The Coming King

Sermon from March 29, 2020

Mark 13:1-31

         Last week amid all the news swirling around about the corona virus there were other news stories that kind of got missed. Perhaps the biggest story was the bad flooding in the southern part of Ohio. I-71 in Columbus was closed down, and in Licking county the roads washed away. Locally the flooding took a tragic turn. The first of these tragedies happened near the town of Stillwater where an elderly lady saw someone on the road ahead of her bypass the “Road Closed” sign and drive through the water rushing across the road. While the first driver was fortunate to have made it through, the elderly women who followed them found out how fast things can happen. She knew she was in trouble and she managed to call for help but by the time rescue crews got to her the flood waters had washed her car off the road and she lost her life in a tragic error of judgment. The second story similar to this one was about a young man in his twenty’s who went out in his pickup truck to look at the flood waters. He also did not heed the warnings and his truck as well as his life was swept away in the swirling flood waters which had to be respected.

         I’ve prayed for the families of these people who have lost their life and what hits me is that both of those death were avoidable. There were warnings to be heeded, the power of flood waters to be respected yet tragically in a moment the lack of good judgment caught up those who chose to do otherwise. The reason why I think about these two stories is that they are a real life example of heeding the warning signs. This also is what Jesus is teaching his disciples and us from our scripture for today.We need to heed the warning signs that affect our faith. Jesus is giving warnings, warnings that are to be heeded and not ignored. What is at stake is judgment, that moment when the truth of the wisdom of our decisions becomes the truth of our eternity. During this season of Lent as we travel on with Jesus, heading ever nearer to the cross, the thought of carrying our own cross, the need to suffer for our faith can affect our resolve to stay close to Jesus. In our modern times with so many comforts, so much ease, to suffer for believing in Jesus is something that causes us to protest, to seek ways to avoid the pain which is the cost of our love for Jesus. As Paul wrote to Timothy, his dear brother in Christ, “All who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted” This is a similar thought to what Jesus teaches us in the fifth chapter of Matthew, that the kingdom of God is for those who are willing to be persecuted for that kingdom. This is why we need to remember the joy that is before us, just as Jesus did. It was this joy, this is why Jesus endured the suffering, the pain, the shame of the cross and this is why we also can follow him on the road to the cross. This joy is the life we one day will experience, the resurrected life described in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, where the writer of Hebrews gives us this beautiful picture “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to more angels than you can count, gathered at the festival, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous are perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” When we anchor our life on this hope and joy then we like Paul we can say that our afflictions are light and momentary compared to the eternal weight of glory which is beyond  all comparison. This eternal gathering of all the saints is why when Jesus gives us warnings, when he puts up “Road Closed” signs on paths we should not travel on, we will heed those warnings because we will stop at nothing to get to our destination.

         Our scripture story begins with a simple observation by one of the disciples of Jesus as they were walking out of the Temple one day.The disciple commented to Jesus, “ Look Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” Jesus replied “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be one stone upon another that will not be thrown down!” We have to pause right here to imagine the shock the disciples must have felt when they heard these words of Jesus. The disciples were a lot like us in that we put great permanence in man-made wonders. We just always expect that the Eiffel Tower will be part of the Paris skyline, or that Big Ben will be marking the time for the people of London. If you were to tell the people of these cities that someday in the not so distant future that those structures would be destroyed they would be appalled and would not believe such a thing could ever happen. So, it must have been for the disciples. Yet this possibility for the Temple, that it could be utterly destroyed, had always been there right from its construction. In the ninth chapter of First Kings, we read how God warned Solomon, the king who had built the Temple, “If you turn aside from following me you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and statutes that I have set before you but go and serve other gods and worship them then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them  and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight….and this house will become a house of ruins.” So the warning as to the fate of the Temple was there right from the beginning but what must have kept the people of Israel from completely buying into the fact that God might actually do such a thing is that the Temple was so incredibly beautiful, so awe inspiring that it was hard to believe that God would actually discard such a work of wonder.

