Mark 13:1-8
1 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him,
"Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" 2 Then
Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be
left here upon another; all will be thrown down." 3 When he was sitting on
the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked
him privately, 4 "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign
that all these things are about to be accomplished?" 5 Then Jesus began to
say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my
name and say, "I am he!' and they will lead many astray. 7 When you hear
of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the
end is still to come. 8 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.
Friday night, in a series of coordinated attacks,
terrorists (reportedly a part of the group referred to as ISIS) killed 129
people and injured many others across the city of Paris, France. That same
evening, back-to-back earthquakes shook the earth off the coast of Japan: the
first was a magnitude 7 quake, followed quickly by a 6.5 magnitude quake. There
were tsunami warnings issued for the coastal cities of Japan. The night before,
in Beirut, Lebanon, 43 people were killed and 239 were wounded by a suicide
bomber. In the Middle East, the Syrian Civil War rages on, a conflict that
began with the Arab Spring of 2011 and has given birth to terrorist groups like
ISIS (or ISIL); this war is also one of the leading causes of the European
Migrant Crisis, forcing thousands of people to seek asylum in countries across
Europe.
There have been countless other wars, battles, and
conflicts that have ravaged people groups across the globe in recent years,
like the civil war that took place in Sudan for twenty-two years (1983-2005)
that left two million people dead as a result of battle, famine, or disease,
while at least four million people were displaced during the war at least once.
In Gaza, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict continues, a struggle that has been
ongoing since 1948. Are these signs of the end times?
There have also
been enormous natural disasters in recent years, like the tsunami of 2004 that
struck in the Indian Ocean killing hundreds of thousands of people, Hurricane
Katrina in 2005, the earthquake that rocked Haiti in 2010, the tornadoes that
ripped through this part of the country in 2011, Superstorm Sandy in 2012, and
the many other hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, eruptions, and
storms that have caused enormous damage and taken so many lives all over the
world. This
year has seen a record drought out west, in California, causing local
governments to limit water usage, and local citizens (especially farmers) to
pray for a solution and an end to such a threatening lack of rain. Are these
signs of the end?
Then there are those other, naturally-occurring phenomena
that have taken place in recent years, events with names like “super moons,” or
“blood moons,” or “super blood moons,” comets that make an appearance once a
generation or so, constellations or planets that happen to line up with other
constellations or planets in the night sky. Are these signs that the end is
near?
Then there are all of those things that have happened
that cause unrest and discomfort for so many, those socio-political happenings
that cause some folks to pray that the end would come, things like the issuing
of social security numbers, barcodes on candy bars, rock-and-roll music, rap
music, boy-band music, Justin Bieber, the Great Recession, the legalization of
same-sex marriage, marijuana, gambling, and liquor sales on Sundays. Are all of
these things signs of the end of the age too?
What is it about us that makes us so fixated on all
things eschatological? Why is it that so many of us seem to devote all of our
religious energy on those things that have yet to take place, those final
things, those things that are supposed to point us towards the end times? It
seems to me that so many people are so infatuated with talking about and
looking for the end times that they honestly think they’re the first ones to
ever try to predict the end of the world! Yes, every generation there have been
those so-called preachers who stand in their pulpits and claim, “The Lord will
return in my lifetime!” and so far, every single one of them has wound up dead!
Really though, why are we so enamored by the end? It isn’t something new,
something that’s just come along in the last century or so. In fact, it seems
from this passage before us this morning, that right from the beginning, when Jesus
himself even hints at things concerning the end, the disciples’ ears perk up
and they begin to ask questions.
As the disciples left the temple, they were caught up in
its grandeur, in the polished marble, the glittering gold, the overwhelming
size and importance of the place, and so they commented to Jesus, “what
large stones and what large buildings!" They sound like children
on their first trip to the hospital, having just ridden the elevator to the
fifteenth floor. The temple at that time truly was a site to behold, and for
the Jews who worshipped there, it was a wonderful testimony to the God they
served and the religion to which they belonged. The disciples (good Jews that
they were) marveled at the magnificent structure, a building that looked as if
it would stand in the center of that holy city forever, but Jesus says to them
(as he too is leaving the temple complex), "Do you see these great buildings? Not
one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."
