Just the Beginning (November 17, 2024)
Daniel 12:1-3; Psalm 16; Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8
Jesus said to his disciples, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; it will all be torn down. There will be wars and rumors of wars, there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is just the beginning of the birth pangs.”
Well, that’s hopeful, isn’t it? I hope that I can convince you this morning that in fact, these are indeed words that are fully of hope for us.
This is the last Sunday of our year reading through the text of Mark’s gospel. And one of the great themes of Mark’s gospel we have seen over and over again during the last year is that being a disciple of Jesus is hard. Again and again Jesus acts in some way, and immediately his disciples don’t understand – because being a disciple of Jesus is hard. And Jesus has to help them to see.
At the end of the gospel, Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem, and has been teaching in the Temple. As we saw last Sunday, Jesus was highly critical of the Temple leadership, who had become corrupt, who were working with the Roman occupiers, who had placed heavy burdens on the people. And so Jesus leaves the Temple and heads over to the Mount of Olives.
This move by Jesus might have reminded his disciples of a vision that the prophet Ezekiel had at the time the first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. Ezekiel, who was a priest of the Temple who had already been sent into exile, had a vision of the presence of God leaving God’s home in the Temple and alighting on the Mount of Olives, opposite the Temple. So Jesus was perhaps being a bit dramatic in abandoning the Temple for the last time and heading for the Mount of Olives.
But if Jesus was trying to be poetic and allusive, the symbolism of his action was lost on his disciples. As they are walking out of the Temple, the disciples look up at the majestic building and marvel at its size and glory. And the Temple – the second Temple, as it was in the time of Jesus – was in fact one of the great wonders of the ancient world. A Jewish writer a generation after Jesus, writing for a Roman audience, described the Temple like this:
“Now the outward face of the temple in its front wanted nothing that was likely to surprise either men's minds or their eyes: for it was covered all over with plates of gold of 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…. [Josephus, Jewish War, V, v, 6].”
Many people have a similar experience the first time they visit Washington, D.C. Those of us who have lived in this area for a long time perhaps are used to it, but when you stand in the Rotunda of the Capitol, or in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial, it’s an awesome experience – and it’s designed to be. So it’s completely understandable that the disciples of Jesus, who are from the hinterlands of Galilee, people from the country who spoke with what was considered a hillbilly accent, it’s understandable that they would find the Temple beautiful, inspiring, awesome. And perhaps they expected Jesus to say, “Yes, isn’t it amazing? The Kingdom of God is like this Temple – God’s presence here among us, God’s house here in our midst, built on a solid foundation, built for eternity.”
Instead, Jesus says to them, “You find this building impressive? The day is coming when not one stone will be left upon another, it will all be thrown down.” And that must have shocked the disciples. The Temple cannot collapse. That would mean God had abandoned us. That means the kingdom of God would vanish. That’s the opposite of what Jesus has promised. That’s unthinkable.
But it’s what happened. Most likely, when the gospel of Mark was being written, it was right at the time when the unthinkable was happening. To Mark and his first readers. It must have been profoundly disorienting to them. And maybe we can, to a degree, relate to their experience.
After all, the last 20-plus years have seen so many shatterings. The temples and towers we had built to the permanence of things like capitalism and democracy, thrown to the ground. A financial crash. Then a pandemic – we thought that was never going to happen to us. Modern medicine has figured out all of that stuff, right? Pandemics are for the Middle Ages, we’re beyond that now. And now we’re swimming in a sea of deceptions and misinformation, how to even know what’s true any more? Who can we trust? And it’s easy to look around and wonder, will one stone be left upon another?
But this isn’t the first time we’ve heard something ominous from Jesus. He started saying ominous things when they began their journey to Jerusalem, talking about his death and his resurrection. Peter had learned not to try to talk Jesus out of the cross. James and John had learned not to ask Jesus about positions of power and glory in the coming kingdom. And so when Jesus delivers the most ominous prophecy of all, Peter and James and John don’t try to tell Jesus he’s wrong, the Temple will last forever. They know better by now. Instead they ask Jesus, “When will this happen? How will we know it’s time to get out of Dodge? If this storm is really coming, how can we keep ourselves safe?”
But Jesus does not give his disciples a date. Or a safety plan. Instead he tells them, “Don’t be alarmed.” Yes, there will be wars, and earthquakes, and famines. But don’t be alarmed. These are just the beginning of the birth pangs.
Everything falling apart is not a disaster. It’s not an ending. It’s a beginning. It’s the beginning of the birth pangs. And birth is hard. For the mom, birth is hard. Birth is dangerous. It changes everything. And for the baby, birth is also hard, and dangerous, and changes everything. To be in the middle of the process is, to put it mildly, disorienting. It can feel like loss, like being torn away from everything that you know and that feels safe. But staying put was never an option. And the new life on the other side may be unimaginable now, but don’t be alarmed. Because the new life on the other side will be worth it.
The gospel of Mark is about the birth of the kingdom of God. And how we pass from this stage to the next, from a world of suffering and injustice to the new Jerusalem where there will be no more tears, when God’s presence is visible not just in the Temple but everywhere like a light that never goes out, where we will at home, safe and secure, forever. And birth is hard. It involves the cross before it brings resurrection. It involves our human creations being thrown down before God’s new Jerusalem comes down from heaven. This is what the disciples had such a hard time understanding, what they always wanted to find a way around. But birth is hard, the only way through it is straight ahead, and in the end we have to believe it is worth it.
The Brazilians have a saying for times like these, “ninguém solta a mão de ninguém.” No one lets go of anyone’s hand. As we pass through the birth canal on our way to the kingdom of God, we leave no one behind, we let go of no one’s hand, because God is leading us all to this new life. And at the same time we let go of everything that belongs to the old world, everything we can’t take with us to the kingdom, and we hold onto each other and hold onto our faith, as Jesus tells us: Don’t be alarmed, these are just the birth pangs, the new life of the kingdom is at hand. Trust and believe this good news.