The story is told of a young boy many years ago who wanted a wristwatch for Christmas. He kept pestering his parents about it so much that they finally said to their son, “If you mention that watch one more time, you will be sure not to get it!”
The young man was frustrated, but he really wanted the wristwatch and so he went on dutifully, keeping his mouth shut. The family had a habit of a devotional time before supper every night and each member of the family would take turns reading a Bible verse. Finally, the boy’s turn came, and he chose for his Bible reading Mark 13:37… “What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
It just goes to show that there are Bible verses suited for every occasion. And today our lectionary reading happens to be Mark 13:24-37. Listen for God’s word to you…
“But in those days, following that distress,
“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’
“At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
A Strange Passage
I know this seems like a strange passage to read as we prepare for Christmas, but you must remember that Advent is all about “coming”. During Advent we remember the first coming of the Son of God two thousand years ago, and we also look forward to Jesus’ second coming. Those church leaders who selected the lectionary passages many years ago chose this one no doubt because they thought it had something to do with Jesus’ Second Coming.
What It’s Really About
The problem is that this passage does not actually have to do with the Second Coming of Jesus. The context of these verses is that it is the last week of Jesus’ life before he goes to the cross and rises again from the dead. As he was leaving the temple during one of those days his disciples remarked to him, “Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” (Mark 13:1) And the disciples were quite right. Herod the Great had worked on beautifying the temple for twenty-four years, starting in 20 BCE until his death in 4 CE. The work continued after Herod’s death for another 22 years. The temple was indeed magnificent.
But Jesus responded to his disciples saying, “Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
Jesus and his disciples continued walking out to the Mount of Olives where they sat down and could still see the temple in the distance. Then the disciples asked Jesus, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?”
Our lectionary reading for today contains part of Jesus’ answer to that question. So, you see, Jesus was not talking about the end of the world or his second coming. Rather, he was talking about when the destruction of the temple would happen. We now know that Jesus predicted, quite accurately, the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem that took place in 70 CE when the Romans came in and leveled the whole city.
The End of the World?
So, if the whole discussion in Mark 13 is about the destruction of the temple, why does Jesus use the language of the sun being darkened, the moon not giving its light, the stars falling from the sky, and the heavenly bodies being shaken? This is the language that has made many people think that Jesus was talking in Mark 13 about the end of the world.
This is one example of why it is so important to understand the Old Testament background to the New Testament. Jesus is quoting Isaiah 13:10. And the context of that passage is a prophecy of Isaiah about the destruction of Babylon. So, you see, even in its original context this verse is not about the end of the world but about the end of a city and a nation. How appropriate for Jesus to use the same verse to prophesy the end of Jerusalem and the whole Jewish way of life in Israel in the first century.
Jesus’ Second Coming?
But then the next two verses sound to us like a prophecy of Jesus’ second coming. “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”
Once again, it is essential to know the Old Testament context. Jesus is quoting Daniel 7:13, “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.” This verse is not about the return of the son of man. It is about the son of man coming to the Ancient of Days, God, after a time of suffering. That is exactly what is going to happen to Jesus. After his suffering on the cross he will rise again from the dead and ascend to heaven where he will be seated in power at the right hand of God. When this happens, Jesus’ disciples will be commanded to take his message to the ends of the earth and gather his elect, that is, gather even more disciples. We must remember that the word “angel” means a “messenger”. In this case, Jesus’ disciples are going to be his angel/messengers gathering his elect from around the world. And we, Jesus’ angel/messengers are carrying on that work to this day.
When?
Then, in verse 28, Jesus gets down to answering his disciples’ question about when the destruction of the temple will happen. He uses the image of a fig tree as an example. When the leaves of the fig tree come out, you know that summer is near. So also, when Jesus’ disciples see the things happen that he has just described, they will know the time is near. Note: Jesus has given his disciples other signs to watch for earlier in this chapter:
Sign #1: Many will come claiming to be the Messiah.
Sign #2: There will be wars and rumors of wars.
Sign #3: There will be earthquakes and famines.
Sign #4: The disciples will be persecuted.
And then Jesus talks about “the abomination that causes desolation”. Once again, Jesus is quoting, this time from Daniel 9:27. Originally, this was a reference to the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes IV who set up an altar to Zeus in the Jewish Temple in 168 BCE. But Jesus seems to be suggesting that something like this is going to happen again. And in fact, it did happen when the Romans desecrated and destroyed the temple in 70 CE. What Jesus is predicting is so awful that only prophetic language from the Hebrew Scriptures will suffice to describe it.
Jesus says to his disciples, “Truly I tell you this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
This is a clear indication that Jesus, in Mark 13, was talking about things that would happen in the generation of the disciples. Many of them would live to see the destruction of Jerusalem and so Jesus wanted to warn them about what to do when they saw it happening. The historian Josephus tells us that while many Jews died when the Romans invaded Jerusalem, the early Christians did in fact flee as Jesus had told them to do.