         The disciples upon hearing these words of Jesus that this Temple was going to be destroyed were of course intrigued and they wanted to know just when this event was going to happen. Jesus begins by telling his disciples that they were to let no one lead them astray as many would come and say that they were the Messiah. So, what Jesus is telling his disciples is be sure that you are fully grounded in the gospel message, that our faith in God is a desire for God’s presence not his power. These false messiahs were messiahs who preached that god’s kingdom would come through violence not servant love. It is this thought of violence which led Jesus to speak of wars and rumors of wars. Jesus knew the Temple authorities who were itching for a fight with Rome, they were those who were spreading those rumors of war. They had bought into the worldly way of thinking that the way to deal with enemies is to destroy them and then keep someone else from destroying you. This is why there are wars and rumors of wars and why nations rise against nations. These are nothing special; this is how things have always been. There have always been earthquakes and famines and the point Jesus is making is that the disciples were not to be alarmed; this is simply how life is in a broken world. Yet out of this brokenness the birth of a new age will begin. Why did Jesus say that that the birth pains would begin? The birth pains would begin because of the disciples and their witness and work. This is what would cause a new age to begin to emerge out of the brokenness of the old age. 

Yet to bring about a new age amid the old age would be much like a mother birthing a child; there would be pain and struggle until the baby is born but then there would be much joy. So it would be also for the coming of the new age the disciples would be bringing about. Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that they had to have their guard up because they would be handed over to the councils, to the governors and kings, to be beaten and to suffer for their faith and testimony. Their example of the new age emerging in among the old age would bring those who had invested in the old age, its way of using violence and power to achieve their goals, to question what they were doing. Yet to those who lived under the oppression of these cruel masters who dominated through their lust of power and violence, the news of a new age was amazing good news. This is why Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that gospel must be preached to all the nations, the Gentiles, those who hungering for the hope only found in the one true living God and in the Messiah who lived a life which showed the power of the presence of God. This power Jesus had would come to be experienced by the followers of Jesus through the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is this the Spirit, this intimate connection with the very heart of God this is why the disciples were told to not be anxious; they were to know that the God who gave them life and the God who keeps their life safe was closer to them in the moment of trial than at any other time. This God was the real one that was on trial and it was he that would speak through those who had placed their trust in Him. This God would be their true Father and those who did his will would be their true family. This truth is what they had to hold on to when their earthly families turned on them, when their fathers who cared for them and taught them suddenly fought against them; when the brother they had been so close to was now a hated enemy; or when their dear mother who had loved and cherished them would no longer allow them to come home. This hatred that the disciples would experience would be painful and costly but Jesus tells them to not forget why they must continue in the way of the cross no matter what the cost. What had to be be the motivation for this counter-cultural lifestyle was that they did it all the sake of the name of God. It was the very reputation of God that was at stake. God’s name, his essence, his character, is that our is a God of steadfast love and faithfulness. How would the world come to know that the one true living God is a God who has always led with love, who is always faithful, whose actions toward people never depended on their actions toward him but were instead the outcome of the unchanging nature of his character? This is why the disciples had to endure suffering, persecutions and rejection by those closest to their hearts all so that through their life, through loving even those who hated them,  doing so faithfully in every moment, through this witness the world would see in them a living example of the one true living God who lived in them.

We have to have a right understanding of what Jesus is telling his disciples in his first section of teaching so that we can understand just what he is speaking about in the rest of what he teaches them is going to happen. Jesus begins with a saying that comes from the ninth chapter of Daniel. Jesus tells his disciples that thy re to be ready to run when they see the abomination of desolation he is speaking of  something that is unholy that when  found in the sanctuary of God will render it unfit for worship. What Jesus is referencing here is the coming of the Roman army that Israel will fight against in 70 AD. So what Jesus is speaking about is that when the disciples see the Roman army standing in the Temple this is the time to get out of Jerusalem because the presence of God is no longer going to be associated with the Temple or the city of Jerusalem which surrounded it.They were to flee because otherwise they may be tempted to rush in and join those who were fighting the Roman army in order to save what had been symbols of their holy faith. There would be false messiahs and prophets who would try and convince the followers of Jesus to take up the sword and fight but again the disciples had to understand just what was at stake when they did so. What was at stake was the very name of God, his reputation. What kind of God would the world see testified in their actions if they lived by the sword just like all of the rest of the people living in the old age? This is why the disciples had to flee just run and get away, get away from the voices crying out for them to join a lost cause even though those voices were people of their own heritage.

