By The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
November 18, 2012
Text: Mark 13:1-11
It was 2009, in the City of L'Aquila in Italy, and there was a great fear running rampant through the community, based on what they thought was evidence of an impending earthquake. The people weren't sure what to do. They were receiving mixed messages: there were those who were saying that an earthquake would come and cause great destruction; and there were others who were saying “Do not worry, for in fact it is nothing and it will be mild.” But, on one day, they woke up to this devastation: a 6.3 earthquake hit the town, 300 people died.
In October of this year, the trial was concluded. On trial were the six scientists and one government official who were responsible for providing the scientific information that would lead up to that earthquake. They were found guilty: guilty of not preparing people for the worst, for not being strong enough in their advocacy, for fleeing the town. There were people who came to the trial who had lost fathers and mothers and daughters and sons, who emotionally pleaded with the court to find the scientists guilty for their ineptitude.
The world was stunned by that finding. It was stunned in such a way that scientists of all stripes responded with the greatest vigour. How can you do this? How can you persecute people who have scientific backgrounds and provided their research only to be caught out, and what will it mean for the future? The Director of Medical Physics at the U.K's Royal Berkshire Hospital, said the following in response to all of this: “If the scientific community is to be penalized for making predictions that turn out to be incorrect, or for not accurately predicting an event that subsequently occurs, then scientific endeavour will be restricted to certainties only, and the benefits associated with findings from medicine to physics will be stalled.”
In other words, he is saying that if this is a precedent in law, then it will cause all manner of speculation, research and endeavour to stop. No one will want to give their opinion about anything, and just think of the chaos that would prevail. I have wondered about that moment, I wondered why the court would make the decision that they did, not under law, but under popular perception, because I think that there are many people, and as a society as a whole, who want a degree of certainty and want to know what the future has in store.
I find it quite humorous that when I go to my coffee shop in the morning to pick up my coffee, the very first thing I see at the counter is a horoscope that has been taken from Metro not least! I always look at this with a certain degree of amusement and fear, for I was born on October 23rd, and that is the day right between Libra and Scorpio. According to some, I am a Scorpio; to others, I am a Libra. So, I read both! As I am standing there waiting for my coffee to be served and I read Scorpios: “You are a strong character, you are full of all kinds of anxieties, and your strength will overpower the people who are around you.” And then I read Libra: “You are a delicate and a quiet sort, you are gentle of spirit and loving and kind, your day will be full of flowers and things will be beautiful.” Then, I try and decide what my day is going to be like based on that. I just walk away and drink my coffee. Hopeless! Is it not interesting that those who manage that store know something?
They know something we need to be aware of and that is that people genuinely want to know what is going to happen today or tomorrow. It is that very same idea that what we call in biblical terms “apocalyptic.” “Apocalyptic” means “the unveiling” or “the revealing”. It deals with those moments that look to the future and that we wonder about. We wonder what God is going to do, and when the full revelation of God, when the unveiling in time of God's Kingdom, the fulfillment, and the end of all things will take place. We like to speculate about it, because we want to know what will happen tomorrow. We want to have a sense of control of the future.
Part of the problem is that when people think in those terms, they read today's passage and try to find kernels within it that are sort of like a “Godly Horoscope.” Maybe there is something in this Gospel of Mark passage that is going to help me know when the end-time is going to occur, help me know what the future is going to bring.
I know people, as strange as it sounds, who have interpreted this passage and decided whether they were going to take out a mortgage on the basis of it. Seriously! It is because they hear of wars and rumours of wars, they hear of floods and earthquakes, all the things leading up to the end-time, and they see these things going on around them and they say, “Geez, you know, maybe I shouldn't get a mortgage after all, because I don't know what tomorrow will be.” If someone comes along who says, “Oh, I can tell you what tomorrow will be” people go: “Oh, we want to hear this. This is nice to know! We would like to have some certainty.”
Let me be perfectly clear: when Mark wrote this Gospel, he was not giving an assessment of the end-times. When he wrote this, he was not giving or speculating about the Apocalypse and about the final revelation. When Jesus spoke these words to the disciples, he wasn't giving a blow-by-blow, day-by-day theory of the end-times. He was doing something that was very powerful, and I think sometimes we miss the power of this text, because we are looking in the wrong place for the wrong things at the wrong time.
