What does cursing a fig tree, overturning money tables, throwing a mountain into the sea, prayer, and forgiveness have to do with having faith in God? Well, everything. And for Jesus, they represent obstacles and a reordering of the path of salvation for all people.
Read Mark 11:12-26
The Temple was meant to serve as a beacon of hope for all nations to become sons and daughters of the creator. Those on the outside (Gentiles) could call God’s temple a house of prayer. Their sacrifices would be accepted on his Holy Mountain. (Isaiah 56:1-8).
Instead, when Jesus visits the temple he sees a place that is not a beacon of hope for the other. It was becoming a place not to find a relationship with God, but a place of false hope for the superficial worshipper and a place for the practice empty rituals.
The beacon had become a barrier. The holy mountain was a mountainous roadblock to genuine faith.
Jesus notices what’s going on and with calculation, like the true prophet that he is, he makes an amazing mess of the place by overturning the money tables and kicking out everyone who was buying and selling.
Where have you been guilty of turning the very places and practices that are meant to include people and draw you closer to God into idols that exclude others impede your spiritual growth?
Faith in Jesus can overcome any obstacle and object of false hope.
The Temple was a representation of God among his people so that his people would produce fruit (good works) that would last. Yet, it had become for many a place of business and a shortcut for commerce, to get from one part of the city to another.
Like the fig tree that Jesus cursed that was not producing fruit the temple would soon cease to exist as Israel’s focal point of God’s presence.
Faith would shift from ritual to relationship. The evidence of faith would not be dependent on what is done in a certain place but by what God can do in any place, with grace, prayer, and forgiveness through Jesus.
We interpret, “A faith that can move mountains” much like we interpret Philippians 4:13 (There’s nothing that I can’t do with God). But the faith Jesus mentions is a faith that can move “this mountain,” the temple mount.
He was specific. But generally speaking, a general interpretation could be that having faith in God can overcome any obstacle, any idol that impedes your spiritual growth, your growing relationship with God.
God throws that kind of mountain into the sea.
Having faith in God opens the door for a life-changing journey with God and opens the door for others to believe in him.
Though the temple was eventually destroyed, God chose a new temple. Through faith in Jesus, God remakes you into a living temple for His Holy Spirit, not made by human hands, but by His.
This reverses the curse and reorders your life away from idols and false hope into a relationship with Him.
Have faith in God.
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Jovan preaches for the Littleton Church of Christ near Denver, Colorado. Visit here to listen to sermons preached at the Littleton Church.