I’ve been pointing out that in the last few chapters of Mark’s Gospel each chapter seems to have its own self-contained theme, so right off the top it’s important to establish what the theme of Mark 13 is, and I think it’s pretty obvious – Mark 13’s theme is “What’s To Come” or you might even say “The End Times.” Jesus looks ahead to things he says are going to happen and to things he tells the disciples to be watchful for. Along with its parallel chapters in the other Gospels, these are called apocalyptic writings. Jesus doesn’t really deal very much with apocalyptic matters over the course of his recorded ministry, but in each of the synoptic Gospels it becomes an issue after the entry into Jerusalem and before what you might call the final events of his life. That being the case I suppose that it’s natural enough for Jesus to be focussing on “the end” right at this moment. All throughout the last two thousand years there have been some Christians (and more than just Christians) who latch on to these teachings (and other apocalyptic writings in the Bible such as the Book of Revelation or certain passages from the Old Testament prophets) and become fixated on identifying “the end times” which – coincidentally enough – are almost always the times in which the person making the claim lives. Apocalyptic writings taken out of context and even at times in isolation from the rest of Scripture have led to the rise of such things as Doomsday cults that make a habit of trying to predict the timing of the end of the world. We’ve all heard such predictions over the years and we’ll probably continue to hear them. As an aside, I’m a little bit surprised that we haven’t heard of any significant rise in Doomsday cults or end times predictions during the current pandemic, which is an event that seems tailor made for such things. We’ll come back to the issue of Doomsday cults and end times predictions and how they abuse passages such as these a little bit later.
The opening words of the Chapter are spoken by an unnamed
disciple, who says ““Look, Teacher,
what large stones and what large buildings!” Since they’ve just come out of the
temple according to the verse, one has to assume that the disciple is
commenting on what he’s just seen. This might, perhaps, imply that this
disciple (and perhaps others) had never been to the temple. Some might suggest
that’s unlikely, since pilgrimages to the temple were very common in the Jewish
world, but it’s also possible that the disciples whom Jesus had called weren’t
among the most pious of even simply faithfully observant group of Jews and so
hadn’t considered pilgrimages to Jerusalem to be a priority. That actually
makes some sense, since Jesus preached an unorthodox (by the standards of his
day and by the standards of the religious leaders) version of the faith and so
might well have had more appeal to those who weren’t particularly “religious”
than to those who were. In any event, the disciple is expressing an understandable
sense of awe at the grandeur of the temple. It was originally built beginning
in 516 BC and its construction was ordered by the Persian Emperor Cyrus. It’s
the story that ends 2 Chronicles, which happens to be the last book of the
Tanakh – the Jewish Bible. So the rebuilding of the Temple takes its place as
the defining event of the Jewish faith – that to which everything leads. Its
construction had been slow and progressed over a period of centuries and the
rebuilding was accelerated and the Temple expanded under the reign of Herod the
Great. This was not the Herod who was on the throne during the events in Mark’s
Gospel (whose authority was much more limited and whose independence from Rome
was very limited), but was probably the Herod who was on the throne when Jesus
was born. Herod the Great was known for vast building projects – and the
Jerusalem Temple was one such project. This “Second Temple” was massive in
size, and it’s often called one of the wonders of the Roman world. The sheer
grandeur of the Temple overwhelmed the disciples and served Jesus’ purpose as
he would lead in to the description of the coming events. As massive and grand
as the temple was, it would be destroyed he told them, as it was in the year
70CE by the Roman Army. There had been a revolt among Jews in Jerusalem
beginning in the year 66AD, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero. That’s
too long a story to go into in great detail, but in broad strokes the Roman
Army had first occupied the Temple area and plundered the Temple’s Treasury,
claiming it for the Emperor. The Roman general Vespasian was in command of the
Roman Army and it became what we would call guerilla warfare against Jewish
rebels. After Nero’s death, Vespasian was recalled to Rome and became the new
Emperor and devoted new resources to the Jewish war to finish the task he had
started. He named his son Titus the new commander, and it was Titus in 70AD who
actually ordered the temple destroyed. This essentially ended the rebellion
(and also marginalized the Sadducees who had gained secular power and combined
it with their status as Temple officials.) These events happened 35-40 years
after Jesus’ death. Commentators are divided on whether this was supernatural
prophecy on the part of Jesus (a vision), whether he was simply able to read
the political signs and knew that a rebellion was coming that would lead to the
Romans crushing the resisters or whether the passage was written after the fact
and these words were put in Jesus’ lips by a later author. (I probably lead to
a combination of the first and second theories.) The disciples in Mark’s
account had been awed by the grandeur of the temple, and would now be equally
awed by Jesus’ insistence that this grand temple would be destroyed. Of
interest is that there would be yet another Jewish rebellion against Rome about
60 years later which would again be mercilessly crushed by the Romans and led
to the Great Diaspora – the effective expulsion of Jews from Judea and their
scattering throughout the Empire, leaving Jerusalem to become a Roman city, and
eventually a Christian city and then a Muslim city, until the establishment of
the current State of Israel.
