Mark 13:1-8
November 15, 2015
The temple that Jesus was sitting
in front of was impressive.
Herod’s temple was an extension of the one
that was already there.
It took nearly 100
years to build the addition.
It took 10 thousand laborers
the stones were between 1 and 100 tons.
Most of them were 10 tons each.
The temple was
supposed to be built
for the glory of God, but of course,
it was also built to show the glory of King
Herod and his kingdom and the religious
institution that was supposed to be at the
head of their entire society.
The might and strength of the structure was intimidating.
Might and strength
are impressive to us.
The illusion of permanence is
tempting to us.
We like to think that some things
will last forever.
Things that humans create like buildings
and cities and societies and religion
We can sometimes confuse the strength
of human made things with God.
The disciples were taken with the large stones and the impressive structure
of the temple.
But the temple was
not permanent.
Around the year
70,
the Roman army came in
to Jerusalem to put an end to the ongoing
Jewish insurrections against their leadership,
they meant to take over the temple
and make it a temple to one of their gods,
but in the midst of the battle,
someone set the beams inside the temple on fire
since it seemed like a loss, they
broke the stone to steal the gold gilding out of it.
The impressive temple that took hundreds of years to
build,
only took about a week to destroy.
In that event, it’s estimate that The Roman Army
killed 600,000 Jews.
The rest they threw out of Jerusalem.
Terror has been
part of our world for a long time.
humans killing humans has been a part of our reality
since Cain killed Abel it’s a foundational
event of our existence.
Even then, we knew it wasn’t right, but still it goes on.
Again, we’re here after a week
of shocking violence.
Bombings in Lebanon, in Baghdad
the crash of a
Russian plane
that looks like a bombing, and Friday,
in Paris, a coordinated attack in several places
that killed over 120 people.
First we have the
horror of seeing
the fear and pain on people
watching them run in fear and cry in agony.
And then we have the worry about
And then we have the worry about
where this new development will lead us next.
Whether it’s a
terrorist act or an individual
mass shooter, the reality of violence and death
seems like it’s still all around us today.
In a rush to react, we could easily lose our way.
In the gospel
Jesus warns his disciples and us that as we’re waiting,
we will see these kind of things and we will hear
about wars and rumors of wars and other scary things,
But he tells us that we shouldn’t be led astray.
On one level these
apocalyptic texts might not
seem very
comforting at a time like this,
They remind us that nothing will last forever,
this world that we love,
the people the buildings,
institutions,
relationships, nothing will last forever.
Life is uncertain.
Everything, even the strongest thing, is temporary.
But in some ways
this gospel is comforting.
It helps us to put things in perspective.
They remind us that the world has
been shaken before and here we still are.
And it reminds us that even when
these awful events happen,
people of faith need to keep our heads.
The temptation
then is the temptation now,
Like Jesus says, people will come,
many of them in Jesus name,
and tell us that it’s the end of the world
as we know it.
But as Jesus says,
it’s not the end.
These times may be difficult,
but it’s not an end, it’s a beginning.
Jesus tells us to see these pains as birth pains.
The time of pain that comes before joy.
Jesus tells us
that these wars and violence
will not be the end, because wars
and violence and tragedy will not
have the last word.
The world would
like us to all lose our heads.
War mongers would like us to be angry
and demand more violence and retaliation.
Hate groups would like us to lump all Muslims
and refugees together and blame them for this.
The TV news would like us to keep watching
obsessively in fear for the next tragedy.
The devil would like for us to
give up in despair, to lose hope in humanity,
lose hope in peace, lose hope in hope
But Jesus asks us to keep things in perspective
and not to let us get caught up in hype or despair.
And so I tell you this:
Although it doesn’t
seem like the case after
the past couple of weeks especially,
Actually, right now we’re living in
one of the most
peaceful times in the world’s history,
Look it up, it was in the Wall Street Journal
about four years ago.
(here's the article)
Violent crimes are
falling in every country,
Even in places like Mexico
that we think of as out of
control the murder rate was almost
¼ of what it was
in 1940.
There are less wars between countries,
less civil war, less personal violence.
I’ll read you the
beginning of the article
so you know I’m not making it up myself:
It's impossible to learn about these catastrophes without
thinking,
"What is the world coming to?"
But a better question may be,
"How bad was the world in the past?"
Believe it or not, the world of the past was much worse.
Violence has been in decline for thousands of years, and today we may be living
in the most peaceable
era in the existence of our species.
The decline, to be sure, has not been smooth. It has not
brought violence down to zero, and it is not guaranteed to continue. But it is
a persistent historical development, visible on scales from millennia to years.
Just in the last
60 years, deaths from
violent crime, brutality, and war have fallen
significantly.
The difference is, we now we hear about every
tragedy, as its happening, not days or weeks or
even months or years later like we would have
back in the old dark ages of 1995 and before.
We see video and
pictures as it’s happening
we hear stories, like we’re there,
we see videos, we are emotionally
invested and involved in these acts,
not just distantly removed,
reading about the statistics later.
There is less of it,
but it hurts more now that we see it in front of us.
And thank God for that.
And as humans are
horrified by the reality of violence.
Rightfully so.
We’re getting to think that it doesn’t have to be like
this.
We are growing more empathetic to other people
even people of other nations.
As a human race, we are beginning not to tolerate this.
We’re not in
agreement about what should be done,
or how to stop it, but we’re all in agreement that
these incidents are tragedies shouldn’t be happening.
If we can see
through the tragedies, and our sorrow
we have to see, God is doing something here.
And even in the
midst of horrible events,
we see signs of hope and openness and people’s
desire to help.
On Friday night
the people of Paris
were tweeting out on social media “portouverte”
which means “open door”, meaning
they were offering their little bitty Paris apartments
for random people to stay if
they couldn’t get to their homes.
People weren’t shutting themselves off in the face
of terror, people were opening themselves up.
Strangers opening their doors to strangers.
God is doing something here.
Even with these of
horrible, terrible, meaningless violence,
something wonderful is being
born.
We might be in the middle of birth pains now,
but something is being born here.
It might not be born in any of our lifetimes,
but I have hope that God is doing something here.
As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote
in a time so filled with violence and hatred:
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the
starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and
brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and
unconditional love will have the final word.
Jesus reminds us that
As long as we’re on this side of the kingdom,
our lives will be filled with beginnings and endings.
things dying and things being born again.
This is one of the lessons of the cross
Another lesson of
the cross is that pain and death
and violence, will not have the last word.
It cannot have the last word
because God will have the last word.
And our faith
doesn’t lie in big stones,
or military might, or institutions,
or political savvy.
it lies in the eternal love of God
The love of God is
not based on
our strength or the size of the stones or weapons
we can use to keep us safe,
The love of God is not based on our security or
success in anything.
The love of God is based only on the love of God.
It is the Alpha and the Omega,
the generator of the universe, it will be forever
God’s love will have the final word.
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