Mark 11:14

Jesus saw an opportunity to teach His disciples an important truth using this tree as an object lesson. As a prophet Jesus performed a symbolic act (cf. Isaiah 20:1-6; Jeremiah 13:1-11; Jeremiah 19:1-13; Ezekiel 4:1-15). He cursed the tree to teach them the lesson, not because it failed to produce fruit. The tree was a good illustration of the large unbelieving element within the nation of Israel. God had looked to that generation of Israelites for spiritual fruit, as Jesus had hoped to find physical fruit on the fig tree (cf. Jeremiah 8:13; Hosea 9:10; Micah 7:1; Nahum 3:12; Zechariah 10:2). Israel’s outward display of religious vitality was impressive, like the leaves on the tree, but it bore no spiritual fruit of righteousness. It was hypocritical (Mark 7:6; Mark 11:15-19; Mark 11:27; Mark 12:40).

"Jesus was on the eve of spiritual conflict with a nation whose prime and patent fault was hypocrisy or false pretense, and here he finds a tree guilty of the same thing. It gives him his opportunity, without hurting anybody, to sit in judgment on the fault." [Note: Gould, pp. 211-12.]

"In Mark’s story world, hypocrisy exists where there is a discrepancy between appearance and underlying truth." [Note: Kingsbury, p. 15.]

This is the only destructive miracle that the Gospel writers attributed to Jesus, and it involved a tree. The healing of the Gadaran demoniac resulted in the destruction of pigs (Mark 5:13), but that miracle itself was positive in that it healed the man.