Gospel: Mark 13:1-8
When Mark’s Gospel was written, the world was chaos. Dated by scholar Raymond Brown to a roughly five-year period between 68 and 73 CE , this gospel was introduced to an audience living through the Great Jewish Revolt. The first of three wars in Judea between the Roman Empire and Zealot revolutionaries, the revolt began in 66 CE, 12 years into the reign of Nero.
When the passage we just heard was written, the destruction of the Temple and the wars and conflicts between nations predicted by Jesus were not future events to Mark’s audience. These were not simply predictions of things to come. For the people of Judea in the latter part of the first century, especially in the year 70, they were things that had already come to pass.
Chapter 13, the so-called “Little Apocalypse” – a disclosure of a future reality – wasn’t a revelation of their future. It was their present, already revealed.
Let’s pause for a moment and consider the Temple. The center of Jewish religious life, the version of the Temple known to the people at the time of the writing of Mark had just undergone a lengthy renovation started by Herod the Great. It was built of stones measuring 49 feet by eight feet and weighing between 420 and 600 tons – each. The Roman historian Josephus in his book War of the Jews described it this way:
[I]t was covered all over with plates of gold and great weight, and, at the first rising of the sun, reflected back a very fiery splendour and made those who forced themselves to look upon it to turn their eyes away, just as they would have done at the sun’s own rays. But this Temple appeared to strangers, when they were at a distance, like a mountain covered with snow; for, as to those parts of it that were not gilt, they were exceeding white.
As Jesus and four of his disciples stood before it, they would have seen a magnificent complex of structures that seemed indestructible – and yet Jesus had just told them a time would come when all they saw would be reduced to rubble. For Mark’s audience, that time came with the complete destruction of the Temple a little more than 30 years after the ascension of Jesus.
But Jesus doesn’t end there. He takes the four to the top of the Mount of Olives, located to the east of the Temple, where the view – and their perspective – are changed. That location carried great significance for the people of Israel. It was for instance a place associated with judgment during the time of the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah. It is also the place where for more than three millennia the bodies of Jews have been buried.
On that day, as Jesus sat facing the Temple, he was – in the words of Chad Myers – engaged in “a repudiation of the temple state.” Through his physical position and his words he was accomplishing two things. First, he was using the destruction of the Temple as a symbol of the coming judgment on Israel. Second, according to many theologians, “Mark is reorienting the early Christian community, decentering it in relation to the temple rituals and recentering it in relation to Jesus Christ.” It’s the intersection of two moments, one narrative when the disciples demonstrate skepticism about what Jesus has just said, and the other historical, reflecting the concerns of Mark’s community about the impending siege of the city by Rome.
Most significantly, Jesus is trying to demonstrate to his disciples that the perceived power and prominence of temples and kingdoms of the earth are but fleeting moments in time in relation to God’s coming kingdom and eternal plan. What the disciples see – what we see – is not the reality of what God has planned. As Cythia Rigby writes, “The great danger to Christ’s disciples is not that we will underread the signs of the times, but that we will overread or overreact to them and be ‘led astray.’”
As we listen to the words of Mark’s Gospel today, we too find ourselves in a time that, while not the same sort of chaos as the revolt in first-century Judea, is indeed divisive. In the first century, it was a nation split because of an outside force: the legions of Rome. Now, it’s a nation divided from within, by its own people – among them those who build their own versions of temples, those who lift up their own idols, those who intentionally misinterpret and misuse Scripture for their own purposes, those who build themselves up while tearing others down, those who would rather look ahead on the journey they’re taking rather than glance down at those being trampled along the way.
The things we’re experiencing and encountering, however, are not the conclusion of the story. They are not the end times. They are instead the beginning: the beginning of a new time yet to come, a new age in our history. I also feel it’s important to remember that what’s taking place is not the work of God or indeed due to the absence of God. Instead, what’s taking place is the work of humanity because of the absence of humanity.
At the end of it all, despite how discouraged or fearful I may be – and yes, even priests get discouraged and experience fear and uncertainty – I must hold to my faith that as has happened so many times in the past, the world will be transformed. My prayer for you is that despite the division and fear that may filter into your lives, you too will be able to cling to the faith that this time – this division – is transitory. It will pass. There will be a new life – a new birth. What do the birthpangs herald? In the words of Nancy Mikoski, simply this:
God is bringing about a new reality, a new creation in Jesus Christ. The Son of Man will come again in glory to heal the nations and transform the world. Temples built with human hands will be replaced by the presence of God in Jesus Christ.
Don’t ignore what’s going on, but also don’t overreact. Don’t dwell within those places where humanity is silent, but instead loudly demonstrate the best of humanity. Don’t be led astray by the temples and kingdoms and personalities of the world, but instead reorient yourselves – and through you, the world – to the Christ who loves us, who redeems us, and who in God will birth a new age.
Amen.