _forbearance_ of Jesus, take impious encouragement to defy His threats, and rush swifter to their own destruction. But come He _will_ and _must_ to assert His claims as "He that is HOLY, He that is TRUE." The disciples, on the present occasion, heard the voice of their Master. They gazed on the doomed Fig-tree, but there seemed at the moment to be no visible change on its leaves. As they took their final glance ere passing on their way, no blight seemed to descend, no worm to prey on its roots. The fowls of Heaven may have appeared soaring in the sky, eager to nestle as before on its branches, and to bathe their plumage on the dew-drops that drenched its foliage. But was the word of Jesus in vain? Did that fig-tree take up a responsive parable, and say, "Who made Thee a ruler and a judge over me?"
The Lord and His apostles passed the place a few hours afterwards on their return to Bethany.[36] But though the Passover moon was shining on their path, the darkness, and perhaps the distance from the highway, veiled from their view the too truthful doom to be revealed in morning light. As the dawn of day (Tuesday) finds them once more on their road to Jerusalem, the eyes of the disciples wander towards the spot to see whether the words of yesterday have proved to be indeed solemn verities. One glance is enough! _There_ it stands in impressive memorial. One night had done the work. No desert simoom, if it had passed over it, could have effected it more thoroughly. Its leaves were shrivelled, its sap dried, its glory gone. Ever and anon afterwards, as the disciples crossed the mountain, and as they gazed on this silent "preacher," they would be reminded that Jehovah-Jesus, their loving Master, was not "a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent."
Ah! Reader, learn from all this, that the wrathful utterances of the Saviour are no idle threats. He _means_ what He _says_! He is "the Faithful and True witness;" and though "mercy and truth go continually before His face," "justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne." You may be scorning His message--lulling yourself into a dream of guilty indifference. You may see in His daily dealings no sign or symbol of coming retribution; you may be echoing the old challenge of the presumptuous scoffer--"Where is the promise of His coming?" The fig leaves may have lost none of their verdure--the sky may be unfretted by one vengeful cloud--nature, around you, may be hushed and still. You can hear no footsteps of wrath; you may be even tempted at times to think that all is a dream--that credulity has suffered itself to be duped by a counterfeit tale of superstitious terror! Or if, in better moments, you awake to a consciousness of the Bible averments being stern realities, your next subterfuge is to trust to that rope of sand to which thousands have clung, to the wreck of their eternities--an indefinite dreamy hope in the final _mercy_ of God! that on the Great Day the threatenings of Jesus will undergo some modification; that He will not carry out to the very letter the full weight of His denunciations; that the arm which love nailed to the cross of Calvary will sheathe the sword of avenging retribution, and proclaim a universal amnesty to the thronging myriads at His tribunal!
"Nay! O man, who art thou that repliest against God?" Come to the fig-tree "over against" Bethany, and let it be a dumb attesting witness to the Saviour's unswerving and immutable truthfulness! Or, passing from the sign to the thing symbolised, behold that nation which God has for eighteen centuries set up in the world as a monument of His undeviating adherence to His Word. See how, in their case, to the letter He has fulfilled His threatenings. Is not this fulfillment intended as an awful foreshadowing of eternal verities: if He has "spared not the natural branches," thinkest thou He will spare _thee_? "If these things were done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?"
Mourners! You for whose comfort these pages are specially designed, is there no lesson of consolation to be drawn from this solemn "memory?" Jesus smote down that _fig-tree_--blasted and blighted it. Never again did He come to seek fruit on it. Ten thousand other buds in the Fig-forest around were opening their fragrant lips to drink in the refreshing dews of spring; but the curse of perpetual sterility rested on this!
He has smitten _you_ also, but it is only to _heal_! He has bared your branches--stripped you of your verdure--broken "your staff and your beautiful rod;" but the pruning hook has been used to promote the Vigour of the tree; to lop off the redundant branches, and open the stems to the gladsome sunlight. Murmur not! Remember, _but for_ these loppings of affliction you might have effloresced into the rank luxuriant growth of mere external profession. You might have rested satisfied with the outward display of _Religiousness_, without the fruits of true _Religion_. You might have lived and died unproductive _cumberers_, deceiving others and deceiving yourselves. But He would not suffer you to linger in this state of worthless barrenness. Oh! better far, surely, these severest cuttings and incisions of the pruning knife, than to listen to the stern words--"Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone!" It is the most terrible of all judgments when God leaves a sinner undisturbed in his sinfulness--abandons him to "the fruit of his own ways, and to be filled with his own devices;" until, like a tree impervious to moistening dews and fructifying heat, he dwarfs and dwindles into the last hopeless stage of spiritual decay and death!
