NOTES for Mat 21:18-32
The Lord continues His way toward Golgotha, which can already be sensed in His clashes with the chief priests and elders, in His parables, and in His conversations with the disciples. He entered the city as King. He must either be accepted by the people as the long-awaited Messiah or perish in a confrontation with the hypocrisy and rigidity of the leaders and the unfaithfulness of the people, in a struggle with the kingdom of darkness. Where Christ comes, no room remains for compromise. The fig tree that bore no fruit withers; Israel, which did not hear John’s preaching, cannot receive the Savior. It becomes ever clearer that the conflict can end in only one way—with the death of the Rebel. Together with the Israelites of the beginning of the first century, we are at the very center of events. Christ enters us—or will yet enter—just as He entered Jerusalem, and He will likewise encounter—or has already encountered—the hypocrisy and rigidity in our hearts. Like them, we always stand on the brink of a choice: to kill the Messiah and wither like the fig tree, or to receive Him, hear His word, become what He wants us to be, and obtain His mercy and His Kingdom.