I love figs.
I didn’t care for them as a child.
But I love them now, and I love the crazy branchy trees that they grow on, dropping sticky sap and fruit all over everything that wanders too close.
I have a jar of fig preserves that a friend made and gave to me, it is like summer distilled, reduced, rendered and crammed into a jar waiting to be released.
I am looking forward to opening that jar and letting summer time escape and run loose.
Summer is near! Isn’t it obvious?
What does Jesus mean about learning the lesson of the fig tree when its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves? When this happens we know summer is near.
Everything wears out and dies. The temple will fall. Even the sun and the moon, even the stars fall from the sky.
Entropy. Jesus paints quite a picture of everything going dark.
When everything wears out, when the light dies, when it grows dark this is like a fig tree growing tender and putting forth leaves, it means that summer is near, that it is not all over, that the best is yet to come. Learn this lesson.
When it is darkest let hope send out tender branches and grow and bear fruit.
The darkness at the cross, when even Jesus dies, it means summer is near, the resurrection is almost upon us.
We begin the Christian year today with Season of Advent and the lesson of the fig tree.
What is the faithful response to the good news of God’s kingdom in the cross and resurrection of Jesus? Today we begin Mark’s Gospel.
The faithful response in Mark’s Gospel is NOT about predicting when Jesus will return and stomp on everyone that we find disagreeable. For Mark the faithful response is NOT about giving up hope, giving up watchfulness and vigilance when things get too hard, when there are trials and persecution.
For Mark the authentic and faithful response to the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to hope and struggle as we live, follow and proclaim the pattern and life of Jesus.
What we will find over this next year is that Mark will show us that following Jesus is not easy, that the disciples seldom, if ever, get anything right.
Mark is a Gospel of struggle and failure where glory is elusive, where the only people who ever sing and rejoice are the religious authorities when Judas decides to betray Jesus.
Mark is written for fallible followers who struggle to live and proclaim the pattern and life of Jesus, for those who need serious food to strengthen their resolve to keep on.
Mark is all about the lesson of the fig tree, when everything and everyone fails, including especially our selves, it is meant to remind us to renew our hope, that summer is near, that these bare branches are going to put forth leaves and bear fruit, just as the barrenness of the cross bears the fruit of the resurrection.
Mark isn’t for sissies. It is for serious disciples of Jesus who know that everything and everyone fails, who can find in the midst of the darkness and imperfection of our flawed lives the summer of God.
Mark is not for those who think faith is about being perfect and competent and tidy. Mark is for those who are willing to find God in the extremely messy stuff of life.
Failure, struggle, imperfection and incompetence they are the jar of fig preserves that when opened they let summer time escape and run loose.