As he 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.”
Mark 13:1-8
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.
My sermon from the 26th Sunday after Pentecost (November 17, 2024) on Mark 13:1-8.
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There are many different ways we read the Bible. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s one way of paying attention to these sacred words that matter more to us than any other. We, for example, might imagine this library of books as a repository of holy words we use to gain eternal life. Or we might consider the Bible as a rulebook that defines what is good and what is not. Maybe, to us, the Bible is a devotion inviting us into a deeper relationship with our God. Or we might treat God’s story as a kind of answer book for questions we can’t easily put into words. The ways we read scripture shape how we use the Bible in our everyday lives. And I’ll admit that, for me, how I read the Bible is by, first, sitting with those who experienced these events – or heard these words – for the very first time. That’s why my sermons often invite us to sit alongside Peter, John, Mary Magdalene, Salome, and all the unnamed people in the crowd as they experienced what it was like for the kingdom of God to come near. I find that a lot of spiritual fruit can be discovered when we hold all the wonder, confusion, doubt, excitement, sorry, and joy that was very real whenever Jesus preached, taught, or made a difference in someone’s life. Usually, when I approach today’s reading from the gospel according to Mark, I invite us to linger over how over-the-top this moment in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem must have been for Jesus’ friends. In Jesus’ day, the place where God promised to be was one of the largest religious complexes in the world. King Herod had, decades before, initiated a renovation project that doubled its size. The Temple was covered with large columns, gigantic stones, expansive courtyards, and colorful murals meant to reflect the glory and majesty of God. The spiritual energy, awe, and wonder of the physical space must have been overwhelming for this rag-tag group of disciples who mostly came from small villages around the Sea of Galilee. Jesus and his friends were surrounded by a magnificent place filled with pilgrims who traveled from all over the Mediterranean Sea to celebrate the Passover with all of God’s people. And it was then, among all the physical and spiritual signs of power and strength when Jesus proclaimed it would all come tumbling down. The weirdness of that moment is something we should sit with and ponder. But we can also choose to sit with those who – forty years later – were the first to hear Mark’s version of Jesus’ life and realized they were living on the other side when all those big stones were rubble on the ground.
Now Mark’s version of Jesus’ life didn’t appear during – or immediately after – Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. The book that eventually became part of our Bible didn’t show up until around 35-40 years after the Cross. Before the year 70 or so, Jesus’ story was primarily shared through people with first-person accounts of Jesus or who knew people who knew Jesus. The small Christian communities scattered throughout the Mediterranean shared letters, sermons, oral testimony, and a small collection of writings on scrolls that were mostly just a list of things Jesus said. But as the initial generation of Jesus’ disciples began to pass away, the community decided they needed a more orderly narrative of what Jesus’ story was all about. Those putting together these different sources into the gospels had a slightly different perspective than the first disciples since they knew how Jesus’ story turned out. Yet they also had lived through a variety of experiences that made Jesus’ words seem too real. In the year 66, Jewish groups around the Sea of Galilee began an armed revolution against Roman rule. The movement quickly spread throughout the region and they achieved some initial success. Rome, though, refused to walk away and mobilized their military might to confine the revolutionaries in a series of isolated fortifications and the city of Jerusalem itself. After nearly four years of armed struggle, Jerusalem was finally put under siege. Those within its walls, though, began to fight among themselves. The war became a kind of civil war that hastened the collapse of the city. The Romans burned the city, sold the survivors into slavery, and paraded some of the holiest relics from within the Temple through the streets of Rome itself. The disciples, when they first heard Jesus speak, couldn’t imagine how the sacred place would ever be torn down. And yet those who first heard Mark’s version of Jesus’ life knew what it was like to live on the other side of whatever we consciously – or unconsciously – put our trust in.
Now the experience of finding ourselves on the other side of the end is something some of us know too well. We, for example, might not have realized how much our identity was defined by our job until we were told we were no longer needed. There might be a medical diagnosis that interrupted, permanently, the promises we made to ourselves, our loved ones, and the future we expected to find. And when things grew hard, difficult, confusing, or made us feel like we’re left behind – we might chase after whatever strength and power that make us feel as if we’re on the so-called “winning” side. It’s not easy living in the world after what we’ve built comes to an end. And we might not always have the mental, emotional, or spiritual tools to process the role we played in what happened to us and to our world. We try, as best we can, to hold onto whatever gives us hope. But hope isn’t always easy to see when the foundation we built our future on comes completely undone. Jesus’ words, though, weren’t only for the disciples who first heard him speak inside the Temple. He wasn’t merely trying to make a prediction that would later reveal how true his words always were. Jesus was, I think, pointing to what we can always trust in whenever hope feels far away. When we put our trust into a future that resembles what the world imagines is great and strong, we miss noticing the future God has already entrusted you with. When God claimed you as God’s own through baptism, you were brought into God’s future. You were given a promise that you were part of what God is doing in the world. That promise, though, does not mean life won’t be full of all kinds of joys, sorrow, happiness and tears. Nor does it absolve us of the responsibility to follow God’s call to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. Rather, it was a promise that instead of putting our trust in what we build or grab, we can always trust the future we have with our God. Life has a habit of undoing the pillars we build our lives on. Our own strength, intelligence, passion, and even our sense of self will often waver because being human can be very hard. Yet God promises that we are worth more than what we’ve done; worth more than what has been done to us; and worth more than all the ways we are led astray by false promises of might, comfort, greatness, and power over those around us. Our future will never be as secure as we want it to be. But when we lean onto the eternal commitment God has already made to each of us, we get to discover how God’s future is already being lived out today. Rather than assuming that what comes next depends on how imperfect, fragile, and sinful we are; we can trust that we have a God who, through the Cross, has already shown how the future we try to build has already been rewritten by the One who promises to be with us – forever.
Amen.