Scripture: Matthew 21:10-19
Video Link: https://youtu.be/PqlzG3Y8V8w
Audio Link: Stream Sermon – 29 Mar 2026 – True Religion by tawabaptist | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
Structure:
- Introduction
- The merchants
- The priests
- The fig tree
- Conclusion
Introduction:
Good morning everyone.
At a wedding recently I met a man from Russia. He was telling me how quite often, in Russian wedding ceremonies, the bride and groom seal the deal by stepping on a glass. This might stem from a Jewish custom, I think.
There are generally lots of words in wedding ceremonies, but the act of stepping on a glass is symbolic. It signifies the finality of the marriage commitment. What has been done cannot be undone. Breaking a glass also reminds the couple that the journey of life involves sorrow as well as joy.
This acted-out parable communicates the meaning of the marriage commitment with a power and clarity that goes beyond words.
This morning, we continue our series on the parables of Jesus. Many of Jesus’ parables come to us in the form of the spoken word; stories which, in their own mysterious way, infiltrate the human imagination.
Not all of Jesus’ parables are stories though. Sometimes Jesus demonstrated his parables with symbolic actions that communicated God’s message with a power and clarity that goes beyond words.
With today being Palm Sunday (the beginning of holy week) our message focuses on Matthew 21, verses 12-19. This passage describes at least two acted-out parables of Jesus; symbolic actions performed on the first Palm Sunday, twenty centuries ago. From Matthew 21, verse 12 we read…
12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” 14 The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. 16 “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?” 17 And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night. 18 Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.
In Luke 17 (last week’s message), Jesus talked about not causing others to stumble and rebuking those who sin against you. In the reading we just heard, from Matthew 21, Jesus rebukes those merchants and priests who are causing others to stumble, and he rebukes a fig tree for being fruitless.
You have probably heard the phrase, ‘throwing down the gauntlet’. A gauntlet is an armoured glove worn by knights in medieval Europe. A gauntlet protects your hands in battle.
If a knight wanted to challenge another knight to a duel, he would throw his gauntlet at the feet of his opponent. This symbolic act called into question the opponent’s honour and bravery. By picking up the gauntlet the opponent showed he accepted the challenge. If he refused, his honour was degraded.
Over time, ‘throwing down the gauntlet’, has come to mean any sort of action that demonstrates a desire to confront another person.
In Matthew 21, Jesus throws down the gauntlet to the religious leadership in Jerusalem. He is not so much questioning their bravery as he is their integrity. Jesus throws down the gauntlet in a number of ways.
In verses 1-11, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, surrounded by pilgrims who are shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’. This is an acted-out parable; it is Jesus’ way of announcing himself as Israel’s Messiah. It is also a challenge to those in authority in Jerusalem. Will they submit to Jesus as King or will they resist?
The merchants:
Jesus’ first act, after arriving in the holy city, is to drive out the merchants and money changers from the temple courts. This is another way of throwing down the gauntlet.
Jesus is demonstrating (through an acted-out parable) how God feels about business being carried out in the temple. Clearly, the Lord is not happy.
Jesus is not flying off the handle in a fit of rage. His actions are considered, intentional, surgically precise and fair. Jesus is motivated by love for God and love for his neighbour.
Now the merchants were carrying out a necessary service to facilitate worship. They were selling doves and livestock for pilgrims to sacrifice to God in the Jerusalem temple. Likewise, the money changers were exchanging foreign currency for the right kind of currency. So why does Jesus drive them out of the temple courts?
In verse 13 the Lord provides Scriptural warrant for his behaviour by quoting from the Old Testament prophets. First Isaiah, then Jeremiah. When Jesus says: “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’”he is quoting from Isaiah 56, where we read…
3 Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.” …4 For this is what the Lord says:foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—7 these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
The prophet Isaiah gives us a vision of inclusion here. Jesus came to fulfil this vision. God’s purpose was for Israel to be a light to the other nations of the world. God wanted the nation of Israel to be a picture of what his kingdom is like. The other nations of the world were to learn about God from Israel.
With this in view, the temple was designed with an area for Gentiles (non-Jews) to come and seek the God of Israel. However, Gentiles could not go past their designated area in the temple courts. It was a case of, ‘you may come this far and no further’.
The merchants and money changers were plying their trade in the court of the Gentiles, which essentially made it impossible for people of other nations to draw near to God, in prayer.
By clearing the merchants out of the temple courts, Jesus was welcoming people of all nations. He was making room for prayer and reminding Israel of God’s purpose.
In Matthew 27, when Jesus gave up his spirit on the cross, we read how the curtain hanging in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. This is a sign of what Jesus’ death accomplished. We now have direct access to God through Jesus, whatever our ethnicity. We no longer need a temple building.
