Enduring Faith
Mark 13:1-23
Every year, the group that publishes the Collins English Dictionary comes up with a word of the year. Three years ago now, their word of the year was “permacrisis.” “Permacrisis” is a noun defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events.”
As nations across the globe reel from one crisis to another, permacrisis is just as appropriate today as it was three years ago. Perhaps more so. Wars in Ukraine and Palestine, political instability, a surge in inflation, the challenges of climate change. I mean, we’ve had a year where as of January 25, New Orleans and Pensacola had recorded more snowfall than Anchorage, Alaska, which between Dec. 1 and January 25 had received just 3.8” of snowfall, over two feet less than normal. They’d had only 30” total between July 1 and January 25. It represents a system that is consistently out of whack.
A blog post on the Collins Dictionary website the word permacrisis embodies the “dizzying sense of lurching from one unprecedented event to another,” as people wonder what new “horrors” might be around the corner.[i]
Today, we’re returning to our ongoing series from the Gospel of Mark. We left off at the beginning of Advent with Jesus having journeyed with his disciples to Jerusalem for the last time. Of course, from the outside looking in, knowing the story, we know that Jesus was headed toward the cross on which he would die for all of our sin. But his disciples, taking things as they came like we all do, had no idea what was coming.
But just as significant was the situation of the people to whom Mark originally wrote this gospel. He wrote primarily to Christians in Rome and throughout Italy, the heart of the Roman Empire, who were living with increasing uncertainty. The emperor was Nero, who ruled pretty responsibly for about 5 years before coming increasingly unhinged throughout the rest of his reign. He first targeted the aristocracy in Rome, heavily taxing childless couples, falsely accusing people and then confiscating their wealth, and inviting people to commit suicide at public banquets.
But he didn’t pay much attention to those who followed Jesus until a disastrous fire swept through Rome in the tenth year of his reign. It raged unchecked for a week before coming under control, only to flare back up and rage again. Of the fourteen wards of the city of Rome, only four were spared any damage. Three wards were completely reduced to ash and rubble. The remaining seven lost many of their oldest buildings and monuments.
Rumors quickly spread that the fire had been officially ordered by Nero. He needed a scapegoat to blame the fire on, and he found one in Christians. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote “First, Nero had self-acknowledged Christians arrested. Then, on their information, large numbers of others were condemned … Their deaths were made farcical. Dressed in wild animals’ skins, they were torn to pieced by dogs, or crucified, or made into torches to be ignited after dark as substitutes for daylight.”
And then, just a three years after the fire, a war erupted in Jerusalem and Judea between as radical Jews rebelled against Rome. This led to a siege of Jerusalem. The Roman army eventually breached the city walls, destroyed the temple, razed the city, and killed, enslaved, or displaced the inhabitants of the entire region. For predominantly gentile Christians in Rome, and predominantly Jewish Christians in Judea, it felt like the world was ending. The years from AD 60-AD 70, during which Mark wrote his gospel, were disastrous.
We’ve all felt the worry, the anxiety, the fear of facing a world that seems to be falling apart. Whether the uncertainty is arising in your own little sphere – your family, your work, your friends – or in the larger world, we all know the paralyzing effect of uncertainty. We all know the fear of not knowing how we’ll handle what’s happening now, much less what we fear may be coming next. How do we as followers of Jesus handle the turmoil of uncertainty? A day or two before his arrest in Jerusalem, Jesus speaks directly to that question. Turn with me to Mark 13. We’ll start with Vv. 1-4.
The temple was a magnificent structure. It was formed primarily from shaped, white stones. And those stones were massive. Most were around 8’ long, 4’ wide, and 1.5’ thick and weighed about 2.5 tons EACH. The largest is over 44’ long, 15’ thick, and almost 11’ thick and weighs about 570 tons. The temple was a massive structure, and it gleamed white in the sun. The stones on the front were gilded with pure gold, so that it hurt your eyes to look at the temple with the sun shining on it. If it hadn’t been destroyed by Rome in AD 70, it would certainly be one of the wonders of the ancient world. And to think that it was built without excavators and cranes and heavy equipment, AND that it was destroyed, reduced to rubble, without missiles, bombs and artillery.
That temple represented the presence of God with his people, even for Jesus’ disciples. It represented security in the midst of a world gone mad, and the blessing of God even with his people living under Roman rule. His disciples were duly impressed. That’s what made Jesus’ words so unsettling. “There won’t be one stone left upon another. They’ll all be thrown down.”
