One spring our beautiful cherry tree failed to leaf out and bloom. Concerned, I called my tree guy, an older gentlemen with years of experience. A man of few words, he walked around the tree, gave it a good look and said, it’s dead. Hoping to salvage some of the tree I asked, how dead? Without looking back he replied, deadern’ a doornail dead.

A hangry Jesus impressed his disciples through his interaction with a tree. The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.

The next day the group passed the same tree, now withered from the roots—deadern’ a doornail dead. The disciples were amazed. Jesus then explained the lesson:

Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Pray without doubt and amazing things happen—seems ridiculous. Yet Jesus opens this possibility to his disciples. I wonder what they were thinking as they stood looking at that tree?

The most challenging thought for me comes from the caveat Jesus added at the end. To be effective in prayer I need to forgive anyone I hold anything against. Maybe this is the issue with most of my prayers? A lack of forgiveness toward one person hinders the effectiveness of all my prayers.

Forgiveness forms a powerful theme in the teachings of Jesus. We grow more like him and develop into deeper people as we forgive those we find hard to forgive. When Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself, he meant to forgive them as well.

Without the Lord’s intervention, our hearts are deadern’ a doornail dead and incapable of forgiving anyone. Jesus is telling us that (with the Holy Spirit’s help) we can indeed forgive those we find unforgivable, and enrich our lives in the process.

The miracle of the withered fig tree points us toward the even greater miracle of forgiveness.

Mark 11 in Through the Bible in 2024

Photo by Arun Clarke