Jesus, we are told, had taken the disciples over to the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives, for those of you who know the geography and the topography of Jerusalem, is opposite the city with a valley in-between. The city and the skyline would be dominated by one thing: the great Temple. They are sitting on the other side of the valley, and the Mount of Olives with Zechariah years and years before having predicted in fact that the Temple would come to an end, sitting there in this place of oracles, Jesus sits down with four of his favourite disciples, well, certainly three of them - John, James and Peter - and then Andrew.
Jesus is sitting down with the four of them, and he said to them, “Look, look at that Temple over there.” They had already been commenting on it: they say “Wow! What a building! Look at those stones! They are magnificent! Aren't they just the greatest things? Isn't that a spectacular building, Jesus?” And then, Jesus shatters them. He says, “You know, there is not one stone on that Temple that will not be turned over. There will be a destruction of that Temple. Its day will come.” Can you imagine what the four of them must have felt? What on earth is he talking about? We just extolled the virtues of this glorious building, and Jesus is saying that it will be obliterated.
Jesus, in this intimate conversation with them is talking about much deeper things. Now, it is true that the Temple would be destroyed less than thirty years after his death, around AD 70, and Jesus knew that the Temple would be destroyed. He doesn't say when, he doesn't say how, he doesn't say by whom. He doesn't speculate at all. He just knows it is going to happen. Mark, who wrote the Gospel, clearly knew, and those who read the Gospel afterwards clearly knew.
They knew that the Emperor Caligula had tried to erect a monument in his own honour outside the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 41, and that this caused a massive uprising by Jews who wanted to maintain the integrity and the monotheism of their Temple. They could not stand Caligula making a mockery of their house being turned into a Temple for the Gods of Rome, and that led to conflict, and that conflict continued for thirty years, until finally, the Temple was destroyed in AD 70 by the Romans.
It was a dark time that Jesus was talking about to the disciples, and he was bringing them into his confidence, because he was concerned. He was concerned that they knew how to live and to minister and to be faithful between two events: between on the one hand the destruction of that Temple and on the other his eventual return as the Messiah, as the King of Kings. It was at that moment and between those moments that Jesus wanted the disciples to live, and he didn't want them to get caught up in all the speculations between the end of the Temple and his return. Rather, what he wanted for them was the way to live. He wanted them to know what to do and to be between these two events.
Well, we live between these two events. If you go to Jerusalem today, as a friend of mine is this very morning, to place a prayer in the crack of the western wall, you know that Temple does not exist, and that is all that is left. We wait in a time between that moment when that Temple was destroyed and Christ's return, which is what the Creeds say, which is what our Statement of Faith says: “He will come to judge the living and the dead.” Between then and now, how do we live?
Jesus gives the disciples a clue. He first of all says, “Be alert. Have a sense of discernment.” He says to be alert for all those who are going to come along and say, “I am He.” In other words, “I am Jesus revisited.” Beware! Not long after Jesus' death, there were people like Simon Bar Kochba, who came along and pretended to be Christ. There were those who pointed to him as the Messiah. Between then and now, throughout the ages, there have been countless numbers who have come along claiming to have a special insight, claiming to be divinely empowered, those who claim to be of a Messianic kind.
It is fascinating that in the nineteenth century in particular there were a whole host of people who rose up claiming to have a special knowledge, to have something greater than even Christ could give, and wanting people to follow them in a cult-like form. There have always been those who have come along and claimed to be the Messiah! Now, today, I do not think that same euphoria about Messianic figures is perhaps central to our news, but there are still those who use the fear of this Apocalypse - that there will be wars and rumours of wars and earthquakes and floods and famines - to put fear into people's lives in order that they themselves might be elevated and lifted up, that they are the ones with the special knowledge that nobody else has.
Is that not a form of being Messianic? Isn't that a form of false teaching and idolatry? Is it not false when you have false teachers who come along and espouse things other than the faith? So, be alert! Jesus says, “Beware of those who might come along in my name and lead you astray, for it might not be my path but another path that they lead you on.” Jesus wanted the disciples to be courageous. Last week, did we not talk about courage in the face of adversity. Courage is a virtue. But, courage is more than a virtue. Courage is something that is borne out of a deep, deep faith. It is courage that comes from being faithful to Christ no matter what.
When I was in Chicago this past summer, I was looking at some of the documents that had come from the very famous newspaper, The Chicago Tribune. It had some fascinating articles, but one in particular, just after 9-11, was a story of courage that arises from the human experience and gives you a sense of the power of faith. It is the story of a man called, Todd Beamer. He and his wife had just been on a vacation in Italy and had flown back to the United States to New Jersey to spend time with their two boys before he was to go back to work.
