The Fig Tree

The fig tree, the withered fig tree, has me puzzled. I asked about it on facebook. One of my college professors, Mark Wenger, responded as I had a feeling he would.
What he said:
1. Fig trees leaf in season, not before it. Like the magnolia doesn't tell us that summer is coming. It tells us that summer is indeed here.
2. The context of the story is that at the temple, Jesus was rejected by the religious leaders and accepted by the poor.
3. Unripe figs were for the poor to partake of. In fact Bethpage means "house of unripe figs."
4. The next context is that the disciples afterward ask for signs of the end of the age. They asked when the end would come.

Put it all together:
The fig tree is telling us that it is the end of the age. It is not coming but is here. The tree is symbolic of lack of fruit for the needy. Our job then is to produce fruit for the poor or be cursed.

As I pondered this, I still could not reconcile this explanation with Jesus' application in Mark 11. He says if we have even a small amount of faith, we can tell the mountain to be thrown into the sea and it will be. He then says that we should forgive our brother so that God will forgive us. God spoke to me through this meditation process. Could it be that faith and forgiveness aren't as much the fruit we should produce, but the soil in which fruit grows. They are the precursors to fruit.

Christians are like leafy fig trees. Where there is leaf there should be fruit, even if it is unripened. Lack of faith and unforgiveness will hinder that fruit from growing. Like the religious leaders in Jesus' time. They couldn't believe that Jesus was who He said He was, and they couldn't forgive the attention He stole from them. They were like fig trees with no figs. Many Christians today also have no fruit, not even unripened fruit, because of their lack of faith and lack of forgiveness. Lord please help me believe and help me forgive.