Sermon Tone Analysis

Notes

INTRODUCTION

Like chap.

4, chap.

13 is a collection of Jesus’ teachings and sayings from various occasions that have been gathered by Mark into the present chapter.

This is evident from the fact that some of the teachings preserved in Mark 13 appear in entirely different contexts in other Gospels.

The absence of the original contexts of the various sayings and their indefiniteness combine to make this one of the most perplexing chapters in the Bible to understand, for readers and interpreters alike.2

the concluding admonitions in the chapter to “watch” (vv.

33–37), indicates that the purpose of the eschatological discourse in Mark 13 is not primarily to provide a timetable or blueprint for the future so much as to exhort readers to faithful discipleship in the present.

It is most reasonably and fruitfully seen as the culmination of Mark’s polemic against the temple begun in chap.

11.

Two further uses of the terminology occur in v. 29 (Gk.

tauta) and v. 30 (Gk. tauta panta), indicating that the generation that will not pass away until “all these things have happened” is the generation of the fall of Jerusalem.

This linguistic pattern is a clue that Mark intends readers to understand vv.

1–13 and 28–31 with reference to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

Two other blocks of material in the chapter are held in close connection with the destruction of the temple.

They are vv.

14–27, the description of the tribulation and subsequent coming of the Son of Man; and vv.

32–36, the reminder of the unknown day and hour of the return of the Son of Man and the consequent reminder to present watchfulness.

These two sections are designated by the expression “those days” (vv.

17, 19, 20, 24; or “that day,” v. 32).

“Those days” is a stereotype for the eschaton in the prophets (Jer 3:16, 18; 31:29; 33:15; Joel 3:1), and it appears likewise in Mark 13. Chap.

13 is thus constructed according to a twofold scheme of tension and paradox, alternating between the immediate future (related to “these things”) and the end of time (related to “those days”), in which the destruction of the temple and fall of Jerusalem function as a prefigurement and paradigm for the Parousia.

• A1 1–13 End of the temple and fall of Jerusalem

• B1 14–27 Tribulation and Parousia

• A2 28–31 End of the temple and fall of Jerusalem

• B2 32–37 Parousia and watchfulness

Most importantly, Mark 13 admonishes readers against attempts at constructing timetables and deciphering signs of the Parousia.

Disciples are admonished to be alert and watchful (vv.

5, 9, 23, 33, 35, 37), reminded that they do not know the time of the end (vv.

33, 35), and warned not to be led astray by even the most obvious signs (vv.

5, 6, 21, 22), for the end is not yet (vv.

7, 13).

No one is either encouraged or commended for attempting to be an eschatological code-cracker.

That is folly, for even the Son of Man is ignorant of the End (v.

32).

The premium of discipleship is placed not on predicting the future but on faithfulness in the present, especially in trials, adversity, and suffering.

THE DESTR

Two further uses of the terminology occur in v. 29 (Gk.

tauta) and v. 30 (Gk. tauta panta), indicating that the generation that will not pass away until “all these things have happened” is the generation of the fall of Jerusalem.

This linguistic pattern is a clue that Mark intends readers to understand vv.

1–13 and 28–31 with reference to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

Two other blocks of material in the chapter are held in close connection with the destruction of the temple.

They are vv.

14–27, the description of the tribulation and subsequent coming of the Son of Man; and vv.

32–36, the reminder of the unknown day and hour of the return of the Son of Man and the consequent reminder to present watchfulness.

These two sections are designated by the expression “those days” (vv.

17, 19, 20, 24; or “that day,” v. 32).

“Those days” is a stereotype for the eschaton in the prophets (Jer 3:16, 18; 31:29; 33:15; Joel 3:1), and it appears likewise in Mark 13. Chap.

13 is thus constructed according to a twofold scheme of tension and paradox, alternating between the immediate future (related to “these things”) and the end of time (related to “those days”), in which the destruction of the temple and fall of Jerusalem function as a prefigurement and paradigm for the Parousia.

• A1 1–13 End of the temple and fall of Jerusalem

• B1 14–27 Tribulation and Parousia

• A2 28–31 End of the temple and fall of Jerusalem

• B2 32–37 Parousia and watchfulness

Most importantly, Mark 13 admonishes readers against attempts at constructing timetables and deciphering signs of the Parousia.

Disciples are admonished to be alert and watchful (vv.

