NOTES for Mat 21:21-22

What is the connection between the withered fig tree and the Savior's words about faith? And why does Jesus treat the tree He met on the road so harshly? After all, in nature everything happens in its own time; to be offended or angry at this is foolish. And yet the issue is the Kingdom, the Kingdom that accompanies Jesus everywhere. In the Kingdom there is no change of seasons in our sense. And fruit can appear on a tree at any time. More precisely, when it is needed by the one who comes up to the tree. If there is none, this means only one thing: the tree lives not by the laws of the Kingdom, but by the laws of the untransformed world. A world where there is no true life. In essence, the Savior's words merely state the sad fact: the fig tree did not enter the Kingdom. Why remains an open question, and it will probably remain open until the end of time. But the disciples' question and the Savior's answer prove truly interesting. For the issue is precisely what can allow a person to avoid the fate of the withered fig tree: faith. Faith is a capacious concept; it includes faithfulness, trust, and confidence in the correctness of the chosen path. But at the foundation of everything are will, choice, and resolve, that which forms the basis of spiritual life. This will and resolve determine what a person will be before God and people and to what degree the Kingdom will open to him. And Jesus draws His disciples' attention to one very important aspect of will, understood not as psychological effort but as a spiritual act: it is indivisible. True faith, understood precisely as spiritual will, is always equal to itself; the concepts "more" or "less" are inappropriate here. It may be tiny from the point of view of the untransformed world, "like a mustard seed," but in it there is the whole fullness of spiritual choice and the whole spiritual potential of the person, which can work miracles. And, of course, open the road into the Kingdom for the one who walks.