Of course they are everywhere, but bizarre town names seem more prevalent in the South.  To be sure we have our fair share of “villes,” “burgs” and “dales” as well as the usual cadre of towns named for national or regional heroes and villains.  Southerners are especially fond of curiously curated Biblical places names like Corinth, Sardis, and Jericho that seem to betray a lack of familiarity with the text.  And in our beloved Arkansas, we have preserved, though mispronounced, our French origins in place names like Petit Jean and Fourche Valley.      

And then there are the seemingly inexplicable names whose origins live in the realm of folklore.  Names like Goobertown, Booger Hollow, Possum Grape, Ben Hur, Greasy Corner, and Romance.   Even familiar names sometimes have surprising origins.  Smackover, Arkansas is a transliteration of a French phrase that means “covered in sumac” and Hector was the name of President Grover Cleveland’s dog, chosen by the Cleveland himself when postal officials grew frustrated with the resident’s indecision over a name.  While the linguistic origins of Toad Suck vary widely and wildly from drunken riverboat crews to a local name for an animal’s watering hole.

But as far as I can tell, no Arkansas town is named for a game show.  In March of 1950, the town of Hot Springs, New Mexico changed its name to Truth or Consequences when the host of a popular radio quiz show announced he would air a special 10^th anniversary episode from the first town renaming itself for the program. Truth or Consequences was a trivia game in which contestants had two seconds to answer obtuse questions correctly or face some humiliating consequence, usually in the form of a crazy stunt.  When the show moved from radio to television, it was hosted by Bob Barker who would go on to host The Price is Right.  Barker traditionally ended each episode with the phrase, “Hoping all your consequences are happy ones.”

Unlike a game show, in real life the consequences of being in ignorance and unbelief from the Truth are never happy ones.  Jesus said. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” And again, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”   With Nicodemus at night, Jesus warned,

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. John 3:16-20

Refusing truth and the One who is The Truth has no happy consequences.  Throughout the Gospels, the scribes, priests and elders refused to believe Jesus.  They are paradigmatic of self-righteous unbelief.  An unbelief that believes only in its own actions and desires.  An unbelief that deifies self and defies the one true God.   An unbelief that justifies itself coram homo rather than trusting in grace to live coram Deo.  Time and time again they confront Jesus, try to trap him, and plot to destroy him.  

In Mark 11 as Jesus is publicly teaching in the Temple, they accost him and challenge his authority.  “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?”  In an unusual exchange, Jesus promises to answer if they first answer his question, “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.”

Jesus’ question and the leader’s unwillingness to answer was telling.  It revealed their unfitness as spiritual leaders.  It showed their lack of true spiritual authority.  But worst of all it betrayed the hardness of their hearts.  Rather than seeking truth for themselves they tried to contrive a consequence for him and ended up caught in their own trap. 

Without truth there are no happy consequences.  Unbelief confuses proper understanding of authority, is concerned only about the acceptance of men, not God, and leaves us in arrogant ignorance of our true condition.  Are you arguing with God about his authority?  Are you more concerned about the good opinions of others than the favor of God? Are you increasingly arrogantly ignorant of your spiritual condition?  There is a Truth that sets you free.  But apart from Him there are only unhappy consequences.

Join us as we examine Mark 11:27-33 and consider the consequences of rejecting Jesus.  We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

Copious stalks, abundant leaves, profusive flowers.  Spreading like wildfire.  Prolific to the point of being invasive, impossible to eradicate.   But where is the fruit?  Like the husbandman in Luke 13 we tended, nurtured, fertilized, pruned.  Yet year after year the hedge grew into thicket and consumed our curb appeal, yet not one goji berry ever appeared. 

According to WebMD,

The goji berry, also called the wolfberry, is a bright orange-red berry that comes from a shrub that’s native to China. In Asia, goji berries have been eaten for generations in the hope of living longer.

Over time, people have used goji berries to try to treat many common health problems like diabetes, high blood pressure, fever, and age-related eye problems. Goji berries, which some brand a “superfood,” are eaten raw, cooked, or dried (like raisins) and are used in herbal teas, juices, wines, and medicines.

The advertised benefits of these “super-berries” include mood stabilization, improved sleep and athletic performance, weight loss, higher antioxidant levels, and a boosted immune system.  Goji berries are a significant source of Vitamin C, Fiber, Iron and Vitamin A. And they are extremely expensive.

So, we decided to grow them ourselves.  Why pay for what will grow in your yard?  And grow they did.  The small starts we ordered exploded into hedge, then thicket.  We were confident that a bumper crop was right around the corner.  If they fruited with as much vigor as they grew, leafed and bloomed, we were sure that better sleep, weight loss, mood stabilization, and improved performance in the gym were imminent. 