His disciples were doing what everyone everywhere does. In a world that didn’t make sense, they were finding their security in nationalistic hopes and dreams for a resurgent Israel. And nothing represented that hoped for resurgence more than the magnificent temple in Jerusalem. There was no greater national symbol. So Jesus has to remind them, and us, that when we follow him, our orientation shifts from the people, places, and things in which this world finds sanity and security to him, and to him alone. It is not in political or economic security that we find hope and peace. It is in him. We no longer orient our lives around those things. We orient our lives around him.
Well, if things are going to get that uncertain and messed up, his disciples want a road map. They want to know the signs. They want to eliminate the uncertainty. Don’t we all. But Jesus doesn’t do that. Oh, this passage is often taught that way, like Jesus is giving signs. But that isn’t what he’s doing at all. In fact he tells us that. But he does give us hope. Look at Vv. 5-8.
When the world looks like it is falling apart, don’t be alarmed. That stuff happens. It has to happen. But look carefully at the end of V. 7 and again of V. 8. “But the end is not yet … these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” There is something we have to understand about the “last days” from a biblical point of view. The last days began when Christ was crucified and the curtain in the temple that separated people from the presence of God was torn from top to bottom. Christ himself ushered in the last days. The end times. When some says, “We’re living in the end times,” my reply is, “Yes, we are. We have been since the early to mid 30s AD.
We also know that when Christ ascended into heaven, he made it clear that he was “coming back soon.” But soon, from heaven’s perspective, is different that soon from ours. In 2 Peter 3:8, Peter, who is also writing about Christ’s return, says, “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” In other words, time, as we experience it, means nothing to God. He exists outside of time. From God’s perspective, a thousand years is as close as tomorrow.
Now, there are two errors that people make when it comes to the Bible’s teaching about Christ’s return. The first is to ignore it and laugh it off as a pipe dream, living as if Christ isn’t returning. The other is to obsess about it with charts and graphs trying to figure out the when’s and how’s, or trying to unlock a secret code hidden in the pages of Scripture. Jesus doesn’t want us doing that either. In fact, as we’re going to see in our passage for next week, Jesus says that even he doesn’t know when he is coming back. Only the Father knows. If Jesus doesn’t know, who are you to think you’ve got it figured out?
What Jesus is saying is, “This isn’t a road map to the last days. This is me reminding you not to lose your minds when it seems like the world is falling apart. Because this world IS in fact falling apart. It has been since sin entered. Sometimes it might seem a little better, at other times a little words, but it is in fact falling apart. Nations will rise and fall. Wars will be fought and natural disasters will happen. They’re reminders that we are living in the last days, but not evidence that we’re getting closer to his return. There has hardly been a day without conflict somewhere in this world since Christ ascended. Don’t let this world’s uncertainty destroy your faith, the hope you place in Christ alone, and don’t let it distract you from following Jesus. Endure what comes with hope.
Now, look at Vv. 9-13. Now things get a little more personal. He starts with, don’t be alarmed by what’s happening around the world. It’s going to happen. Now he goes a step further. Don’t be anxious when following me makes it even worse for you personally. Don’t lose your witness when following me creates trouble for you. He’s talking about legitimate persecution here. We don’t really know what that means in the United States at this point. Yeah, you might get ridiculed on social media or be made fun of by someone at work, but your life isn’t in danger because you’re following Jesus. There are places in the world where that is the case. And Jesus makes it clear – if that happens around you, don’t lose your witness. Don’t lose heart. Don’t lose hope.
An article titled “Arrests, Beatings, and Prayers: Inside the Persecution of India’s Christians” details the persecution of Christians in India, where Christianity is technically legal. The article states: “In church after church, the very act of worship has become dangerous despite constitutional protections for freedom of religion.”
The end of the article focuses on Pastor Vinod Patil, who refuses to stop witnessing for Jesus but must operate like a secret agent. He leaves his house quietly and never in a group. He jumps on a small Honda motorbike and putters past little towns and scratchy wheat fields, Bible tucked inside his jacket. He constantly checks his mirrors to make sure he is not tailed.
Hindu extremists have warned Pastor Patil that they will kill him if they catch him preaching. So last year he shut down his Living Hope Pentecostal Church, which he said used to have 400 members, and shifted to small clandestine services, usually at night.
One cold night this past winter, Pastor Patil drove to a secret prayer session in an unmarked farmhouse. He quickly stepped inside. On a dusty carpet that smelled like sheep, two dozen church members waited for him. Most were lower-caste farmers. When a dog barked outside, one woman whipped around and whispered, “What’s that?”
