Scripture Mark 13:1-8 (NRSVUE)
As [Jesus] came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.
Sermon
The church year is coming to an end, and that means Jesus is talking about the end. A lot. The end of each church year has Jesus in a different mode, if you will. That’s because Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem, he knows that his mission on earth is nearly over, and he speaks to his disciples with a sense of urgency. He’s not on his death bed—not exactly—but he knows that death is coming for him soon. He is contemplating the end of his earthly life, so he has things to tell his followers before his chance to tell them is gone. Some of these things are difficult to hear.
Take the temple. Almost the first thing Jesus does when he enters Jerusalem is a shocking act of protest—he “cleanses” the temple. He watches money changers in action—those people who exchange Roman currency, which is considered unclean, for temple currency, which can be used to purchase animals and birds for offerings. He then proceeds to flip over their tables to chase both buyers and sellers out of the building. He quotes Isaiah and Jeremiah, saying, “Is it not written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?
But you have made it a den of robbers.” (Mark 11:17)
Then, Jesus spends at least two days teaching in the temple, the very place he symbolically destroyed by virtue of his protest. He still has things he wants to share with the people who gather there, too. Last week we watched as he criticized the temple leadership for “devouring widows’ houses,” calling them out as bad, self-interested leaders, who cared only for enriching themselves, and not for the people supposedly under their care.
Which brings us to today’s passage. Just a moment after Jesus has lamented the widow dropping her last two tiny coins into the temple treasury, one of the disciples—who shall remain nameless—says something that sounds like he’s trying to break an awkward silence. Failing to read the room, he blurts out something along the lines of, “Look at the big stones! Wow! The temple, am I right?” Jesus’ response must take the breath out of everyone within earshot: “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
This is the beginning of an entire chapter where we have what you might call Jesus the prophet. He reveals to his followers events that will take place in the future. Scholars call this passage, “The Little Apocalypse.” In modern usage, we think of “apocalypse” as a disaster, even the literal end of the world, but the word’s original meaning is “revealing,” or “unveiling.” That is what Jesus is doing now.
When we talk about prophecy, it’s always good to remember: Prophets are truth-tellers. They describe what they see now, and because they can see these things clearly, they can usually describe what will happen as a result. Jesus believes the temple will crumble because it is not living into its purpose: A house of prayer for all people. He sees it as corrupt and harmful to the very people who should be under its care. Eventually the temple is destroyed as the result of an uprising against Rome that begins in the year 66 CE. Whatever its cause or causes, we have one of the great calamities of Jewish history: the temple, the place believed to be God’s literal dwelling on earth, is no more. It’s the end.
Jesus takes his disciples to sit down on the Mount of Olives, where they still have a view of the temple, but can talk more privately. When will all this happen? They ask. Jesus doesn’t answer that question. What he does say is that there will be false prophets—people will lie—some will claim to be Jesus, and it’s important that his followers are not led astray. Jesus also describes frightening and troubling events. There will be wars and rumors of wars. Nations will rise up against one another. There will be earthquakes. And there will be famines.
And then Jesus says something odd. After telling his disciples that all these things will happen, and encouraging them not to be alarmed, he says, “This is just the beginning of the birth pangs.” Jesus has described a lot of things—and will go on in this chapter to describe a lot more things—that really do sound like the end of everything, doom. But he likens it to a woman giving birth.
At the same time, Jesus does reference “the end” in our reading. All this “must take place,” he says, “but the end is still to come.”
So what is it? Is it the beginning—is it a birth? Or is it the end?
That depends on what we are talking about.
If Jesus is talking about the end of the uneasy peace between Jews and the Roman Empire, then yes. Absolutely. He is talking about the end. In fact, everything he says in chapter 13 is seen by some folks as having been fulfilled through the Jewish uprising and Rome’s ferocious and brutal response. Even the return of the Son of Man—for, of course, Jesus rises from the dead in chapter 16.
Of course, that wasn’t truly the end for the Jewish people. They rose again. They turned from their ceremonies of sacrificial offerings to the word of scripture and developed an incredibly deep and sophisticated tradition of debate, analysis, and law that continues to be honored to this day.
But is that what Jesus is talking about?
Is Jesus talking about the end of our planet being habitable by human beings because of natural or human-made disaster?
Is he talking about the expiration date of our friendly star the sun, which would also mean the expiration date of the earth itself, billions of years from now?
Or is he talking about the thing we are used to calling an apocalypse? The end of all things, aka Judgement Day?
There are certainly scholars and churches that adhere to that last one being the true nature of Jesus’ teaching in Mark chapter 13. So let’s explore that, just for a bit.
Our inevitable question is the same as Jesus’ disciples: When will this be? And the sub-question, how will we know? The New Testament suggests in several places that the people who Jesus walked the earth with would be alive when the end of all things came. (If that’s what Jesus meant, he was wrong, but that’s not necessarily what he meant.) We can certainly look at this passage and say, Hmmmmm… sounds like 2024! The wars and rumors of wars. The nations rising up against one another. The earthquakes. The pandemic that hasn’t really gone away at all. The culture of falsehood and misinformation that plagues, not only our nation, but nations all around the world.
But here’s the rub. It is said, and I do believe it, that every generation has believed it would be the last. The anxiety generated by war, politics, economic upheaval, pandemics, cultural changes… all these can convince us that this must be the end. So here’s my question to us all. What if we became convinced that it was the end? What exactly would we do?
In the fall of 2001, I was living in New York City half the time, because it was my second year in seminary. In the weeks and months after the 9-11 attacks, there was lots of speculation about what other targets might be in the sites of America’s enemies, and there was lots of urgency about reporting suspicious activity.
At the same time, there was a great tenderness in the city. As we stood on the subway platforms, sat in the buses, people made eye contact—for the first and last time in my experience, in those several months, New Yorkers made eye contact with one another. People looked at one another as if to say, We’ll be ok. We’re in this together.
One afternoon I was heading back to campus from Beth Israel Hospital where I was a student chaplain, and it was rush hour. The train I was on stopped between stations. That in itself wasn’t unusual. But this stop was long. Minutes went by—at about the 5 minute mark, everyone quieted down. There was no news over the loudspeaker from the engineer, so we had no idea what was going on. It occurred to me, Oh my gosh, what if this is it? What if someone did something to stop the running of the trains so that they could… you know…And as I stood there, I began to pray. Well, if this is it, God, I ask you to let me be brave and let me be helpful. And I just kind of kept repeating that prayer to myself—let me be kind, let me be helpful—until the train, of course, got moving again—around minute 12.
And, you know, that’s not the worst exercise. What would you do if it occurred to you, this is the end—or tomorrow, or soon? Who would you want to call? Who would you want to make sure was not alone? Who would you try to help? What would you pray?
We, none of us, know when and where and how we will face our end. Life is short and unpredictable. What if, instead of trying to suss out exactly when and where and how God will call us home, we just put all our focus on loving those whom God causes to cross our paths right now? What if we prayed each day as if it were our last, asking God to help us to be the people God created us to be? What if we followed the advice of the beautiful Methodist-inspired benediction:
Do all the good you can,
by all the means you can,
in all the ways you can,
in all the places you can,
at all the times you can,
to all the people you can,
as long as ever you can.
…and left the rest of it in God’s hands.
Thanks be to God. Amen.