the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 3 of 5
Mark 11:1-14
The Lord’s pathway is approaching its end. He makes His triumphal entry into Jerusalem and goes to the temple where He begins by looking round about on all things (v. 11) as if to ask, "Am I at home here?" This detail, peculiar to Mark, shows us that God never makes a hasty judgment on a state of things before condemning it (cf. Genesis 18:21). But what must have been the Lord’s feelings to see this house of prayer in such an unholy state?
He leaves this defiled place and withdraws to Bethany with the few who recognize and love Him. Bethany means "house of the afflicted" and also "house of figs". How often in Scripture do we see the characteristics of this double meaning. At the time when the Lord Jesus feels constrained to curse the barren fig tree, which represents Israel as He has found her, it is as if He, the Afflicted One, the Poor One, (Psalms 40:17) found fruit for God in Bethany ("good figs", according to the description in Jeremiah 24:2). They are a consolation to His heart, and a foretaste of the fruit of the work of His soul on the cross. In spite of an abundance of leaves, the sign of an outward religion, there were no "figs on the fig tree" of Israel, like the statement of the same prophet (Jeremiah 8:13).
