November 18, 2012
by James McCrea
Mark 13:1-8
- Long, long ago, during one of our congregation’s first Road Rallys, we had an unexpected situation. Things went well initially. I handed out all the clues at the church and then Delight and I drove down to the restaurant to greet everyone as they arrived. Only one of the cars didn’t arrive. We kept looking for them as the rest of the group had dinner, but they didn’t show. We went over the answers to the questions, but they didn’t show. We handed out the prizes and they still didn’t show.
No one in that last car had a cell phone and neither did we. So we could do nothing but worry. Meanwhile the rest of the Road Rally group began to break up and, after everyone else left, we didn’t know what else to do, so we headed out for our car.
As soon as we got outside, I saw what I thought was the missing car zipping past the entrance to the restaurant. So we jumped in our car and tracked them down. It seems that they had turned right by Grace Episcopal Church when they should have gone left.
In other words, they went off course one block from the beginning of the Rally. But they didn’t let that stop them. They were somehow able to match up the clues with things they saw along the road, even when those connections existed only in their minds. It was actually a very impressive display of imagination, even if it was totally wrong.
Who could ever forget the best-selling book of 1970 — The Late, Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey — which explained that the strange symbolism in the book of Revelation was really a description of a battle at the end of time between the USA and the Soviet Union.
Lindsey assumed that the founding of the modern nation of Israel was a signal of the second coming, so he created a detailed description of the climatic battle involving helicopters and tanks. And it all ended with a massive victory for the USA — and for God, of course.
Clearly his vision spoke to the patriotic sensibilities of large numbers of people in that cold war era. But there was just one minor problem with his interpretation: none of it was actually in the Bible. Every bit of it came out of Lindsey’s overly-active imagination.
The 13th chapter of Mark, of which our gospel lesson is just the beginning, has been subjected to variety of similar interpretations over the years — interpretations which say far more about the imagination of the person who developed it than it does about Jesus’ actual words. So let’s put that aside and see what Jesus is really telling us.
Mark begins this particular passage with an innocent remark by one of the disciples who was overcome by the beauty of the Temple in Jerusalem. As one author describes it, “The temple was a magnificent building. Some of its huge blocks of white or green marble were 67 feet long, nine feet wide and seven feet high. The eastern front and side walls were covered with gold plate, flashing in the sun. The rest was gleaming white, looking from a distance like a mountain of snow. Memorials had been placed there by great and powerful rulers of the earth. The disciples saw its glitter; Jesus saw its destiny.”
Jesus replied to that disciple’s comment with a prophecy about the temple's destruction — a prophecy that would come true some 40 years later during a Jewish revolt against Rome that was violently put down in the years 68-70 A.D. The Roman victory was so complete that both of the commanders involved — first Vespasian and then his son Titus — built powerful military reputations that would eventually lead them to become emperor.
But seen from the viewpoint of the Jews and Christians living in Israel at the time, that Roman victory led to a massive crisis in faith. The Temple, which had served as the center of worship and sacrifice, was gone. The building had been a symbol of God's presence with the people and it was there that their faith was focused.
Yet in the terrifying aftermath of the Roman revenge, both the Jewish and the Christian people were able to grow beyond their roots by realizing that God isn't limited by any specific building or even by any pattern of worship. Instead, God chooses to make his home with his people wherever they may be.
Out of the pain of conquest, the Jews and Christians were able to refine an old theology which saw God's people as the living stones of the new temple, and that understanding helped propel both groups beyond the middle eastern cradle of their faith.
Jesus’ warning about the destruction of the Temple served to help prepare his followers to understand the hard times ahead. He wanted them to know that even though the religious world they knew was about to end, it was simply the birth pangs of a new faith.
And that’s exactly where so many people go off the rails on passages like this. In talking about the entire 13th chapter of Mark, Don Hoffman points out, “Jesus says, look, there have always been wars, and there will always be wars. There have always been natural disasters: earthquakes, famines, hurricanes; and there will always be disasters. And there will always be nuts who point to these events and say, ‘It’s a sign! It’s a sign! The end is near!’ It isn’t a sign, and the end isn’t near. If you want a way to think about these events, think of them as the beginning of labor pains.
“[…] Labor pains are not about something ending. They are about something starting. […] I can’t believe how many people over the last 2000 years got confused about something so simple. Jesus is not predicting the end. Jesus is predicting the beginning.
“Just look at verse 30: ‘Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.’ It’s going to happen during that generation. […] Labor pains suggest a baby; what is the baby that’s about to be born?
“You could say it’s the beginning of the gospel. In fact […] that’s exactly how Mark starts his book: ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.’ Ah!... Or you could say it’s the beginning of the kingdom of God. Or you could say it’s the start of the church. Or the beginning of the salvation of the world. However you want to say this, it is positive news, it is Good News; and of course Good News is what the word ‘gospel’ means.”
Some people would object to this interpretation because of what comes later in the chapter. Specifically these words:
“But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory.” Clearly that sounds like an end of the world sort of thing.
But the truth is that it isn’t. Instead, those images were common ways to describe major changes in history — much like we might say that some event is “earth-shattering” without actually meaning that our planet will somehow be rattled to pieces. As for Christ coming on the clouds of heaven, the Old Testament book of Daniel shows that that image was intended to describe the Messiah ascending to heaven to receive all power and authority from God.
The point of all this is simply this: that God was in the process of bringing major changes to the world through the work of Jesus. And, on a more personal level, even our most scariest and most painful moments, God will be working to transform them into a birth of hope. So that when illness or grief strikes, when layoffs occur or friends betray us, God will transform our pain into a new beginning.
Chris Udy once wrote, “I was talking to someone […] who told me about an article he’d read on revival. The article said — usually when people talk about and pray for revival, they really mean resuscitation — they want God to pick up the broken and dying pieces of the church and breathe life into them again. They want the church back the way it was, when it was young and strong and comfortable. But that’s not the way God works.
“God doesn’t work by resuscitation — God’s methods are redemption and resurrection — and for both redemption and resurrection to take place, something must first be lost, or die.
“This [nation] has been through a difficult time. […] Some of the wars we thought were won have flared into conflict again. People who count on our encouragement and support are desperate for our help. The earth itself is in distress, and all these things have come at a time when our resources and energy seem stretched to breaking point.
“Some people look at this and say — it’s the beginning of the end. The Church is dying, the nation’s disintegrating, the world is sick, and God is silent.
“Little messiahs keep popping up with promises of security and simple solutions to complicated issues — but their usual advice is to wind things back to the time before the problems appeared — their gospel is repetitive [...] and reactionary.
“Their prayer is for resuscitation — pumping up some tired and broken vision to run a few steps more, before it finally collapses with people clinging to its ruins going to the wall in grief.
“But that’s not the way God works.
“God’s way is redemption and resurrection. His intention is a new creation, and the events some see as signs of the end are really labor pains — the birth-pangs of a new heaven, and a new earth.”
That’s what we can celebrate as Christians this Thanksgiving: God’s gift to us of hope in all circumstances. It’s for that reason that we give our gifts to God’s work — to build a better future for all people. And it’s for that reason that we gather to worship — to praise God for his gifts, to gain strength for our trials and to be empowered to share the good news “that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Amen.
(Comments to Jim at :jmfpc@sbcglobal.net.)