Read the passage several times through, slowly and prayerfully. It might help to use your imagination to picture the scene. At the end of the text you will find helpful background information in our ‘Setting the Scene’ section.

As you read, look out for shockers and blockers.

Shockers – a phrase, word, image or something from the text that resonates, stands out or connects with you.

Blockers – something from the text that raises questions for you.

Mark 11.12–26

When Jesus and his disciples left Bethany the next morning, he was hungry.

From a distance Jesus saw a fig tree covered with leaves, and he went to see if there were any figs on the tree. But there were not any, because it wasn’t the season for figs. So Jesus said to the tree, “Never again will anyone eat fruit from this tree!” The disciples heard him say this.

After Jesus and his disciples reached Jerusalem, he went into the temple and began chasing out everyone who was selling and buying. He turned over the tables of the money changers and the benches of those who were selling doves.

Jesus would not let anyone carry things through the temple. Then he taught the people and said, “The Scriptures say, ‘My house should be called a place of worship for all nations.’ But you have made it a place where robbers hide!”

The chief priests and the teachers of the Law of Moses heard what Jesus said, and they started looking for a way to kill him. They were afraid of him, because the crowds were completely amazed at his teaching.

That evening, Jesus and the disciples went outside the city.

As the disciples walked past the fig tree the next morning, they noticed that it was completely dried up, roots and all. Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree. Then Peter said, “Teacher, look! The tree you put a curse on has dried up.”

Jesus told his disciples: Have faith in God! If you have faith in God and don’t doubt, you can tell this mountain to get up and jump into the sea, and it will. Everything you ask for in prayer will be yours, if you only have faith. Whenever you stand up to pray, you must forgive what others have done to you. Then your Father in heaven will forgive your sins.

Contemporary English Version (CEV)

Setting the Scene

Less than a week before Jesus would be crucified, he and the disciples are in Jerusalem for the Passover festival. Initially it looks like Jesus was simply in a bad mood – hungry and irritated with a fig tree! But this is symbolic – Jesus knew it wasn’t the season for fruit. He was making a point about the coming destruction of the Temple because God’s people were all ‘show’ (leaves) and no substance (fruit).
Some lessons are better illustrated. The account of Jesus clearing the Temple is sandwiched between the two parts of the story of the fig tree. Jesus is angry because the Temple was meant to be a place of worship for all people – the Gentile (non-Jewish) area for worship had been rendered inoperative because of all the petty cheating, haggling and money-changing in the place of God’s presence. Jesus quotes from Isaiah 56 – reminding the people that this is meant to be a place of worship for Gentiles as well as the Jews.
Throughout the Old Testament we often see God’s righteous anger. Here in the New Testament, Jesus is displaying the same righteous anger.

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