To fail is to not succeed, obviously. Fail videos and memes have been popular with our youth. They highlight the failures of others for comedic purposes. Jesus wasn’t laughing at the fig tree fail though. Not long before Jesus went to the cross, He destroyed a fig tree while traveling from Bethany to Jerusalem. This encounter might appear random, but there are some lessons. Jesus saw the fig tree in leaf from a distance and went to see if He could find a fig. There was nothing. It was out of season, but He still cursed it, saying, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again” (Mark 11:13-14).
Jesus and His followers returned to Bethany along the same route, and the tree was “withered from the roots up” (Mark 11:20). At this point, Jesus used the dead tree as a lesson about prayers of faith. This was an opportunity for insight concerning the dimensions and the power of prayer. But, when He first confronted the tree it was a different issue. The issue was a tree failing as a tree. For Jesus, this was not a simple outburst of frustration. His displeasure toward the tree had a purpose. When He first approached the fig tree, He was displeased when He discovered it was missing a key element, figs. Jesus’ disapproval had a deeper level. Like many of His parables, Jesus took this moment to use agriculture to teach a spiritual truth.
God often established a parallel between our lives and trees. He used David to describe a righteous man as “a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither” (Psa. 1:3). Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits… So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit…Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt. 7:16-19). If expectations were not met, there was a limit to the time allowed for good fruit. So, when Jesus confronted the tree there was a lesson. Anyone who follows Christ is expected to live a life that produces fruit. That is what defines a fruit tree. It could be said that if the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 6:22-23) is not apparent in the life of someone, then they are not true followers of Jesus.
There is at least one more thing to learn from the day Jesus condemned the tree. “He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs” (Mark 11:13). Jesus wouldn’t expect a tree to be doing something it wasn’t designed to do unless He meant to teach us something. Christians are a lot like trees in many ways, except in one very important way. They should never be “out of season.” We are to be ready “in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2) “for every good deed” (Titus 3:1), “for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect” (Luke 12:40). Do not fail to be found with fruit. It won’t be funny.