Having shocked the disciples
with his prophetic words about the coming destruction of the temple, Jesus
would prepare his disciples for the fact that they would not be spared either.
He warns them against false prophets and Messiahs who would come in his name,
even claiming to be him. With just a bit of research I was able to identify 35
people who have claimed to be Jesus Christ just since the 18th
century. The list includes Baha-u-llah (the founder of the Bahai movement), Sun
Myung Moon (founder of the Unification Church – the “Moonies”), Jim Jones, who
started the Peoples Temple and led his followers in a mass suicide in Guyana in
1978, David Koresh, who started the Branch Davidians and was killed (along with
75 others) during a raid by the FBI on their compound in Waco, Texas in 1993
and a man named Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, who was arrested in 2011 after
firing 9 shots outside the White House in an apparent attempt to kill Barack
Obama, whom he believed was the anti-christ. The Rastafarian movement that
started in Jamaica in the 1930 claimed that Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia
was Jesus, although he never made that claim about himself. It’s an interesting
group of people. After warning about false Messiahs, Jesus basically tells his
disciples that there will always be frightening things happening (wars and
violence and natural disasters) but that these are not signs of the end. Jesus
goes on to tell his disciples that they will themselves be persecuted: handed
over to councils, beaten in the synagogues, dragged before the authorities and
even hated by their families. Keep in mind that these words were directed to
Jesus’ disciples at that time. They were certainly fulfilled. Although some
have suggested that the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire has been
exaggerated, there’s no doubt that there were outbursts of severe persecution against
the followers of Jesus – most famously under the Emperor Nero, who did indeed
burn Christians as living torches in his gardens. But I’ve noticed a strange
trend among some Christians today who seem to take pride in claiming that
they’re being “persecuted” as a badge of honour. Upon close examination, the
persecution usually revolves around things like not being able to say The
Lord’s Prayer in public schools anymore. This “persecution complex” probably
stems from Jesus’ last words on the subject – that those who stand firm to the
end will be saved. So, undergoing persecution is a sign of salvation.
And that brings us to the desolating
sacrilege, or, as some translations of the Bible call it, the abomination that
causes desolation. It’s kind of a scary image – certainly the impact that it
has is frightening, but the obvious question for both the reader and the
disciples would be: what is it? The phrase doesn’t originate with Jesus. It
actually occurs in Daniel 9:27. There, it refers to Antiochus Epiphanes, who
was the King of the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BC. The
Seleucids controlled what would become Judea and Antioches persecuted the
Jewish people. One of the things he did was to set up a pagan altar in the
Temple of Jerusalem – it was that altar that Daniel referred to as the
desolating sacrilege. So, Jesus is using a phrase that’s known to the Jews but
obviously it’s a reference to something else. Since the context of his remarks
seems to be looking ahead to the actions of the Romans, it’s reasonable to
assume that’s the case here too. There are two suggestions that I’ve seen. One
is that it’s a very general reference to the rebellion of AD66, and that the
desolating sacrilege is simply the presence of Roman soldiers in Jerusalem.
Roman soldiers have been there before. A Legion was usually marched into
Jerusalem at least once a year at Passover just to display Rome’s military
might and to discourage rebellions, but in the Rebellion of 66AD the Roman
soldiers would actually be fighting a war within the city. That’s one
possibility. The other suggestion is that it refers specifically to the Temple.