Throughout this teaching Jesus has been referencing many Old Testament prophecies. From Hosea, Jesus brought forth the warning to those who were pregnant and nursing in those days because it would be harder for them to get away when the judgment came. The hope that the Lord had shortened the days in order that the elect would be saved was written of in the sixty fifth chapter of Isaiah. Jeremiah spoke of the coming of false messiahs. Most importantly in the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah we read of how the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light, the sun will be dark as its rising and the moon will not shed its light. This is exactly what Jesus tells his disciples to expect when the Roman army came marching on Jerusalem. We have to wonder why is Jesus us in thee scriptures to teach about the fall of the Temple and Jerusalem? The reason becomes clear when we find out that what Isaiah was writing about was the fall of Babylon. Isaiah knew that when Babylon, the world superpower at his time, fell that it would be a cosmic event that would shake the very foundations of earth. So in using this prophesy from Isaiah Jesus is telling his disciples that Jerusalem is the new Babylon. This is who the disciples, the new Israel, need set free from. It was Jerusalem who was now the enemy of God’s true people. God’s true people, the true Jerusalem, were those who followed Jesus, those who loved even their enemies, faithfully loving no matter the circumstances of life. Just as Isaiah had prophesied that Israel had to escape and flee from Babylon now Jesus is telling his disciples that they are the true Israel and they had to flee Jerusalem which because of its sin was no better than Babylon.

The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple was a visible and tragic witness to the fact that God had turned his face away from those of the people of Israel who refused to place their faith in Jesus. This is what has to be remembered when we read of about the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. I am indebted to a great theologian by the name of N. T. Wright who has helped understand some of these difficult passages of Mark. What he teaches is that when Jesus speaks about the Son of Man coming is that in the original prophesy from Daniel, the Son of Man is coming from Earth to heaven not the other way around. In the seventh chapter of Daniel we read of this vision God gave to Daniel one night while Daniel was in exile in Babylon.Daniel saw coming on the clouds of heaven one who was like the son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented to him. This is what Jesus was speaking of when he tells his disciples that they would see the Son of Man coming on the clouds, not coming to them but coming before the Ancient of Days. The term “Son of Man” means simply a human, as in a representative person who was a person as God had always meant his people to be. Jesus was telling his disciples that he was this person and if there was any doubt that he was the one chosen and anointed by God, that his message of  steadfast love and faithfulness was the right way to live, the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem should forever put an end to those doubts. The destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem was a sign from God that his way was not the way of the sword, of violence against ones enemies but rather the very way of God. God in his love makes the sun to rise upon the good and the evil and he has makes it rain upon the just and the unjust. This is the true way of God, the way of Jesus, the way of the cross. This is why Jesus is the Son of Man because this is the way that God created people to bear his image. To bear the image is an idea in ancient days that was a term of royalty, of a king seeking to put his imprint of his rule throughout his kingdom. So for people to bear the image of God meant that God’s people were to reveal heavens justice and righteousness upon the earth. To bear the image of God meant to bring the earth, over which God ruled, into perfect harmony of heavens order. This is the petition Jesus teaches us to pray that  “God’s kingdom come, his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” When the Temple was destroyed and Jerusalem overrun this was to be a sign to the world that those who had said they were doing the will of God by fighting against Rome in order to set up their own kingdom, it is these people that  God declared were not his people. These people who had paraded around acting all pious putting on a good show for all to see were in fact nothing more than wolves in sheep clothing. With the fall of the Temple and Jerusalem the truth was revealed, the sheep’s clothing fell off and the people who had called themselves the sheep of God’s flock were exposed as nothing more than ravenous wolves with an appetite for blood. 

         So, the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem revealed the truth about the authorities of the Temple and Jerusalem but it also vindicated the truth about Jesus. With God’s rejection of the people of Jerusalem, God was declaring that Jesus and his followers were the true Israel people who worthy of bearing his name. Jesus as the Son of Man, the true person God had always intended was, according to the prophesy of Daniel, was given dominion, glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed.When the people of Jerusalem saw their kingdom destroyed by Roman forces in 70 AD they had to realize that theirs was not the kingdom endorsed by God. When they saw the followers of Jesus grow in numbers despite being beaten and murdered, being rejected by their families, thrown out of synagogues despite all the wrath people could bring against them and their numbers flourished the evidence was clear whose kingdom was God’s true kingdom.  