5, 9, 23, 33, 35, 37), reminded that they do not know the time of the end (vv.

33, 35), and warned not to be led astray by even the most obvious signs (vv.

5, 6, 21, 22), for the end is not yet (vv.

7, 13).

No one is either encouraged or commended for attempting to be an eschatological code-cracker.

That is folly, for even the Son of Man is ignorant of the End (v.

32).

The premium of discipleship is placed not on predicting the future but on faithfulness in the present, especially in trials, adversity, and suffering.

VERSES 1-2

“As [Jesus] was leaving the temple.”

This is more than a physical description.

Rather, it symbolizes Jesus’ final and definitive break from the temple.

He has thrice predicted his death at the hands of Jewish and Gentile leaders (8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34); he has countermanded the authority of the Sanhedrin (11:27–33), which was located in the temple; and he has challenged each group comprising the Sanhedrin—the Pharisees (12:13–17), Sadducees (12:18–27), and scribes (12:35–40).

The temple has been judged and condemned as a “den of robbers” (11:17), symbolized by an accursed and withered fig tree (11:12–22).

Jesus’ judgment of the temple was well enough known to his adversaries to play a significant role in his death sentence (14:58; 15:29–30).

In v. 1, his footsteps obey his will: Jesus leaves the temple, never to return.

The Temple Blocks

In Jesus’ day the temple had already been under construction fifty years, and was still unfinished.

At no place was Herod the Great’s obsession with grandeur and permanence more apparent than in the Jerusalem temple (see further at 11:15 and 12:41).

Herod enlarged Solomon’s temple to an esplanade measuring some 325 meters wide by 500 meters long, with a circumference of nearly a mile.

The immense thirty-five-acre enclosure could accommodate twelve football fields.

The southeast corner of the retaining wall hung some fifteen stories above the ground that sloped down to the Kidron Valley.

The blocks of stone used in construction were enormous; Josephus (War 5.189) reports that some were forty cubits (approximately sixty feet) in length.

No block that size has been found in the existing foundation, but stones north of Wilson’s Arch measure forty-two feet long, eleven feet high, fourteen feet deep, and weigh over a million pounds.

The magnitude of the temple mount and the stones used to construct it exceed in size any other temple in the ancient world.

And this was merely the retaining wall.

Above, on the south end of the esplanade, perched the gleaming Royal Portico, “a striking spectacle,” to quote Josephus.

The portico was forty-five feet wide and consisted of three aisles supported by four rows of columns.

The columns were crowned with Corinthian capitals and rose to a height of forty feet, supporting a cedar-paneled ceiling above.

“The thickness of each column was such that it would take three men with outstretched arms touching one another to envelop it,” reports Josephus (Ant.

15.413).

In the center of the esplanade stood the sanctuary, which, as ancient writers noted, was shaped like a lion, broader in the front (fifty meters) and narrower in back (thirty meters).

It rose to a height of fifty meters and was a visual collage of gold and silver, crimson and purple, radiating the rising sun like a snow-clad mountain.

The figures Josephus gives for the blocks of stone in the sanctuary exceed in size even those of the foundation (War 5.222–24).

A vast and stupendous complex it was.

No wonder the disciples were overwhelmed!

Not One Stone Upon Another

As remarkable as the proportions of the temple is Jesus’ attitude toward it.

“ ‘Do you see all these great buildings?

Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.’

” Earlier Jesus spoke of “the fig tree withered from the roots” (11:20).

The fig tree, as we saw, symbolized the temple.

In Jesus’ final judgment of the temple the symbolism is dropped and its destruction is pronounced in concrete terms—stone by stone.

The disciples drop their jaws over building blocks, but Jesus dismisses them as stumbling blocks.

Josephus’s lamentation over the destruction of “that splendid city of world-wide renown” forty years later attests to the fulfillment of Jesus’ judgment: “Caesar ordered the whole city and the temple to be razed to the ground.…

All the rest of the wall encompassing the city was so completely leveled to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no ground for believing that it had ever been inhabited” (War 7.3).

VERSES 3-13

In this section Mark directs the teaching of Jesus to events leading up to the destruction of the temple.

Jesus’ teaching falls into two parts, each prefaced by an admonition in Greek, blepete (translated by the NIV as “ ‘Watch out’ ” in v. 5, and “ ‘be on your guard’ ” in v. 9).

The first admonition concerns false Messiahs and natural and political disasters (vv.