SERMON, NOVEMBER 14, 2021                        TEXT: MARK 13:1-8

          It’s that time of year again. November is for me the bleakest month. The trees are bare; the sky keeps turning gray, that is, when it doesn’t look like 9:00 P.M. from 4:00 on. People muddle through by contemplating something that transcends the current situation — like Thanksgiving, Christmas, ski season, a trip to Florida. Or maybe the apocalypse?! This is the time of the church year when once again we hear about the world’s grand finale. Like taking the measure of a child’s growth every birthday, I use this annual opportunity to ponder the signs of the times. Has the world inched closer to the end? Wars and rumors of wars — check. Earthquakes — and fires, floods and droughts to boot — check. Famines — check. Nation rising against nation — yes again; why, we are even witnessing nations bitterly divided and rising against themselves. Plus we’ve added a global pandemic and perilous climate change. Maybe we’ve actually taken a giant step toward the end. Then again, maybe it’s deja vu all over once more, and we are just falling in place per usual.

            Jesus used the future tense: Many will come in my name; they will lead many astray; there will be earthquakes and famines; nation will rise against nation. Yet Jesus’ disciples had only to look around to realize that these predicted signs were already present reality. Apocalyptic language, the kind we hear in today’s readings, addresses the here and now as much as it foretells the future. History does repeat itself. The writer of Daniel speaks of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in the 6th century B.C. He does so to encourage his own community as they struggle with the desecration of the temple by another foreign ruler in their own day.

          In today’s Gospel Jesus foresees the destruction of the second temple by the Romans, which occurred in 70 A.D. By the time Mark writes his gospel, his community has experienced this calamity and is suffering the aftermath, as had their ancestors. The loss of the temple marks a watershed moment, an experience that defines their history. There is life before it happened; then there is life afterward.    And there is no going back to the way things once were. This event shook the very foundation of Israel’s relationship with God. What did it mean that the Lord had allowed such a thing to happen not once but twice? How could the people make sense of life in the midst of this devastation? The distinctive kind of imagery we encounter in today’s readings was intended to comfort a shell-shocked people, to strengthen their resolve and renew their hope.           

          I found this explanation helpful: “[A]pocalyptic literature stems from a worldview that believes that everything happening on earth represents and corresponds with a larger, heavenly struggle between good and evil. It therefore reads into earthly events cosmic significance and anticipates future events on earth in light of the coming battle between the forces of God and the evil one. Hence, it often tries to make sense of current events and experiences by casting them in a larger, cosmic framework and in this way give comfort to people who are currently suffering or being oppressed. . . . Apocalyptic literature is ripe for reading all kinds of things into it – like predictions about the end of the world. But this chapter in Mark – and other passages, notably the book of Revelation – were not written so that we could ferret out signs of the end. Rather, they were written to offer comfort to first-century believers struggling to make sense of their world and lives. For this reason, it’s way more helpful to read this and similar passages in light of the challenges its original readers were facing, challenges that might be akin to some of our own.”

          Viewed from this cosmic perspective, any particular event is no longer the ultimate catastrophe but one among many continuing eruptions in the world of the dark forces of evil and destruction. God’s goodness and justice have not fled the field of battle. God’s people, traumatized and grieving though they may be, will live to fight another day. Jesus speaks of alarming events but tells his disciples, “Do not be alarmed.” Then at the end of his catalogue of the woes to come, he equates them to birth pangs, and birth pangs, though painful to endure, are the passage to new life.             

          The apocalyptic word of encouragement is also one of caution. It has the effect of the warning system in your car that jerks you back to attentiveness when you get distracted and begin to drift into the wrong lane. Jesus’ immediate response to the disciples is a stern warning: “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.” The moment to stand fast in the faith, the hour of trial for his people does not just appear on the horizon of the end times. It is always with us. Veering off course and losing our way is a real and present danger.

          One of my duties as a seminary professor was to serve on the synod’s candidacy committee, which evaluated students seeking to serve in the pubic ministries of the church. I remember one candidate who was awash in apocalyptic fervor. He wanted to become a pastor so that he could warn others of the terrors to come. In fact, he was not sure he would even have time to graduate before God lowered the boom. One of my colleagues asked him where was the place in his theology for the Gospel. The man insisted there was one, but he couldn’t elaborate. He didn’t say anything that was demonstrably unbiblical, but he certainly did not say enough. In Mark 13 Jesus speaks to his disciples about the portents of the end. Immediately afterward, in chapter 14, the story of his passion begins, unfolding from the anointing at Bethany through the Last Supper, his betrayal, arrest and trial, his brutal death on the cross, and then his rising from the dead — signs of God’s love and forgiveness, all for us and for our salvation, the watershed moment that defines our history.    We affirm that the Lord will come again to judge the living and the dead, but when we speak of what we know, it is the saving love of Jesus here and now that we offer to others. To do this is to prepare for the coming of our Lord in the best way we can. Amen.