"If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?"
"He purgeth it (_pruneth it_), that it may bring forth MORE FRUIT."
XX.
CLOSING HOURS.
The evenings of the two succeeding days seem to have closed around our adorable Lord at BETHANY. We may still follow Him in imagination, in the mellow twilight, as He and His disciples crossed the bridle-path of the holy mountain from Jerusalem to the house and village of His friend.
Much has changed since then; but the great features of unvarying nature retain their imperishable outlines, so that what still arrests the view of the modern traveller, in crossing the Mount of Olives, we know must have formed the identical landscape spread out before the eyes of the Incarnate Redeemer. It is more than allowable, therefore, to appropriate the words of the same trustworthy recent spectator, from whose pages we have already quoted, as presenting a truthful and veritable picture of what the Saviour _then_ saw.
From almost every point in the journey, there would be visible "the long purple wall of the Moab mountains, rising out of its unfathomable depths; these mountains would then have almost the effect of a distant view of the sea, the hues constantly changing; this or that precipitous rock coming out clear in the evening shade--_there_ the form of what may possibly be Pisgah, dimly shadowed out by surrounding valleys--_here_ the point of Kerak, the capital of Moab, and future fortress of the Crusaders--and then, at times all wrapt in deep haze, the mountains overhanging the valley of the shadow of death, all the more striking from their contrast with the gray or green colours of the hills through which a glimpse was caught of them."[37]
* * * * *
We have no recorded incidents in connexion with these two nights at Bethany. We are left only to realise in thought the refreshment alike for body and spirit our Lord enjoyed. Exhausted with the fatigues of each day, and the advancing storm-cloud ready to burst on His devoted head, we may well imagine how grateful repose would be in the old homestead of congenial friendship.
The last evening He spent at the "Palm-clad Village" must in many ways have been full of sorrowing thoughts. He had, in the afternoon, on His return from Jerusalem, when seated with his disciples "over against the Temple," gazing on its doomed magnificence, been discoursing on the appalling desolation which awaited that loved and time-honoured sanctuary. This had led Him to the more sublime and terrific theme of a Day of Judgment. Not only did He foresee the grievous obduracy of His own infatuated countrymen, but His Omniscient eye, travelling down to the consummation of all things, wept over the fate of myriads, who, in spite of atoning love and mercy, were to despise and perish.
He left the threshold, consecrated so oft by His Pilgrim steps, on the Thursday of that week, not to return again till death had numbered Him among its victims. On that same morning He had sent His disciples into the city to make preparation for the keeping of the Passover Supper. He Himself followed, probably towards the afternoon, and joined them in "the Upper room," where, after celebrating for the last time the old Jewish rite, he instituted the New Testament memorial of His own dying love. Supper being ended, the disciples, probably, contemplated nothing but a return, as on preceding evenings, by their old route to Bethany. Singing their paschal hymn, they descended the Jehoshaphat ravine, by the side of the Temple. The brook Kedron was crossed, and they are once more on the Bethany path. They have reached Gethsemane; their Master retires into the depths of the olive grove, as was often His wont, to hold secret communion with His Father. But the crisis-hour has at last arrived! The Shepherd is about to be smitten, and the sheep to be scattered! Rude hands arrest Him on His way. In vain shall Lazarus and his sisters wait for their expected Lord! For _Him_ that night there is no voice of earthly comforter--no couch of needed rest;--when the shadows of darkness have gathered around Bethany, and the pale passover moon is lighting up its palm-trees, the Lord of glory is standing buffetted and insulted in the hall of Annas.
The Remembrances of Bethany are here absorbed and overshadowed for a time by the darker memories of Gethsemane and Calvary. Jesus may, indeed, afterwards revisit the loved haunt of former friendship; but meanwhile He is first to accomplish that glorious Decease, _but for which_ the world could never have had on its surface one Bethany-home of love, or been cheered by one ray of happiness or hope.