I didn’t stay up to see the full eclipse of the moon last night. Mostly, I am just happy to fall asleep, stay asleep and not wake up during the long hours of the night. My friend Shannon called early today and said she was up at 2:30 and saw the moon’s eclipse hidden in clouds. She couldn’t sleep and was praying for me at that hour. That thought has blessed me all day long. Someone prayed for me during the night and I was unaware. God’s angels are everywhere, sometimes restless and often sleepless.

In the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ last week, Tuesday was an especially challenging   day for the Lord as He  ministered  in  Jerusalem and Bethany. The increasing hostility of the Pharisees toward Jesus moved quickly  toward a climax. Jesus taught, preached, rebuked, reminded and encouraged his disciples in the last of His discourses even as He knew the time for Him was coming.   The pace in these Gospels is relentless

And there right in the middle of all the tensions is the story of the fig tree. Told in both Matthew 21:18- and Mark 11:21-24, Jesus was hungry, but seeing a fig tree which did not bear fruit, he cursed it. Immediately, according to Matthew, the tree withered from its roots up.

Amazed, the disciples questioned Jesus.

How did the fig tree wither so quickly? So Jesus answered said to them. Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, Be removed and be cast into the sea, it will be done.

And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing you will receive. Matt.21: 21-22

Jesus was instructing  the disciples one last time about prayer and faith, to strengthen    them for the ordeal  ahead.  But He was also warning about the lack of faith. Israel was often symbolized by the fig tree, a tree which bears fruit even before it leafs out. Because the tree had leaves on it, the Lord was expecting to find figs. He was hungry for its fruit. But, the Pharisees, the interpreters and keepers of the law, were Israel’s fruitless trees, lacking faith, rejecting Christ. And like the cursed tree, they were already  dead from the roots upward.

It is an odd image. Most trees die from the top down, losing their leaves and topmost branches as the sap dries out. To wither from the roots upward means the very source of life for the tree has disappeared. Jesus implies that  without faith  in Him we become  rootless and withered.  Without prayer and faith it’s impossible to  move mountains or cast off  what is deceptively full, but barren of fruit.

Last night when my friend prayed for me it was out of her deep faith and trust in God. She didn’t know why, just that the Lord called her to pray. Believing, she responded to the Holy Spirit who never sleeps, who never tires, who always moves in us.  Mountains have been moved today and the fig trees of the Lord bear unusually large, delicious  figs because a friend prayed in faith.

Friede Gabbert