         What Jesus was trying to impress upon his disciples is that even though it would often seem as if the kingdoms of this world were dominating and overpowering, often appearing to be invincible, what the disciples had to hold on to was that it was Jesus who had been given the everlasting kingdom.  The glories of a Jerusalem that would flaunt its power against God’s Son executing him upon a Roman cross would one day be thrown into the burning garbage dump, Gehenna, the very image of hell. The people of Israel were chosen to be the representatives for the people of Earth  whether for good or evil and this is what would be seen with the destruction of Jerusalem that those who oppose God one day all their efforts will come to nothing. Yet those who are willing to bear the name of God, to be people who in their dealings with others love with a merciful steadfast love, feeling  the pain of this world in the depths of their gut, and living this way day by day, these would be people rewarded by God. As Daniel continues in his vision in the seventh chapter of his book,  he sees that the kingdom and his dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole of heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve him and obey him.” The kingdom originally given to the Son of Man is now also given to the saints, God’s holy ones who know the Son of Man as the life that must be seen in them. God declares that those who live the life of the Son of Man will, like the Son of Man, be given the kingdom. 

         So, all of this is what Jesus meant by the the disciples seeing the Son of Man coming on the clouds. They may not physically see this happen but rest assured when the Temple and Jerusalem is destroyed that is when in heaven Jesus will be standing before the throne of the Ancient of Days, given the kingdom as God’s rightful king.When there will be no more doubt as to the truth of the kingship of Jesus, when his way is vindicated and proven true by an act that is seen in history, this is when God’s elect can be expected to be gathered into the presence of the king. The elect are those who know without a doubt that God is a God whose power is that he is free to choose and this God has chosen them. God has chosen them not because of their righteousness but because he is a God of steadfast love and mercy.This God has elected to come to them, the humble and desperate people, and has knelt before them, pouring out his life upon them to give them life. This is the God whose glory is his that he is always faithful even when we as his sinful people cannot be faithful. Yet, even though we know, in the light of God’s glory, how far we have fallen from that glory what we also find is that God favors us, delights in us and lavishes his love on us. It is this love, this perfect love, that casts out our fear and empowers us to become the true people of God, able to be people of steadfast love and faithfulness. These are the people God gathers together into the kingdom of his Son, a kingdom that his elect also call their own. This is what Jesus was teaching to his disciples. He did so because he knew how very difficult their life was going to be as people living out the life of the new age in a world still very much entrenched in an age that is passing away. Jesus, as he looked upon the faces of these men he loved knew the pain they would feel as the blows of the rods would hit their backs, as they would be chained in prison, the pain as loved ones turned away from them and considered them as good as dead. Jesus knew the temptation they would face as in that moment of suffering they  would want to react in violence, to seek revenge which was God’s alone to mete out. What Jesus hoped is that they would hold on to the truth, the way of Jesus, the way of the everlasting kingdom. The way of violence, the way of the Gentiles who lorded over the ones they ruled, the way of the Gentiles who only loved those who loved them, this way was on the way out. The way of Jesus, the way of those who followed in the way of God, blessing others, kneeling before them as a servant, being faithful and true to each other and delighting in the wonder of the people they encountered, loving these by pouring out their life as the greatest act of love, this is the way of Jesus. This is the way of the everlasting kingdom. This is the way of the cross; the way we are warned not to veer off of because as history reveals, to do so is disaster. We of course never want to suffer for our faith but Jesus has plainly told us that if they have persecuted him then we who followed him will also experience persecution. The question that only we can answer for ourselves is just will be our response to the suffering that will come from following Jesus? Will we demand our rights, will we demand our government come to our rescue, will we take our enemies to court? These are all accepted responses of our culture today but we have to ask are these accepted responses of the kingdom of God? When we suffer and are persecuted for our faith will we be able through the power and presence of God be able to follow the teaching of James who tells us to count it all joy my brothers and sisters when we meet trials of various kinds for we know the testing of our faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full affect that we may be perfect and complete. You see, God’s love is a steadfast love and how will we ever know if the love within us is a steadfast love unless we find that we can love in those times of trial, when love is hard, maybe impossible. What joy we will find when in those times when we discover that we are able to love through the power of God which is the presence of God with us. In that moment when we love when love seems impossible this is when we are most sure that God is with us, his presence pouring his life and love into us and his love is removing all fear. This is when we will also know that the kingdom of Jesus, despite all appearances, is the everlasting kingdom because when we experience this love we know that evil will not overcome us but rather we have the power in us to overcome evil with good. This was the hope of Jesus for his disciples and this is his hope for us. Amen!