A fine fruitless fig tree
One day Jesus was passing by and he saw a very beautiful tree, it was so leafy and attractive, well arranged branches like something the Lord made, it was really giving.
Even Jesus started catching vibes, he changed his route and headed for the tree hoping it will be worth it. His disciples joined him, they couldn't resist the urge either.
Upon reaching the foot of the tree they looked up for to see if they would find a fruit upon it. They searched from branch to branch, each disciple got to work stretching necks and turning around it, alas there was no fruit on the tree. They had hopes, but they met a heart break. Jesus turned away and said "No man will eat from you again".
But this was not about trees.
The Waste
Such a waste of real estate, beauty and even the precious time of our Lord and his apostles, out of 3½ years of ministry, 2 hours ti lor.
This tree has occupied space and being there for some time, hence it may well have at least a fig on it to pacify the Lord's hunger. Was it that he didnt know it was not yet time for figs to sprout fruits? Or was he showing us something? Clearly he was showing something with everything he did. Most likely even with this.
The Risk of Attraction
Attraction doesn't count in the Kingdom. What counts is fruitfulness. The worse and the best can be attracted to their kind, you better present the right fruit as applicable. You can attract Kings and nations to yourself, but if they found no fruit, they ll leave you, and often, not without a curse in response to the pain for a waste of their valuable time and attention.
Sadly, the world celebrates attraction, so much for an industry, but what is attraction in fruitlessness for? What if the tree was barren? What if it had just been harvested? What if.. As it were it was not yet its time?
All these questions makes the fashion and beauty industry thrive so well.
People do so much to be attractive, you can't even imagine the length they ll go.
Layers upon layers of deception just to win a stare and waste some attention. And such a waste would have been gainfully employed in being fruitful. It does cost much to be fruitful. Nearly not as much as being a fine fruitless fig tree.
More so, how will the Lord come to you and you have nothing to sho? a helpless tree.
The Attention
Maybe it is the attention people enjoy, to have the eyes of men and women, and nothing to offer. A feeling of satifaction from attention shows a suspicious lack of common affection from people and points else where far from the scope of this discuss. But why will people trade getting attention for being fruitful?
The normal trend should have been attraction then attention to the fruits. But somehow fruits are lacking.
The Fruit
If anything has gotten so much attack in the world it would be the fruit Eve ate and gave to Adam. But maybe that fruit was not the problem, the problem was an absence of a fruit in the man.
As man cultivated Eden, God was also cultivating man and building him into his image and likeness with work to do testing out the success of his work. After taming and naming the animals, it was time to have a wife and so on. But Adam fell, contaminating the process and hence no more fruit from him.
Hence the need for Jesus Christ to come to restore that process from Eden, "I am the vine, my Father is the Husband Man." (John15)
This time, there wont be any way to steal or stop the process, as long as you are connected to the vine, security is sure. And without connection, you can do nothing, including bearing fruits.
The Husband Man
The Father is a farmer. He planted the vine, and now it has many branches.
He takes away every unfruitful branch and puts them to the fire no matter how fine they may look. He purges the fruitful ones for them to bring forth more fruits.
To him, being fine is not enough, you can be a beautiful vine branch and still be useless and an unnecessary loss. He ll rather have a fruitful branch to be pruned and kept clean than have a fruitless clean branch sitting on his vine.
...
So when Jesus came to that tree, attraction checked, attention checked where is the fruit? He finding none, cursed it. And the next day, it was dried up. It would literally be taken up as dry wood and burnt for heat. It is a very risky thing to be attractive and have no fruit to show.
Thanks for reading.
Images are AI generated using Gemini
Quoted texts are from the Holy Bible.
