The Fig Tree's Fruit (Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent: March 23, 2025)

Watch the sermon here. Listen to the sermon here.

Texts:   Ezekiel 33:7-20

            1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Luke 13:1-9

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text that serves as the foundation for our sermon for today is the parable that Jesus tells, especially these words of the caretaker, “And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” (Luke 13:8-9).

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,

Figs are interesting. If you're like me as a kid, the only thing you knew figs for were fig newtons. Maybe bring me some figgy pudding. That's about it. I had no idea what a fig was. If you had lined up a whole bunch of fruit in front of me, I could not have picked out one. As I've gotten older, I've come to learn that figs aren't actually fruit. Did you know that? Do you know what a fig actually is? Hope I'm not about to ruin anyone's favorite food for them. A fig is actually a flower. What happens is the flower grows, and as the flower grows, a wasp goes inside to pollinate it and the wasp dies and that causes the change from being a flower to being the sweet fruit using that term loosely that we know and love. Death has to be involved in order for a fig tree to bear fruit. There is very intimately that death given by the wasp in order that from it new life may arise. Something better than was before is now there. Not many of us would go out and pick a flower and bite into it, but a fig? Absolutely! It is not accidental that Jesus picks the fig tree here as the image that He uses in this parable as well as elsewhere throughout his ministry. Because we learn that without Christ dies for us so that, like the fig tree, we can bear fruit.

Let us pray: Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, although we do all types of works that look pleasing in the sight of the world, they are as filthy rags soiled by sin apart from you. May the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer, that we may ever have the sure and certain hope that because Your Son died for us and You have given us your Holy Spirit through the waters of Holy Baptism, we may bear good fruit that is pleasing in your sight not on account of anything that we are but on account of what Your Son has done for us; this we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

On our own, we are a useless fig tree. Three years, the master of the vineyard had watched this fig tree grow. Three years, it bore forth lovely leaves, maybe even flowered like it was supposed to. And yet for three years it bore no fruit. For three years it didn't serve its purpose. And so the master of the vineyard, tired of wasting land, tired of wasting the valuable space that it would have taken up, tells the vine dresser, “Chop it down. Get rid of it. It's useless to me.” Else where in the gospels as we, when Jesus is in Jerusalem for Holy Week, on one of the days He's headed into Jerusalem and He sees the fig tree and He goes to pick a fig from it but it is not bearing the fruit that it is supposed to bear. So Jesus curses the fig tree. And the next day when the disciples walk by, they see that it is completely withered.

On our own in this world, we do a lot of stuff and our world might think that it looks good. Our world might think that the works that we do, well those have to be good works, right? We hear this all the time when some famous celebrity or someone closer to us dies, but we know they were never a Christian. What's the comfort that always, and I say comfort here loosely, what's the comfort that people always try to throw out? “Oh, they were such a good person.” Yeah, outwardly they might have looked like they were doing good works. Outwardly they might have looked like they were producing and being productive. And yet, what does God say in our Old Testament reading? “And you, son of man, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses” (Ezekiel 33:12). God's saying, “You see all those people who you think are doing all these good things, who you think are doing all these great works, who seem to have everything going right, who seem to be the best people in the world? Yeah, their righteousness isn't going to save them. Their righteousness, their own good works, their own good deeds, it ain't going to help them in the end.”

And that's true about each and every one of us. If we rely on our own good works, if we try to merit ourselves into heaven, we're a useless fig tree. Although we may look pretty, our outward works may look good, they bear nothing. It's useless. We are all children of Adam. We have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory. We are all children of Adam, and thus we are, by nature, poor, miserable sinners as we confessed this morning. No matter what we do, the fact that we are poor miserable sinners pollutes everything. Much like when I was working on my car yesterday, my hands were greasy. Thus, no matter what I touched, it also got greasy. It also got that oil over it. So it is with our sin. No matter what we do, our sin plagues everything.

Like the fig tree, in order to bear fruit, we need someone to come and die for us. Thanks be to God that He did just that. Thanks be to God that, because He knew that on our own we could not bear fruit, God sent His Son, born of woman, born under the law to redeem us who are under the law. God sent His Son and He lived the perfect life that we cannot live. He is the only one whose righteousness shall deliver Him, because He was not marred by sin. Christ had no sin. The very Son of God through whom everything was made, when He took on our human flesh, He had no sin. Thus His righteous deeds were actually righteous. His holy deeds, the good works that He did, were actually good. And then He did the most amazing thing possible. He gave us is righteousness. And He went and He bore our sins and He suffered and He died for us. Christ came and He died for us, for you, for me, forgiving your sins, forgiving my sins so that we can all have the sure and certain hope of salvation. Christ loved you so much that He willingly died for you so that you could bear fruit.

Not only did Christ die for you so that you can bear fruit, but as the loving vine dresser, He comes and he tends to your roots. He comes to you and He puts manure around you and waters you so that you can grow to be fruitful. How does God do this? Thanks be to God, it's not through actually putting literal manure on us. It's right here. Through the Word, read and proclaimed, through the waters of Holy Baptism, through the words of Absolution, through the Lord's Supper. Here God comes and tends to you as a loving vine dresser, so that “as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness” (Ezekiel 33:12). You no longer fall by your sins because God is tending to you. “When the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he shall live by them” (Ezekiel 33:19). Because you are a fig tree of God whom He has died for, whom He is caring for, though you were a wicked, poor, miserable sinner, and certainly as long as we're in the sinful flesh still are, but now you are also God's fruitful tree, bearing fruit for him. But again, this isn't your own doing. This is God working in you. This is God's work of salvation in you. This is God working good works in you. That's how great God's love is for you. He is working so that you can bear good fruit. He's working so that you may bear the fruit of righteousness today and every day. He is the one who forgives your iniquities. He is the one who covers all your sins. He is the one who restores you. He's the one who revives you. He’s the one who shows you His steadfast love.

This is the fruit that we bear, the fruit that God has called us to go and bear forth. It is all the same fruit, but it looks and tastes different to each different person. Today is our Mission Sunday and we have the wonderful opportunity to have had Joe Boway here to share with us in Bible class and he'll be here during fellowship hour as well. The work that he and people with him are doing in Liberia is amazing and such a blessing. But not all of us can be on the ground or as he is. There are other ways that we can serve, however. With the door offering that we collect today for him, you are helping that mission, that is a fruit that you are bearing. Through sharing with your family and friends, that is fruit that you are bearing. Through proclaiming the good news to your kids, to your neighbors, sharing with them the hope that you have, that is fruit that you are bearing. Same with your friends at work. However it may be, each of us, we all bear the same fruit, but how that looks in our lives is different for each and every one of us. Need help figuring out what your fruit exactly looks like? God's given you someone who can help you figure that out, and I’d be glad to meet with you to help you figure that out.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, you are a fig tree. Christ has died for you so that you may bear great fruit. This is not your own doing. This is the work of God for you. Because Christ has died for you. Christ has given his life for you so that you may bear this fruit. So go out. Having been tended to here, go out into the world and bear the fruit that God has given you to bear. And that's this world beats you down, batters you, as this world makes it hard and dries up that water, come back and be nourished here next week, till at last we shall, with all the saints before us, be taken to his eternal home. And there, like a tree planted by good water, shall be tended to perfectly for eternity. Amen.

Now may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.