Just as he got back, he heard that there was something wrong with the company that he worked for, ironically Oracle, and he went on to a plane from New Jersey to San Francisco in northern California, where this problem was occurring. He kissed his children and his wife goodbye and got on the plane and a couple of hours into the flight, over Cleveland something dreadful happened: three terrorists broke into the cabin, took over the flight deck, and informed the passengers that they were being held hostage.
Todd, who was a very devout Christian, got on the phone that was on the back of the seat in front of him, and he felt it important to let GTE, the company that oversees that phone know what is happening. Quietly, he whispered to an attendant that the plane had been taken over. The attendant informed him of what had happened a few minutes earlier in New York, for he didn't know what had happened to the Twin Towers. He then realized the horror of what was taking place.
He looked around and realized where they were, and the plane was now turning south: it was going back from where it had come. It was heading either to New York or to Washington. He knew it was one or the other. And so, he stopped for a moment, and he asked the attendant to say a prayer. He said, “Would you say the Lord's Prayer for me? I cannot speak much more, for I will be heard.” The prayer was given by the attendant at the other end, and then he said, “May the Lord be with you” and she said back to him, “And also with you.”
He then, with two other men who were sitting nearby, decided they would risk their lives, for they knew not what was going to happen, and subdue the terrorists. They subdued them. The reason people knew was that the telephone lines were not only on the back of his seat but the others as well and there were attendants at the other end who heard it all unfolding. They subdued them. But they couldn't control the plane. They couldn't stop it from going in the direction in which it was going, but they could act quickly.
As it was heading towards Washington, where it would have killed hundreds, if not thousands, they managed to wrestle the plane to the ground, and it landed nose first into the ground, making a forty-foot crater and killing everybody on board, but nobody was killed on the ground. Afterwards, it was said of him that this was the courage of faith: putting himself in immediate danger, for it did take his life, but thinking to save the lives of others.
Faith and courage go hand-in-hand. Jesus wanted the disciples to be full of courage. He knew that they would be brought before kings and princes. He knew that they would be brought before all manner of courts. He knew that they would be persecuted for their faith. He knew that between the end of the Temple and his return, those who are faithful to Him might indeed face persecution. He told them to continue and to remain faithful.
He told them not only to be full of courage and discernment, but also in sort of a round-about way to be full of boldness. He knew that they were going to face persecution. We know that Christians today face persecution. We know that churches are burned at times, and people are put to death for their faith and what they believe. It is a terrible thing. But, we shouldn't get so caught up in it that we lose sight of what it is Christ wants us to be.
What Christ wants us to be and what Christ wants us to do is exactly what he told the disciples. He says, “Between the end of the Temple and my return, I want you to share the Good News. I want you to share the Good News to all the nations. I want you to let people know the love that I have for them. And yes, I will return. And yes, there will be floods, and yes, there will be earthquakes, and there will be those who will speculate on all manner of things, but I want you to emphasize the Good News. I want you to emphasize me.”
I think there is a word from that Apocalyptic for our age and for us, and that is that at times we are like those disciples: we are looking at the temples around us, we are looking at the things that are being built up over two thousand years in Christ's name, and we honour the bricks and the mortar. We worry about and are concerned about all the secondary and tertiary things of our life, and sometimes we fail to do the one thing that Jesus wanted his disciples to do: to bear witness to him and his love.
I ask you, quietly in your own mind and heart, when was the last time you actually spoke to somebody in need, somebody who was hurting, or had lost a loved one, or who was even celebrating the joys in their lives? When was the last time you talked to them about Jesus Christ, about what he means to you, about what he has done and continues to do? I don't say this as a word of judgement, I am not saying I want everyone to be going around talking about Jesus all the time - Lord knows, you can drive people crazy doing that!
I am just saying that there is a time when you can have the grace and the power of the Holy Spirit. And, when the Holy Spirit moves upon you and you are able to talk about your faith in a deep, meaningful way: Do it! It is what Jesus wanted his disciples to do and his disciples to be. He did not want them to get caught up in all the worry and the rhetoric of Apocalyptic, not even to worry about when he returns or the end of time, but just simply to share the Good News of his love for the world.
I can assure you that if we do that sincerely and kindly and gently, the world that we see sometimes quaking will be a better place - and Jesus will be delighted! Amen.