Mark 11 and Matthew 21 both give accounts of Jesus coming upon a fig tree while hungry. Based on its appearance from a distance it should have been full of figs, but there were none. He cursed the fig tree and the next day it was withered away.
I have read two divergent sets of thought about this incident.
One was in Michel, Michel, a novel by Robert Lewis. A young Jewish boy is raised by a Catholic French woman during the Holocaust, and shortly after his baptism as Catholic an aunt steps forward who wants to take him to Israel. The novel deals with the custody battled and the stress of the religious differences.
The aunt's lawyer is a Jewish man with some unique ideas about Jesus who has named his son Judas. He thought that Jesus was letting the power go to his head, that destroying the tree was a sign of petulance, and that's why Judas betrayed him, though he felt guilty later. While not accepting the divinity of Jesus, the lawyer apparently did believe in the miracles (and I don't remember if there was any explanation of that).
In Jesus the Christ, by James Talmage, there is a very different explanation. He had shown his power to heal, to multiply food, to exert power over the elements by calming a storm and walking on water, and to raise the dead. He also had power to destroy, and to demonstrate that he chose a tree that was symbolic of hypocrisy with its show of leaves without fruit.
https://www.lds.org/manual/jesus-the-christ/chapter-30?lang=eng
Although Talmage does not mention it, I can't help but wonder if the tree was diseased; something was wrong with it. Regardless, for the power that Jesus had available to him, the fig tree is a fairly merciful use.
One thing that is interesting to me is that in both accounts, between the cursing of the fig tree and the discovery of the results they tell of the cleansing of the temple, and they both contain this line.
Matthew 21:12
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
Mark 11:15
And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves;
The doves were intended for sacrifice, and they were the substitute for poor people, but even these inexpensive birds marked for death were taken into consideration. He would not hurt them or frighten them by overturning their cages or the tables they rested on.
I believe on my first reading - many years ago - I did feel sorry for the fig tree, because I care about plants and my sympathy is stirred pretty easily. It never occurred to me that it could be petulance, because I at least trusted him enough for that. He was too good for that. (And it was years before I noticed the part about the doves.)
There are many different possible views to have on the things that we read about in the Gospels. How we come to the material influences what we will get from it. There can be a benefit in questioning, because that can lead us to find deeper meanings and reasoning, but an attitude of scorn will do no good either.
Related posts:
http://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2017/05/trying-to-be-like-jesus-inspiring.html
http://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2017/07/trying-to-be-like-jesus-missing-point.html
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