It would be natural for the Romans, having put down the rebellion to march their
troops into the central location of the city – which would be the temple. So
the desolation of abomination being set up would be the Roman Army standards
carried by the Legions into the Temple as a sign of Roman strength and
authority. Given the connection to the reference in Daniel, the second option
is more likely. We know that Mark had edited this. Jesus certainly did not say
“let the reader understand” in v.14. Jesus may have made a more specific
reference than “the desolating sacrilege” and Mark felt it prudent to be
somewhat more cryptic given all the warnings Jesus had made and the Roman
presence. So the disciples may actually be part of an “in” group compared to
those who read Mark’s Gospel. The know what Jesus said; we’re left to try to
figure this reference out.
Jesus also introduces the
concept of “the elect” in this discussion. Simply put, the elect are those
chosen by God for salvation. Paul speaks about the elect in his Letter to the
Romans, but that was a relatively late letter, so it’s likely that this
reference from Mark is the earliest reference we have to the idea of “the
elect.” It’s influenced Christian theology, and is a part of the Calvinist Doctrine
of Predestination – the idea that God has already chosen those who will be
saved for eternity. It’s probably related to the early Christian belief (still
unfortunately held by some today) that Christianity had replaced Judaism as
God’s favoured people. The Jews (Abraham’s descendants) had been singled out
and chosen by God in the past simply because God chose them; now Christians
were the ones singled out and chosen by God. The doctrine basically tells us
that we play no part in our salvation – to save us is simply God’s sovereign
choice and it has nothing to do with our worthiness, because none of us (no
matter how “good” we are in worldly terms) are worthy of salvation. Jesus
obviously doesn’t flesh out what he means by “the elect.” That’s later
theological reflection by the church. But he does introduce the idea here.
Having made stark and even
frightening warnings to the disciples about what was to come, Jesus offers a
bit of comfort. Way back in Chapter 2 Jesus had used the words “Son of Man” to
refer to himself, so that makes fairly clear what he’s speaking of here. He
begins with several scattered quotations from the Jewish prophets – one
commentator called verses 24-27 “a veritable jigsaw of Old Testament apocalyptic
passages” – all of which relate to the image of the “Son of Man coming in the
clouds.” This is obviously the reference that gave rise to the belief in the
return (or Second Coming) of Jesus, and the imagery is used decades later by
John in the Book of Revelation. Are we to take it literally – is Jesus really
going to come on the clouds? That’s likely a reference to the cosmology of the
time in which heaven was seen to be up in the sky beyond our sight. But the
point seems to be that when Jesus comes again it will be visible and clear and
everyone will see – which is likely why he warned his disciples against falling
for false Messiahs. “You’ll know when it’s me,” is his message, “so don’t
believe just anyone who claims to be me.” And, again, “the elect” (the ones
chosen by God) are taken “from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”
Later apocalyptic writings (especially Revelation) run with this idea and
concentrate on what happens on earth after the elect are removed.
The last 10 verses of the
passage are fairly simple. They’re a call to Jesus’ disciples to be watchful.
The point is that if you watch carefully you can know that something is
happening. What does Jesus mean by saying “So also, when you see these things
taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.” “He” can also
be “it” and I think Jesus is referring to the Jewish rebellion and the Roman
destruction of the temple rather than to his coming. That makes the most sense,
given that Jesus uses the words “at the gates.” It’s a reference to the Roman
Legions preparing to march on the city. When Jesus says that “this generation”
will not pass away before these things happen, it causes confusion. The
rebellion and the Roman attack were probably at most 20 years away when Mark
wrote, so the reference is quite factual if we understand the reference to be
to the rebellion and the Roman attack. There would be many from “this
generation” left when that happened. Overall, though, the passage warns us
about assigning specific dates and times to anything. “… about that day or hour
no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Some things are known only to God in heaven and Jesus (as the Son of God
incarnate on earth) did not possess all the knowledge of God, including
knowledge of dates and times. So that’s probably another reason for us to look
with some degree of skepticism when someone says “the world will end on …”
Various groups have tried. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have made various
predictions; Herbert W. Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God have also
done so. They just keep changing the date when the day they predict comes and
goes. Pat Robertson once predicted the end of the world would happen in 1982.
The most recent widely publicized prediction was by a man named Harold Camping,
who predicted that the end would come on October 21, 2011. It’s a fool’s game. No
one knows, and it directly contradicts Jesus to even try to assign a date to
the end. The best advice Jesus gave on the subject is probably summed up by his
last words in the chapter: “And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”
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