God explodes!

I'm working on a text for a sermon this week that includes the following section.

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. (Mark 11:12-14)

Why would Jesus curse a fig tree for not bearing figs. It wasn't even the season for figs. That's not very fair; not very "Christ-like". What were the thoughts of the disciples as they walked away from this scene? Was Jesus' behavior as shocking to them as it seems to us?

The reality is that God often acts in ways that we don't expect. Sometimes He moves in ways that we think are completely out of character for who He is. And yet that's the problem. Our conception of who He is can often be far from the truth. He wants to blow away our perceptions so that when the smoke clears we get to see the real Him. Buechner said it so well when he wrote,

"God doesn’t explain. He explodes. He asks Job who he thinks he is anyway. He says that to try to explain the kind of things Job wants explained would be like trying to explain Einstein to a little-neck clam...God doesn’t reveal his grand design. He reveals himself." (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, p. 46)

God please explode for us. Break apart our boxes lined with pre-conceived notions. Wash away the "thoughts of men" and give us the "thoughts of God". Give us You - for that is all we really need.

“For the first two or three years after my conversion, I used to ask for specific things. Now I ask for God. Supposing there is a tree full of fruits -- you will have to go and buy or beg the fruits from the owner of the tree. Every day you would have to go for one or two fruits. But if you can make the tree your own property, then all the fruits will be your own. In the same way, if God is your own, then all things in Heaven and on earth will be your own, because He is your Father and is everything to you; otherwise you will have to go and ask like a beggar for certain things. When they are used up, you will have to ask again. So ask not for gifts but for the Giver of Gifts: not for life but for the Giver of Life -- then life and the things needed for life will be added unto you.” (Sadhu Sundar Singh)

P.S. Just so you know, the fig tree makes alot more sense when you read about what Jesus did next.