Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit

Great care has been taken by the owner of the vineyard to plant a fig tree that would bear fruit; not only has he planted it in a vineyard, a place where there is likely to be fertile soil and much care, but also he causes it to be tended by a gardener and he himself comes to it each year, looking for fruit. But after three years, the expected time given for strong growth and abundance of fruit, he finds none. His patience is now at an end. He may as well plant something else. The fig tree must be cut down and thrown out. The gardener seems quite overcome at the thought. He has no doubt done much to cultivate this fig tree. He pleads with the owner to allow him to give it one more year. During this year he will once more tend the tree, loosening the soil, applying a fertilizer and giving the fig tree every chance to produce figs. ‘If’, says he,‘There is nothing at the end of the year, then the time will have come to cut it down’.

The parable illustrates the patience of God with His earthly people, Israel. The fig tree usually speaks of Israel. God had shown great patience with them, providing everything they needed to bring forth fruit for His pleasure. Yet they had failed to do so. The parable would also remind His hearers, and us too, that although God is supremely patient, there is a limit to that patience. The axe may yet fall on the unfruitful tree. Though God may cut off instantly some sinners, as the people thought He had done when the tower fell on them, this was not because they were particularly sinful sinners. God showed patience to others who had not been so suddenly taken from this world to the next, but continued refusal to repent would bring the judgement of God on individuals and on a nation.

‘This year also’. How often God has given us one more year to put things right, to bring forth the fruit He has longed to see in our hearts and lives! And will it be this year also that his patience is extended to us? ‘But if not’. Ah! But if not! What if this is the last year He gives us, the last year when He cultivates our dry roots, tends them, fertilizes them with His goodness, His longsuffering. ‘Nothing but leaves?’ Please God, let it not be so!