I was walking alone in the temple courtyard, separated from the other disciples, when someone suddenly addressed me in a slightly awkward accent.
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
“Excuse me, are you speaking to me?”
“Yes, indeed. We would like to see Jesus.”
“May I ask why you want to see him?”
“We have heard stories about him. That’s why we came all the way from Greece. We’ve heard everything about what he has done here. It’s truly astonishing.”
I already knew that stories about Jesus had spread throughout the region of Syria, but it was still surprising that even people from distant Greece wanted to meet him. Thinking back, even during the previous Feast of Tabernacles, something similar had happened, but this time Jesus was acting even more boldly. If I were in their position, I would want to meet Jesus too.
I recalled what Jesus had done after entering Jerusalem. This time, it seemed as though he was determined to debate and confront all the leaders of Israel. In the past, even when he heard the complaints of the Pharisees, he would simply say what he needed to say and then move on to another place. But now, he was completely different. The Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and Herodians who came to trap Jesus all found themselves silenced by his astonishing answers. Moreover, Jesus went on the offensive, actively rebuking them.
“The scribes and the Pharisees sat on Moses’ seat. All things therefore whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do, but don’t do their works; for they say, and don’t do. For they bind heavy burdens that are grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not lift a finger to help them. But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad, enlarge the fringes of their garments, and love the place of honor at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, the salutations in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi, Rabbi’ by men. But don’t you be called ‘Rabbi,’ for one is your teacher, the Christ, and all of you are brothers. Call no man on the earth your father, for one is your Father, he who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for one is your master, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and as a pretense you make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men; for you don’t enter in yourselves, neither do you allow those who are entering to enter. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel around by sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as yourselves.
Woe to you, you blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifies the gold? ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obligated?’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift? He therefore who swears by the altar, swears by it, and by everything on it. He who swears by the temple, swears by it, and by him who has been living in it. He who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits on it.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the platter, that its outside may become clean also.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.... Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and decorate the tombs of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city; that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
Some of these words were things Jesus had already said, and some were new, spoken here for the first time. I didn’t fully understand every word, but one thing was clear: Jesus was criticizing the leaders—like the Pharisees and the scribes—more strongly than ever before. Seeing their faces flush as they listened and then leave made me feel a bit sorry for them, to be honest. That was how it ended, but later I began to feel that these words were somehow connected to the incident when Jesus caused the fig tree to wither. Eventually, I reached a new realization.
A few days earlier, as Jesus was leaving Bethany, he saw a fig tree in the distance with abundant leaves and went closer to it. Since it wasn’t yet the season for figs, I wondered why he was doing that, but suddenly Jesus spoke to the fig tree:
“Let there be no fruit from you forever. May no one ever eat fruit from you again!”
His tone felt completely different from usual. I, along with the other disciples, had no idea why he said this. But the next morning, as we passed by again, the fig tree had withered from the roots. Seeing this, Peter said,
“Rabbi, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered away.”
Then Jesus said something else that was hard to understand:
“Have faith in God. For most certainly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive your transgressions.”
The part about believing that you have already received what you ask for was similar to what he had said before: that God would give good things to those who ask, seek, and knock. But honestly, I couldn’t understand why he made the fig tree wither and then said these things at all. It also seemed related to forgiveness, which confused me even more. At first, I tried to connect it to a parable he had told before:
“A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. He said to the vine dresser, ‘Behold, these three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and found none. Cut it down. Why does it waste the soil?’ He answered, ‘Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit, fine; but if not, after that, you can cut it down.’”
Jesus didn’t say what would eventually happen to the tree, but when I thought about it together with the incident of the withered fig tree, I wondered if it meant that even if the owner waits patiently and gives the tree many chances, in the end, if it continually fails to bear fruit, it will be cut down. In other words, while it is natural for a tree not to have fruit when it is not the season, in reality, this tree had not borne any fruit for a long time despite the owner’s patience. So, the owner has every right to do as he wishes with it.
Giving a mission is the owner’s will, and taking it away is also the owner’s will. Seen this way, the words “believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” could mean that God will give whatever is needed to those who believe that the mission he has given will be fulfilled. Or perhaps it means that since he has given the mission, we should believe that fruit will come. And if this interpretation is possible, then the words about forgiveness remain, and here, I think, they connect with Jesus’ criticism of the leaders like the Pharisees and the scribes.