Jesus’ rebuke, of the merchants, that they were making the temple a den of robbers, comes from the prophet Jeremiah. In Jeremiah chapter 7 we read…
9 “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.
In Jeremiah’s day (centuries before Jesus) many people hid their evil deeds behind the cloak of respectable religion. They gathered for worship on Saturday and carried out the prescribed rituals, but the rest of the week they disobeyed the ten commandments.
Their religion was false and God was not having it. After centuries of warning, the Lord allowed the Babylonians to attack Jerusalem and destroy the temple built by Solomon, killing thousands and forcing the rest into exile.
By quoting Jeremiah and referring to the merchants as ‘robbers’, Jesus is implying they were ripping the people off, exploiting them financially.
More than this, Jesus was throwing down the gauntlet; he was challenging the integrity of those who ran the temple system. They were no better than the people of Jeremiah’s day. God had allowed Israel’s enemies to destroy the temple once and he would do it again if necessary.
How then does Jesus’ clearing of the temple apply to us today? Let me offer two applications…
Firstly, our faith (our religion) needs to have integrity. It needs to be true.
We live with integrity by practicing what we believe. Coming to church on Sunday won’t cut it if we are not obeying Christ the rest of the week as well. We need to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.
In order to live with integrity, we need to clear time and space in our cluttered lives to pray and nurture our relationship with God. The goal is to be fruitful for God’s glory and we can only be fruitful when we abide in Christ.
In some African cultures, so I’m told, there’s a tradition of sitting outside someone’s house to say thank you. No words are spoken; the person simply sits. The longer you sit, the greater the thanks.
If you were to do that in kiwi culture it would seem weird, like you were stalking the person. But in some African cultures, this gesture expresses gratitude with a power and clarity that goes beyond words.
How do you carve out time to be with Jesus? Prayer isn’t just asking God for stuff. Sometimes prayer is like sitting outside God’s house, offering our time in silent contemplation and gratitude for who he is and what he has done.
The priests:
Jesus’ rebuke of the merchants in the temple courts is really a rebuke of the religious leaders who allowed them to be there in the first place. It is to the priests we turn now.
After clearing the temple, the blind and lame came to Jesus and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.
Jesus’ healing of the blind and lame within the temple is its own kind of acted-out parable. Jesus’ symbolic actions show us what a temple is for. A temple is place of prayer. A place where people are reconciled to God and made whole.
A place where vision and perspective are restored and people find the means to walk without a crutch. It is also a place where God is praised.
Jesus replaces the temple building. We find salvation and hope in Christ.
Jesus is our temple, our holy place where we are reconciled to God.
Ironically, the chief priests and scribes show themselves to be spiritually lame and blind. Jesus would have healed them too, but they didn’t want this.
They were too busy being indignant. Indignant just means angry.
Hosanna literally means ‘save us now’ and Son of David is code for the Messiah, God’s anointed King. The children can see that Jesus is the Messiah come to save them, but the religious leaders cannot see what is staring them in the face, even with all the miracles Jesus is performing.
What was it Jesus said in Matthew 5? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The children are pure in heart; they can see God at work in and through Jesus. The religious leaders are not pure in heart. They are blind.
The priests question Jesus saying, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” They think Jesus should be silencing the children’s praise. But Jesus does not silence the children. Again, Jesus quotes Scripture to his opponents (much like he did with Satan in the wilderness).
The Lord says, “Yes,” [I do hear what they are saying] “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”
Of course they have read it. This comes from Psalm 8. Far from silencing the children’s praise, Jesus is holding up the children as an example for the religious leaders to follow. Talk about throwing down the gauntlet. But the religious leaders don’t pick up the challenge. They have no response for Jesus.
So the Lord retires to Bethany for the night. Bethany is about two miles outside of Jerusalem on the side of the Mount of Olives. Jesus is making time and space to be alone with God. I imagine Jesus was sitting outside God’s house in silent contemplation and gratitude for what God has done in revealing his glory to little children.
The fig tree:
Okay, so given the corruption and dodgy dealings in the Jerusalem temple we can understand why Jesus rebuked the merchants and the priests. But what was his beef with the fig tree?
From verse 18 of Matthew 21 we read: 18 Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
Fig trees, in the Middle East, bear fruit twice a year. Usually in June and then again in September. We know for a fact that Jesus came across this fig tree in early April, because it was a week before the Jewish Passover festival.
The tree was not supposed to bear fruit for another three months and yet Jesus speaks to it in such a way that it withers. That doesn’t seem fair. We are not used to that sort of carry-on from Jesus. Was the Lord just a bit hangry? (Someone get Jesus a Snickers.) Well, no. Jesus’ encounter with the fig tree was an acted-out parable.