That’s a pretty big statement to make! This is before the
days of easily used explosives, before cranes equipped with wrecking balls, so
to say such an enormous structure would be razed to the ground, without a
single stone stacked on top of another, is, crazy talk, especially when one
considers that this is the house of God! But the disciples aren’t really
surprised by Jesus’ predictions, after all, the temple had been destroyed once
before, some five or six centuries before by the Babylonians, so the
practicality of the temple’s destruction was not beyond their imagination.
However, what does interest them, is when
all of this is going to take place: "Tell us, when will this be, and what
will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?"
When is this going to happen, Jesus? We want to know, so we can be prepared, so
we can mark it on our calendars on the refrigerator, set reminders on our
smartphones, cancel our Netflix subscriptions, and have our bags packed, our
guns loaded, and our swords sharpened. When is it going to happen?! What should
we look for? How will we know?
That’s what the
disciples ask…that’s what we ask. But then Jesus answers: "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.”
Right off the bat, Jesus gives them a warning: “Don’t let anyone fool you. Many
will come saying “I am (he)” and they will fool a lot of folks.” I think
another way of hearing what Jesus said may be: “Don’t be fooled, because there
will be a lot of people coming around saying they have it all figured out, and
they’ll fool others.” I suppose that’s why I’m more than just a little hesitant
when I hear some preachers say they know
what the end will look like, or when they say they can predict the day it will
happen, or what events will take place leading up to the end. I often wonder
how much time and energy they spent trying to pinpoint a day in the future when
there are things to be done today in the present?
Now, after his
warning, Jesus gives them a list of signs, right? “wars and rumors of
wars…nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…
earthquakes…famines” All of these things sound awful and terrible: wars and the
terrible conflict that they bring, the violence, bloodshed, death, and
destruction, even if the result of war is compromise, liberation, or justice,
the price that is paid is always a high one; when nations and kingdoms rise up
against each other, it is rarely for the sake of justice, but too often for the
sake of financial gain or the pursuit of imperial conquest; and anyone who has
watched the news in recent years ought to know the kind of devastation that can
be caused by earthquakes and the heartbreaking images of famine. But these are
all given as signs, signs of what to expect, signs of what will lead up to the
end, right? So when we see these things, does that mean the end is at hand?
Does it mean we should brace ourselves for what’s coming? When we witness these
signs, should we stop what we’re doing and prepare ourselves for some terrible,
destructive ending? Or is there more to all of it?
It’s that last
sentence of our text this morning that ought to give us some guidance: “This
is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” These signs, these things you
will witness, these are only the beginning, the beginning of that which will
give birth to the kingdom of God in its fullness, the kingdom “on earth as it
is in heaven.” But you see, that’s the problem with only looking for the
signs—we fail to be about the work we’ve actually been called to do, the work
of bringing God’s kingdom to reality.
Sadly, too many Christians are like those first disciples in this text:
they only get excited about the end. They’re only interested in how things will
go down once the signs they’ve been looking for take place. Too many Christians
seem to have a vested interest in watching the world get worse rather than
striving to make it better—as Christ has called us to do! It seems that there
are a number of believers who are betting all their chips on the end happening
in their lifetimes, so they disregard the health of our planet; they cast off
the importance of providing long-term solutions to present problems; they
ignore those who are most vulnerable in our world, those who are victims of
injustice, violence, and hatred and I’ve even heard them say “Well, the end is
coming soon, so they won’t have to suffer too long!”
Jesus has not called us to be sign-seekers! Christ has not died so we may
only look forward to an end! The Lord calls us to be people who live everyday
knowing that it just might be the end for someone else if we don’t act! Christ
calls us to be people who look for signs of destruction, signs of oppression,
signs of evil, signs of sin now—not
so we can predict what’s coming, but so we may act to rid the world of those
things today, so that we may
be agents of God’s coming kingdom, so that we may act as midwives, helping to
ease the birth pangs until the kingdom is born whole and complete into this
world. Amen.
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