Pastor Patil reassured the woman that God was watching over. He cracked open his weathered, Hindi-language Bible and rested his finger on Luke 21, an apt passage for his beleaguered flock. “They will seize you and persecute you,” he read, voice trembling. “They will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me.”
Pastor Patil says, “You get this energy just thinking about his name.” The journalist concluded the article by stating, “They believe deeply in the teachings of Jesus.”[ii]
When we’re talking about persecution, which we in America don’t currently experience, and other costs of following Jesus, which we do, the question always comes up – Is it worth it? If all of this bad stuff can and will happen, and usually is somewhere in the world, is it worth it to follow Jesus. I always come back to the words of C.S. Lewis. “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” The problem is that we all want a Christianity that is moderately important. We want a Jesus who heals and blesses without asking us to pick up our cross and follow him. But that Jesus doesn’t exist.
The issue is your point of reference. If this world is all there is, then no, it doesn’t make sense to follow Jesus. Find something better to do with your time. But if there is more beyond this world – and the evidence for the existence of God is striking – then even the worst this world and Satan himself can throw at you pales in comparison to what Christ has in store for those who follow him when he returns. So don’t be alarmed when this world seems to be falling apart, and don’t be anxious when following Jesus brings you under fire. Now, look at Vv. 14-23.
Jesus is speaking immediately here about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem that was coming, and for Mark’s readers, was just around the corner. And they were already experiencing severe persecution under Nero in Rome. But he is also referring to those things that seem so bad, so evil, so much an affront to God that we can’t fathom what’s happening. Now, we don’t need to flee Jerusalem to the mountains of Judea. We can’t. We don’t live there. Those words were specific to the people in Judea when Jerusalem was leveled by Rome. But we ARE tempted, as they were, to be wowed by the allure of safety and security and power.
They thought the temple was the one thing that would stand forever. But it wasn’t going to. Jesus was replacing the temple. If they held on to it, if they insisted on being wowed by the massive size and wealth and beauty of the temple and all that they thought it represented, they were going to be severely, severely disappointed. Because it was coming down. If they anchored themselves to the and strength and beauty and wealth of the temple, they were going to find themselves adrift in a deadly storm. We need to anchor ourselves to the one who calmed the raging storm, and when he didn’t calm the storm, he walked on water through it.
He isn’t giving them the ten signs that would precede the end and his return. Our fear and anxiety makes us want those things. Signs make things predictable. But the Bible is clear – the only thing predictable about his return is that it will happen. You can take that to the bank. But the when? Well, only the Father knows that. And his return will be more like a bomb going off unexpectedly. Jesus doesn’t say these things to give us a road map to remove all uncertainty. He says them so that when the world, or our world, is falling apart, we won’t be alarmed and anxious. We’ll just keep doing what Jesus followers do … loving God, loving others and telling them about Jesus. We’ll have a faith that endures whatever is thrown at it.
The movie “Hacksaw Ridge” tells the true story of Desmond Doss, an American pacifist combat medic in the pacific theater during World War II who refused to carry a gun as he helped wounded soldiers. During the Battle of Okinawa, the unit he was assigned to are tasked with ascending and securing the Maeda Escarpment, otherwise known as Hacksaw Ridge. The battle saw heavy losses on both sides. But during the days of deadly fighting, Doss went back into harm’s way again and again to find and stabilize wounded soldiers and send them via a rope system down the cliff to safety.
Here’s the thing, being a medic didn’t protect him from being shot at. Grenades and mortars and artillery shells were exploding all around him. Japanese bullets were flying everywhere. It was chaos. But he kept doing his job. He just kept finding people who needed help and getting them to safety. And yes, he was finally wounded himself by a Japanese grenade and had to be lowered down the cliff himself by soldiers still at the top. The world around him was chaos. Things were blowing up everywhere. It was madness. And he just kept doing what medics do – finding the wounded and getting them to safety.
Yes, this world is so often filled with madness, with chaos, with extreme uncertainty. As followers of Jesus, we don’t lose heart, we don’t get alarmed, we don’t allow fear to win. We just keep doing what followers of Jesus do … we endure, loving God, loving others, and telling them about Jesus. Let’s pray.
[i] Greg Cannella, “Collins English Dictionary reveals its 2022 word of the year,” CBS News (11-1-22)
[ii] Jeffrey Gettleman and Suhasini Raj, “Arrests, Beatings, and Prayers: Inside the Persecution of India’s Christians,” The New York Times (12-22-21)
