AFTER THE royal coming of Jesus to the city and the Temple, on the next
morning--which was Monday--Jesus left Bethany very early, without
waiting for his breakfast, and with his twelve disciples walked over the
Mount of Olives toward Jerusalem. The walk and the early morning air
made him hungry, and seeing a fig tree covered with green leaves in a
field near the road, he went to it, hoping to find some figs upon it.
The laws of the Jews allowed any person passing by a field which was not
his own, to take as much fruit or grain as he wished to eat, but not to
carry any away; so that Jesus had a right to go to this tree and help
himself to its fruit. Jesus knew that it was not quite the time for ripe
figs, for they do not become ripe in that country before May or June,
and that day may have been in March. But on the sunny slope of the Mount
of Olives figs often ripen early in the season and as the figs always
come before the leaves, wherever the leaves were abundant, there might
be among them some ripe figs.
But when Jesus came to the fig tree, and looked at it closely, he found
that upon it was no fruit, either ripe or green, but only leaves. Then a
thought came to Jesus, and in the presence of his disciples he spoke to
the fig tree.
"From this time let no fruit ever be picked from this tree forever!" he
said.
This was not because Jesus was angry with the poor tree, which could not
help not having fruit. It was because he saw in that tree a parable or
picture of the Jewish people. They made a show of serving God, and were
like trees covered with leaves; but they did not bring forth the fruit
of good lives, of love to God and their fellow-men. They were fruitless
trees, and trees which have been planted and kept for fruit are of no
use without fruit.
The twelve disciples who were with Jesus around the fig tree heard those
words, and soon had cause to remember them.
[Illustration: As the traders looked upon Jesus and heard his stern
rebuke, they became afraid and rushed out of the court before him]
From the Mount of Olives they walked, as on the day before, across the
valley of the brook Kedron, and again came into the Temple. You remember
that two years before when Jesus visited the Temple, he then drove out
from its court all the people that he found buying and selling and
changing money. But in the two years that had passed, they had all come
back, and the Court of the Gentiles was again a place of business and of
confusion. All around were oxen lowing and sheep bleating; their owners
calling upon the people passing by to come and buy them; cages full of
pigeons and doves were standing on every side; and from a row of tables
might be heard the chink of silver, as the money of foreign lands was
changed for that of Judea.
When these traders saw Jesus standing before them, some of them could
remember how two years before he had driven them out of the Temple, and
all saw in him the man whom only yesterday the people had welcomed as
the coming King of Israel. There was a look upon the face of Jesus which
made all these wrongdoers afraid of him; and when he spoke in the
hearing of them all, "God's book says, 'My house shall be called a house
of prayer; but you are making it a den of robbers,'" with one accord
they rushed out of the court before him, driving out the sheep and oxen,
carrying away the cages of doves, and even upsetting the tables of the
money-changers.
Jesus saw that people who were coming from outside the wall were
carrying goods and jars of water and of oil through the Court of the
Gentiles as the nearest way to the city, so that the court was becoming
merely a street between the city and the country. He put a stop to this
carrying of loads through the Temple courts; and would not allow even a
jar of water to be taken by way of the Temple into the city. This
building in all its parts was the house of God, and Jesus as the Son of
God gave commands that everywhere it was to be used only for the worship
of his heavenly Father.
After casting out all these evil things from the outer court, Jesus
walked up the steps to the inner court, called the Treasury. There he
sat down, and for the rest of the day taught the people who crowded
around him.
While he was in the Treasury, they led to him the blind, and he gave
them sight by a word; and the lame came in on crutches, or were carried
in by their friends to his feet, and he gave them power to walk. Boys
too were marching around the Temple and shouting everywhere, "May God
save the Son of David!"
All these things made the priests and the rulers very angry; for they
were only waiting for a chance to find Jesus alone and make him their
prisoner, and they could do nothing while such crowds were around him,
all believing that he was the promised Son of David and King of Israel.
But these enemies of Jesus could not keep quiet amid all these praises.
"Do you hear," they said to Jesus, "what these boys are shouting? Why do
you not tell them to be still?"
"Yes, I hear them," answered Jesus, "and have you never read what is
said in the book of Psalms, 'Out of the lips of little children, even of
babies in their mothers' arms, thy praises have been made perfect?'"
Jesus stayed in the Temple teaching until the evening drew near. Then he
went with his disciples back to Bethany for the night. There among his
friends he was safe.
Tuesday Morning in the Temple