According to Joel Green[1] (and other Bible experts) fig trees bear an early crop of bitter and immature male figs called ‘taksh’ which drop off before the proper fruit comes in June. Taksh is sometimes eaten by the poor, but it doesn’t taste very nice.
If a fig tree doesn’t bear the immature taksh, then it won’t bear proper fruit in June or September. Jesus could tell the fig tree was barren because it had no taksh on it. The leaves were also misleading. Normally, a fig tree with leaves promises fruit. The leaves of this fig tree though were like false advertising.
Jesus was not condemning a perfectly good tree that would have fruited in due course. The tree had already condemned itself by being fruitless.
The fig tree (like the grape vine) was symbolic of the nation of Israel. (Sort of like the maple leaf is symbolic of Canada and the silver fern is symbolic of New Zealand.)
With this imagery of the fig tree in mind, the Old Testament prophets[2] used the withering of fig trees as a symbol of God’s judgement on Israel.
Jesus’ encounter with the fig tree, therefore, was an acted-out parable of God’s judgement on Israel for practising empty (fruitless) religion. It was a symbolic action that communicated God’s message with a power and clarity that goes beyond words.
To the casual observer the Jerusalem temple system looked good, but it lacked substance. The fruit that God wanted (of justice, mercy and humility) was not there. Indeed, the religious leaders were plotting to murder Jesus, the Messiah of God.
The withered fig tree was a prophetic sign of what was going to happen to the Jerusalem temple. In AD 70, some decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, Jewish nationalism provoked the Romans to lay siege to Jerusalem and destroy the temple building and many lives with it. Jesus’ prediction came true.
It’s important to understand that in giving this prophecy, Jesus held no malice in his heart. Grief, yes, but not hatred. Just a day before, when he entered Jerusalem, Jesus wept over the city as Jeremiah did before him.
We come across another parable featuring a fig tree, in Luke 13. In the context, Jesus was telling people they needed to repent or perish. From verse 6 we read
6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ 8 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
In this spoken parable, Jesus highlights God’s grace in giving people more time to repent. God does not want to destroy. He would rather redeem. But we must not presume upon God’s grace. If we don’t bear the fruit of repentance, God will bring us to a just end.
The religious leaders had plenty of opportunity to repent. John the Baptist came before Jesus saying: the axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
Then Jesus came preaching a gospel of repentance and performing miracles, for three years. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the nation of Israel would be given another 40 years of Christian witness before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. Sadly, many missed their opportunity.
Conclusion:
Jesus’ acted-out parables of clearing the temple and declaring the fig tree fruitless, are a call to God’s people down through the ages, to practice true religion. The kind which bears the fruit of justice, mercy and humility. We can only do this by God’s grace and the power of Jesus’ Spirit.
Let us pray…
Loving God, we have sinned in thought, word and deed. We have sinned in ignorance and by our own deliberate fault. We have been unfair to you and unfair to others. Forgive us we pray. Help us, by your Spirit, to walk in freedom and righteousness. Through Jesus we ask. Amen.
Questions for discussion or reflection:
- What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
- What acted-out parables (or symbolic actions) have you participated in? What meaning do these convey?
- Why did Jesus drive out the merchants from the temple courts? What was he communicating through this acted-out parable? How does Jesus’ clearing of the temple apply to us today? How might it apply to you personally?
- Discuss / reflect on Jesus’ references to Isaiah 56 and Jeremiah 7. How did these prophecies relate to the people/temple of Jesus’ day? How might they relate to our situation today?
- What is the purpose of a temple? Why is a temple building no longer necessary? Who fulfils the purpose of the temple for us?
- How do you carve out time to be with Jesus? What does your prayer life look like? Do you make room to sit and consider God’s goodness and grace?
- Why does Jesus say to the fig tree, “May you never bear fruit again!”? What does the withering of the fig tree signify?
- What does it look like to bear the fruit of repentance? Is there anything you sense God wants you to repent of? Take time this week to make things right with the Lord.
Bibliography:
- R.V.G. Tasker, ‘TNTC: The Gospel According to St Matthew’, 1963.
- William Barclay, ‘Gospel of Matthew Vol. 2’, 1967.
- Michael Green, ‘BST: The Message of Matthew’, 2000.
- Craig Keener, ‘The Gospel of Matthew – A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, 2009.
- R.T. France, ‘NICNT: The Gospel of Matthew’, 2007.
[1] Refer Green, page 223
[2] C.f. Isaiah 34:4 and Jeremiah 8:13.
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