Apocalypse Then. Apocalypse Now?
Mark 13:1-8
We’ve got a scripture that's a little bit bleak today. The term “Little Apocalypse” is used to describe the section of Mark’s gospel that today’s passage comes from. This passage directly follows the “Widow’s Mite” passage that we talked about last week. This passage starts with Jesus walking out of the temple and having a short conversation with one of the disciples. As they walk out, the disciple marvels at how large the stones are that make up the buildings of the temple, and Jesus tells him that the temple will be destroyed.
Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.
Jesus was not wrong. The temple that they were walking out of was destroyed a few decades later as a part of a long siege at the hands of the Roman army. Coincidentally or not, most scholars date the writing of the gospel of Mark to some time shortly before or shortly after the destruction of the temple, so anyone reading this at the time that it was written would know that this story correlates with their news of the day. The Roman historian, Josephus, wrote about the siege at the time and said that 1.1 million people were killed. One could easily understand that for the people living through this, this would seem pretty Apocalyptic.
Remember that this passage comes directly after passages where Jesus is condemning the practices in the temple. Jesus is in the temple and tells a man that loving your neighbor as yourself “is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.” Burnt-offerings and sacrifices were much of what people coming to the temple came to do. Then he condemns the people working in the temple for devouring widows houses, and then he remarks about the widow who is essentially getting her house devoured as she gives them the last of her money. At that point our passage starts when Jesus walks out of the temple and says it will be torn down. The reader is meant to understand that because of the bad things happening in this place, all of the bad things that Jesus is about to describe will happen.
The next part of the story happens later in the day as we see four disciples take Jesus aside and ask what is going to happen. Jesus describes what a reader of that time would understand to be the state of things as they are now. Lots of people are trying to assert leadership among the early Christian people of the time, and war and devastation are everywhere. This is another passage that allows Jesus to essentially talk directly to the reader and say, “This stuff you see around you was always going to happen. Things are pretty dark, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
This passage mirrors many of the stories in the Hebrew Bible where bad things have happened or will happen to the Hebrew people, and the prophets ascribe these bad things to God’s judgement of the evil actions of the people in power. Amos is a good example (and a fairly short read, if you are so inclined). God’s judgement is upon the people in power at the temple, and so the apocalypse is coming. It will be hard, but it will bring about something new.
We are living in a time that can seem pretty apocalyptic right now. We might be able to relate a bit to “wars and rumors of wars” and in addition we have climate change related extreme weather events and a devastating plague. Sitting in the midst of all this madness, when I read this passage I see a useful addition to all the teachings of Jesus that we have read about throughout Mark’s gospel. I think it’s possible to look at Jesus’s teachings, like loving your neighbor as yourself, and say, “In a perfect world I could live like that, but there is a global pandemic going on, and back in January a mob of crazies tried to overthrow the government, and I’m just super scared about the future, so now is not a good time.” This passage is a good reminder that the people who heard these words spoken and the first people who read them were living through some unbelievably difficult times. And even in the midst of those extremely painful, apocalyptic feeling times, Jesus taught his followers to give up all they had and to love one another as themselves. It didn’t require good times, and in fact he asked it of them in some of the worst of times. Right now feels a little like the worst of times. Maybe it’s the right time to follow Jesus’s path. This could be the “birth pangs” of something new.
How are you feeling about the current state of things? Are you feeling the apocalyptic vibe these days? Let me know in a comment!
Justin, thanks for the reminder that when Jesus said those things to his followers, it must have felt like they were also in "the worst of times." But love was still called for. Love and not hate. Grace and not violence. Giving and not hoarding. It's pretty radical to think of doing that - even in these terrible times. Cuz what if Jesus meant for all of his followers to be radical servants? What if???