“Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.
“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read,
“‘From the lips of children and infants
    you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”
And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.
Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.
Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

• Matthew 21:16-22

Then Israel entered Egypt;
    Jacob resided as a foreigner in the land of Ham.
The Lord made his people very fruitful;
    he made them too numerous for their foes,
whose hearts he turned to hate his people,
    to conspire against his servants.
He sent Moses his servant,
    and Aaron, whom he had chosen.
They performed his signs among them,
    his wonders in the land of Ham.
He sent darkness and made the land dark—
    for had they not rebelled against his words?
He turned their waters into blood,
    causing their fish to die.
Their land teemed with frogs,
    which went up into the bedrooms of their rulers.
He spoke, and there came swarms of flies,
    and gnats throughout their country.
He turned their rain into hail,
    with lightning throughout their land;
he struck down their vines and fig trees
    and shattered the trees of their country.
He spoke, and the locusts came,
    grasshoppers without number;
they ate up every green thing in their land,
    ate up the produce of their soil.
Then he struck down all the firstborn in their land,
    the firstfruits of all their manhood.
He brought out Israel, laden with silver and gold,
    and from among their tribes no one faltered.
Egypt was glad when they left,
    because dread of Israel had fallen on them.
He spread out a cloud as a covering,
    and a fire to give light at night.
They asked, and he brought them quail;
    he fed them well with the bread of heaven.
He opened the rock, and water gushed out;
    it flowed like a river in the desert.
For he remembered his holy promise
    given to his servant Abraham.
He brought out his people with rejoicing,
    his chosen ones with shouts of joy;
he gave them the lands of the nations,
    and they fell heir to what others had toiled for—
that they might keep his precepts
    and observe his laws.
Praise the Lord.

• Psalm 105:23-45

“Christ’s single miracle of Destruction, the withering of the fig tree, has proved troublesome to some people, but I think its significance is plain enough. The miracle is an acted parable, a symbol of God’s sentence on all that is ‘fruitless’ and specially, no doubt, on the official Judaism of that age. That is its moral significance. As a miracle, it again does in focus, repeats small and close, what God does constantly and throughout Nature. We have seen … how God, twisting Satan’s weapon out of his hand, had become, since the Fall, the God even of human death. But much more, and perhaps ever since the creation, He has been the God of the death of organisms. In both cases, though in somewhat different ways, He is the God of death because He is the God of Life: the God of human death because through it increase of life now comes-the God of merely organic death because death is part of the very mode by which organic life spreads itself out in Time and yet remains new. A forest a thousand years deep is still collectively alive because some trees are dying and others are growing up. His human face, turned with negation in its eyes upon that one fig tree, did once what His unincarnate action does to all trees. No tree died that year in Palestine, or any year anywhere, except because God did-or rather ceased to do something to it.”

• C.S. Lewis, Preparing for Easter (from Miracles, chapter “Miracles of the Old Creation”)

Boilerplate

First, the concept of Lent is the preparation for what is to come, the anniversary of Christ’s death and resurrection between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  But in some denominations, the entire time from Advent, the anticipation of Christ’s coming (remembrance of His birth but preparation for His return) to Easter (Christ’s resurrection from the dead)…  This bracket of time is a celebration of the entire life of Jesus Christ on earth.  Christ’s conception to His ascension and on to the Holy Spirit coming upon the Apostles at Pentecost can be presented and celebrated from early December until Pentecost Sunday.

Many denominations only focus on Christmas and Easter, or maybe the entirety of Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Easter, and then may or may not focus on Pentecost.

But for those that recognize Lent, the Lenten season in many denominations has an element of fasting.  Sadly, this is done as Jesus teaches us not to do.  They make a big deal out of it when we should do it in private, something just between us and God.  But that tradition stems from the forty days of fasting that Jesus did in the wilderness after His baptism and before His ministry started.  The Lenten season is kicked off on Ash Wednesday.  And after forty days, we reach Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week.  The concept of ashes is symbolized by at least one denomination having a cross painted on their forehead in ashes, sometimes from burning the palm fronds from the previous Palm Sunday the year before.  Again, that draws attention to the fact that they have started their fast.  But they are also announcing that they are Christians.  There is good and bad there.

So, when we are in the Lenten season, what should we focus on?  It depends.  We should focus on Jesus, but we might want to focus on our service to God.  What can we do better?  How can we spread the Gospel?  From Conception to Pentecost…  His mission was completed on earth, but He left us with something to do.

As for the Lewis book, it comes from a compilation of Lewis’ writings, edited by Zachry Kincaid.  In the book, there is a devotion, of sorts, from Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday, the Lenten Season.  Each devotion contains suggested Scriptures and a writing of C.S. Lewis.

I am going to use my free time posts, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday afternoons (EDST) to correspond with that day’s devotion in the book.

Discussion

C.S. Lewis is figuratively linking the death of one fig tree with the turning over of the tables in the temple.  The fig tree, in Lewis’ interpretation, is a symbol of the fruitless worship being done by the religious leaders of that time.

We could argue of their fruitlessness when they have the incarnate Christ among them, but they are more worried about the truce they have arranged with their Roman overlords.  And their efforts by killing Jesus only bought them less than forty years.  In their self-centered thinking. “At least it did not happen on their watch.”

But to take this miracle in its timing without anything symbolic, you see Jesus wanting a fresh fig and knowing that this week will be His last chance…  Drat!  They are not in season, so die fig tree, DIE!

That last paragraph applies to a purely human interpretation to the miracle.

The disciples see what happens and Jesus gets to talk to them about what power is coming through the Holy Spirit.

But then, we must look at life and death.  There are 260 births each minute globally and 121 deaths globally.  That means that the global population is increasing by about 200,000 people every day.  There have been financial studies made that the slowing down of the population explosion might hurt the world economy.  I will let the economists argue over that one.

But the point is that regardless of what modern medicine can accomplish, people still die.  We have an appointed number of days on this earth.  But God knows that for the ones who have a personal relationship with Him, only our earthly body dies, and when we open our eyes, we will see Jesus.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.