And so, we waited and watched, watched and waited, and more than watchmen wait for the morning we waited some more.  But our goji plants were just that, plants.  They were all show and no berry.  Our google-based research quickly revealed that we were not alone in our fruitless frustration.   Eventually we decided to completely dig them out and start again with something else.  Yet they continue to come up and dominate our front flower garden.

Mark 11 tells us a strange story of a fruitless fig tree.  A story that has caused consternation for many believers because of Jesus unexpected response.   On his way to cleanse the Temple on the Monday morning of Passion Week, Jesus left Bethany and encountered a fig tree along the road.  Mark records that Jesus was hungry and that the fig tree was fully leafed out even though it was not yet the season for ripe figs.  Jesus searched the tree and found nothing.  Not even the early unripe figs, the paggim, often eaten green.   

And so, Jesus cursed the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”  By the following morning, Peter noticed that the tree had withered to the roots.  In between the curse and the fulfillment, Mark reports that Jesus cleansed the Temple and challenged the fruitless religious leadership in Israel.

What are we to make of Jesus’ actions toward the tree?  This is the last miracle in Mark and the only one that is destructive, apart from the incident with the 2000 pigs.  At first glance Jesus seems capricious, petty, and vindictive, so much so that the noted atheist Bertrand Russell cites this account as one principal reason for rejecting Jesus and Christianity. 

So how are we to understand Jesus’ actions here?  Is this a one-off for Jesus? An unhinged, angry and sinful moment in an otherwise self-controlled life?  Or is this a visual parable in the tradition of the ancient prophets?  Or possibly an object lesson to prepare the disciples for the cleansing of the Temple?  Or a warning to followers whose spiritual lives are filled with stalks and leaves but never bear any fruit?

Join us as we examine Mark 11:12-25, the cursing of the fig tree, and the cleaning of the Temple and consider Jesus’ warning about the grave dangers of a fruitless faith. We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

I grew up with them.  They seemed unremarkable.  Hard workers, who loved their wives, were regular at church, and often gathered outside the front doors of the sanctuary to finish that last cigarette before service began.  Their banter was lighthearted.  Laughter and opinions were copiously offered.  The aroma of Old Spice and Vitalis was never absent.  They were a band of brothers, bound by a time and place far removed from the peace of my childhood.

I had heard of some of those places.  Bataan, Coral Sea, Okinawa, Normandy.  Places that, when voiced, would silence laughter and quiet banter.  The old men of my childhood were the boys that fought some of the most devastating battles of the Twentieth Century.  Some endured the horrors of Japanese prison camps.  Others landed on French beaches, code-named ‘Utah’ and ‘Omaha’ to face the furor of Der Fuhrer.

The German strategy was simple: engage the massive Allied invasion force at the waterline and do not allow them to make it off the beach.   And many did not.  D-Day, June 6, 1944, was a pivotal day in modern history.  While not the end of WWII, it was certainly the turning point.  A day that demonstrated that Hitler’s days were numbered.   And his grip on Europe would be broken.  In less than a year, the Allies would be in Berlin and the malignant tyrant, whose name is even now synonymous with evil, would lie dead in a secret bunker.

On D-day, Eisenhower and the Allies threw down the gauntlet and landed on Hitler’s turf.  When the day was over, the battle still raged on.  But ultimate victory was assured.  It was the beginning of the end of the short-lived Thousand Year Reich.  And in Mark 11, with the account of what is often called “The Triumphal Entry” Jesus throws down the gauntlet.  Time and time again he has assaulted the kingdom of darkness and plundered the strong man’s house from Galilee to Jericho.  Now he has set his face like a flint toward Jerusalem and the ultimate conflict, toward betrayal, rejection and death.  But also, resurrection and victory.   In Colossians, Paul described it this way,

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.  Colossians 2:13-15

Throughout the Gospel of Mark Jesus silenced men and demons who tried to declare his identity.  Just as no man takes his life from him, but he lays it down and takes it up again, he is in complete control of revealing his identity as the greater Son of David, the Messiah, the Coming One, the Son of the Most High and the True King of Israel.  And as he enters Jerusalem one last time to fulfill all God’s redemptive promises, destroy all the works of the devil and defeat the last enemy, death, he shows us exactly what type of Savior is needed and provided.    

Is the Jesus you believe, one you have imagined who conforms to your expectations, felt-needs, or popular opinion?  Or is the Jesus you trust, the Jesus who revealed himself in the pages of the Bible as a sovereign, suffering, and reigning King who comes to deliver you out of all your sin? Join us as we examine Mark 11:1-11 and consider Jesus’ bold proclamation that he comes as the true King of Israel to defeat an enemy more deadly than Roman legions and tyrannical emperors. We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.