Yesterday, Jesus came into Jerusalem on a young donkey and people lined the streets for him, singing and dancing, giving praise to God, and treating him as their King.  It would have been one massive street party.  I wonder what was going through Jesus mind though as he knew their hearts and he knew they just wanted him to deliver them from the Romans.  Maybe he would have looked happy on the outside but inside he was hurting.  He knew what was going to happen in less than a week’s time.  He knew that some of the very people lining the streets to welcome him would be lining the streets mocking him as he carried the cross to Calvary’s hill.  We see a glimpse of that in Luke 19:41 when Luke records Jesus weeping as he looks at the city and he thinks of all the opportunities the people have had to follow him.  Instead of listening to him, they rejected him and would in the final way later in the week as they crucified him.

After popping into the temple to see how everything was, Jesus left the city again and went back to Bethany, possibly to the house of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, where many believed he returned to sleep at night before he was arrested.

READ MARK 11:12-19

Today, Monday, we read how Jesus left Bethany heading for the temple in Jerusalem again to teach and preach there.  On the way he noticed a fig tree that was in full bloom so it should have had fruit on it.  As he was hungry, he was rather upset to find that it didn’t actually have any fruit on it, so he cursed it!  There is more to this than meets the eye though.  Israel as a nation were often compared to a fig tree and so many believe that Jesus was using this as an example of how the Jewish people looked good on the outside but were spiritually dead on the inside, not producing any fruit.  This was later backed up when he got to the temple and found people buying and selling in the temple, using the temple for their own gain and greed.  You can see how that worked out for them!  I certainly wouldn’t want to have been one of them.  The religious leaders were getting angrier and angrier with Jesus and really wanted him dead now, because he was proving that they were only interested in themselves and not what God was really wanting them to do.  That night

Jesus went back to Bethany again. Jesus was wanting to come in to the temple to teach the crowds who had come for the Passover, but he kept facing opposition in the religious leaders, the very people who should have been supporting him and happy to listen to him.  I wander where we would have been on that day.  Would we have been beside Jesus, wanting to hear what he would say, or would we be in the temple trying to make a penny or two?  Are we producing fruit so that others can see that Christ lives in us, or do we just look like a Christian on the outside but are spiritually dead inside?  Maybe this week is a good opportunity for you to do a rain check as to where you are with Christ as we remember all that he went through for us.

Please comment, or email if you don’t want other to see your comments, with anything that stands out, anything new you learnt in this passage or anything that God has challenged you about.