Like a Man Going Away
The next thing Jesus says is very interesting. He says that he does not know the day or the hour when the temple will be destroyed. Only God the Father knows the day and the hour. Then Jesus tells a story to make his point clear. He says,
It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
Following this, Jesus refers to the different watches of the night: evening, midnight, cockcrow, dawn. Intriguingly, Jesus’ disciples will, later that week, be invited to pray with him in the garden at midnight, but they will fail to keep watch with him.
Of course, the point of Jesus’ story is that the servants need to be ready for their master whenever he returns. Just so, Jesus’ disciples need to be ready for the destruction of the temple whenever it happens.
Watch!
The disciples need to be on guard, they need to keep watch, because they don’t know the day or the hour of the temple’s destruction. They need to be ready to flee whenever it happens. That’s why the word “watch” is so important in this passage. Jesus repeats the word four times in Mark 13: watch, watch, watch, watch!
“So what?” you may ask. What does this mean for us who are living two thousand years later. The destruction of the temple happened so long ago, why does any of this matter to us now?
Well, it is important for us to keep watch as well, to stay alert in our Christian journey. As Tom Wright says,
The judgment that fell on the Temple is a foretaste, according to other passages in the New Testament, of the judgment that will fall on the whole world. This time there are to be no signs (despite the regular attempts to speculate on such things), no advance warnings. Just the ongoing command to God’s people in Christ to be faithful to him, not to compromise with the standards and fashions of the present age, but to keep awake, watching, as Paul again says, for the day to dawn, in whose light the dim flickering candles of the present age will be needed no more.
It is interesting to me how this simple word “watch” is repeated throughout Scripture. Many times, we are told that the Lord watches over us. Perhaps the classic statement of this is in Psalm 121:8, “The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”
But then we are often told in Scripture to watch for the Lord. In Proverbs 8:34 Wisdom says, “Blessed are those who listen to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway.”
And then the Psalmist says in Psalm 130:6, “I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.”
Have you ever watched the sunrise? Becky and I went down to our beach on one occasion to watch the sun rise. It is something I have seen often, Becky, not so much. We took our chairs and planted them on the beach. We sat down. It was a little bit cold. The sky started to lighten. But then it seemed like we didn’t see the sun rise above the horizon for the longest time. Did we miss it? Was the sun behind a cloud or behind a tree? Was it ever going to happen? It seemed like it was taking too long.
Just so, it can seem the same when we are waiting on the Lord to do something. Christians have been waiting for Jesus’ return for two thousand years. Will it ever happen?
We must remember that people were saying the same thing in the first century. In 2 Peter 3 we read…
Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
So, we can be sure, the day of Jesus’ return will come, just like the sunrise. In the meantime, Jesus is giving us time to get ready.
Even though Mark 13 may not be talking about Jesus’ second coming, there are clearly other passages in the New Testament that do talk about it. One of those passages is 2 Peter 3 which we have just read. Another is Acts 1. After Jesus ascended into heaven, we read in Acts 1:10 that the disciples…
…were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
So, the New Testament makes it clear that Jesus will return visibly and bodily to this world one day. Just as the disciples saw him go into heaven, so he will return. The question is: will we be ready for him when he comes?
I wonder, if Jesus came back today, how would you want him to find you? Or if you were to die today and go to be with the Lord, what would you want your life to be like before you go? It is good to think on such things. I don’t think it is morbid at all. Perhaps we should take our cue from Jesus’ story and be like servants doing their job, always ready for their master’s return. We want to be ready to meet the Lord whenever and however his return happens. We want him to find us doing our duty, living the way he wants us to live, growing in love for him and for others. C. S. Lewis once said, “The great thing is to be found at one’s post as a child of God, living each day as though it were our last, but planning as though our world might last a hundred years.”
But then I also think of other, smaller ways we can be on the lookout for God and for his Son Jesus. Karen Burton Mains has a book entitled The God Hunt in which she talks about how we can be on the lookout for God in our everyday lives. If we carefully watch for those seemingly ordinary moments when God intervenes in our life with guidance, care, and help, then perhaps we will notice those moments more often. This involves tuning into the many ways that God answers prayer, shows evidence of his love, and helps us to do his work in the world, “Working all things together for good.”
Cindy Robotham calls these moments “God winks”. And I do think that the more we look for such “winks” the more we will notice them.
As I said at the beginning of the message, Advent means “coming”. At this time in the church year, we remember Jesus’ first coming, when he was born a babe in Bethlehem. We look forward to his second coming. But we can also watch for his coming in our everyday lives right now.
One way Jesus comes to us in our lives right now is through the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper that we will be celebrating this morning. And there are, I believe, many other ways that Jesus comes to us. I encourage you to make this Advent season a special time of watching for Jesus’ coming in your everyday life.
Let’s pray…
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