My friend Ron thumps watermelons at Randalls. He also writes beautiful hymns, when he is not bagging groceries. He says there is an art to picking a perfectly ripe watermelon. I have not mastered it. For that matter, I struggle to pick avocadoes, too. I either get them before they are ripe, or they turn brown a minute after I buy them. So what would I know about figs?
Jeremiah saw two baskets full of figs. One was filled with good figs and the other with figs so bad they were inedible. God said the good figs were the exiles who had been taken away to Babylon. He promised to watch over them and to give them hearts to know him. But the people of Judah who remained in the land were like the bad figs. They had not yet experienced the consequences of their sin, but judgment was coming. God would judge the wicked king Zedekiah and his officials, wherever they went.
Wait. Isn’t this backwards? We may think the “good figs” are the people who never seem to make a mistake. They act very pious. But it is just an act. They are the bad figs. But the people who have sinned and repent as they face the consequences are the good figs. To this day, God’s kindness leads us to repentance. John wrote, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves. But if we confess our sins to him, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).