There is a prophecy by the prophet Jeremiah that goes like this:
“You shall tell them, Yahweh says: ‘Do men fall, and not rise up again? Does one turn away, and not return? Why then have the people of Jerusalem fallen back by a perpetual backsliding? They cling to deceit. They refuse to return. I listened and heard, but they didn’t say what is right. No man repents of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle. Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times; and the turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know Yahweh’s law. How do you say, 'We are wise, and Yahweh’s law is with us?' But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has worked falsely. The wise men are disappointed. They are dismayed and trapped. Behold, they have rejected Yahweh’s word. What kind of wisdom is in them? Therefore I will give their wives to others, and their fields to those who will possess them. For everyone from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely. They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, 'Peace, peace!' when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed. They couldn’t blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. In the time of their visitation they will be cast down,’ says Yahweh. ‘I will utterly consume them,’ says Yahweh. ‘No grapes will be on the vine, no figs on the fig tree, and the leaf will fade. The things that I have given them will pass away from them.’”
In this prophecy, the scribes who say, “We are wise, and Yahweh’s law is with us,” are teaching lies, and the prophets and priests deceive the people, saying, “Peace, peace!” when there is no peace. So it is written that the fig tree will have no figs, and even its leaves will wither. Jesus criticized the Pharisees and the scribes for the same reason, and the priests cared only about satisfying their own desires, paying no attention to the wounds of the people. So, in the end, the fig tree that bears no fruit must symbolize people like them. Therefore, no matter how long you wait, there will be no proper fruit from them, and even if there is any fruit at all, as Jeremiah said, it would be so bad that it’s not fit to eat. So, isn’t Jesus saying that their mission will be taken away and that they will wither?
The prophet Hosea also said these words:
“I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; but they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved. As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, none with child, and no conception. Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them!”
This is a prophecy directed at the northern kingdom of Israel, and here too, there is mention of the first ripe figs of the season. But soon after, they turned away to offer themselves to idols and became vile. If this is the kind of fruit they are going to bear, wouldn’t it be better for them to wither away before it comes to that?
The prophet Micah also spoke about a tree with no fruit left at all:
“Misery is mine! Indeed, I am like one who gathers after the summer fruits, as gleanings of the vineyard. There is no cluster of grapes to eat. My soul desires to eat the early fig. The godly man has perished out of the earth, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his brother with a net. Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; and the powerful man dictates the evil desire of his soul. Thus they conspire together. The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion. Don’t trust in a neighbor. Don’t put confidence in a friend. With the woman lying in your embrace, be careful of the words of your mouth! For the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.”
This is how the age when faithful and honest people have disappeared is described—as a fruit tree with no fruit left. In a time like this, when everyone is evil and there is no fruit, like the fig tree that was cursed and withered, isn’t what’s really needed the forgiveness and reconciliation that Jesus spoke of? And if that happens, then the prophecy of the prophet Micah will finally be fulfilled.
“But as for me, I will look to Yahweh. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Don’t rejoice against me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, Yahweh will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of Yahweh, because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my case, and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light. I will see his righteousness. Then my enemy will see it, and shame will cover her who said to me, ‘Where is Yahweh your God?’ Then my eyes will see her. Now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets.”
Even if, like the fruitless fig tree, one faces judgment and endures a withered life, isn’t it the attitude of offering forgiveness to others, seeking forgiveness from God, and waiting in faith until He declares us righteous—just as Jesus said, “Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father who is in heaven may also forgive you your transgressions”—that God truly desires from us?
I may not know exactly what Jesus’ words and actions mean, but at least I interpreted the event this way. And I think that the people who look to the Lord with hope, as described here, are like the Greeks who came looking for me today. These people, though not Jews, seem to have come to celebrate Passover, so they must either have converted to Judaism or, if not, at least have come to revere God through the Scriptures. Aren’t they exactly the kind of people—dry trees brought to life, and those who have come out from darkness into the light?
Feeling uplifted, Philip smiled and said to the Greeks,
“Please, follow me.”
The passages from Jeremiah 8:4-13, Hosea 9:10-12, Micah 7:1-10, Matthew 21:19-22, 23:2–39, Mark 11:14, 21-25, Luke 13:6–9 quoted in this narrative are taken directly from the World English Bible (WEB) translation. Of the parallel passages, I have combined them into a single version that includes all the content.
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