Was Jesus 'hangry'?

 

About this time last year, I was craving some hot wings.  My favorite go-to restaurant was “The Graduate”, a pizza parlor-type establishment that my wife and I had been frequenting for take-out orders since it opened in the early 70’s.  Because of the pandemic, The Graduate had closed temporarily.  So the minute I heard that they had opened back up for take-out, I was on the phone ordering my wings!  Or so I thought.  They informed me that they would be serving their full menu with only one exception—wings!  I was not just disappointed—I was ticked off!  The term for that is “hangry”. 

I love those unique and interesting stories in the New Testament that show Jesus’ human nature in ways I relate to, like the one in Mark’s gospel (Mark 11:11-26), where He is hungry, can’t get anything to eat, and then He drives the moneychangers out of the temple in righteous anger; talk about “hangry”!  Of course, I say that tongue-in-cheek.  The two incidents were both 'teaching moments' for the Apostles, but I appreciate that the passage at least shows that Jesus got both hungry and angry, just like all of us!

The next day as they were leaving Bethany he (Jesus) was hungry.  Seeing from a distance a fig tree in leaf, he went over to see if he could find anything on it.  When he reached it he found nothing but leaves; it was not the time for figs.  And he said to it in reply, “May no one ever eat of your fruit again!” And his disciples heard it. (Mark 11:12–14)

As a man, He was hungry. But this story tells us much more than the simple fact that Jesus was hungry. He would have known that it wasn’t the season for figs to grow, but He decided to look for a fig anyway. And when He found none, He cursed the fig tree and later, the tree withered and died.  This was a symbolic action for the sake of His disciples, in that His disciples heard Him curse the tree and later saw that the tree had withered.

Saint Bede, an early Church Father, tells us that this action of Jesus had an allegorical purpose.  The tree is symbolic of the many people Jesus encountered, and continues to encounter today, who failed to bear good fruit in their lives.  They were the Pharisees and others who practiced their faith only in an external way.  The leaves were symbolic of the externals of the faith, and the lack of fruit was a symbol of the missing interior fruit of holiness and good works.  This lesson tells us that Jesus is very demanding. He’s determined to discover good fruit in our lives. He wants us to become authentically holy.  And when He finds only the externals, He’ll rebuke us in love, taking even the externals away.

Being a Christian is not something that’s exclusively between us and God.  Being a Christian requires that we be so given over to the service of God and others that God is able to do incredible things through us.  The Christian faith must produce good fruit in our life and through us in the lives of others.  And it must do so in an abundant way.

If we commit ourselves to an abundance of authentic and manifest holiness, our Lord’s hunger will be satiated.