Mark 13:14-23 (2)

We have never been more connected with what’s going on in the world than we are today. Melanie and I are slowly watching this TV show that is set in the early 1700s, and I have to say that it would be so infuriating to live in that time period. For many reasons. But one reason is because it takes so long for news to travel! Something happens at one end of the British Empire, and it takes days or weeks for the news to reach the mainland! Whereas, we know within hours, sometimes within minutes. We have never been more connected to the world than we are right now.

In fact, there are some days when I feel like I’m maybe a little too connected with the world. Is anyone else a headline junky? I’ve got the Times on my phone, I’ve got NPR on in my car, I’ve got Apple sending me updates throughout the day. If something happens, I’m going to know about it. In fact, I just recently turned those notifications off on my phone, because I’ll come out of a lunch meeting and the Times has sent me twelve notifications about things going on domestically and abroad. And we’re getting to the time in the year when news companies start doing those “Year in Review” stories where they recount all the major things that happened in the year. And I think all of us can agree that 2021 has been a crazy year. The world is chaos. It seems to be perpetually out of control.

And here’s how some of us respond to a world that is out of control. We just can’t handle it and so we choose to not engage with the chaos at all. We don’t seek out news. We forbid those kinds of conversations to happen in our homes. We shut it all out of our lives and say, “No. I’m just going to manage what’s going on in my life right now, and I’m not going to pay any attention to those other things.” That’s how some of us respond to this. Apathy and disengagement.

Others of us swim on the other end of the paradigm, and that’s obsession. We obsess over current events. We want to know what’s happening at all times. This is closer to my experience.

And there’s a particular extreme form of this obsession that lives in certain Christian circles, where we read the current events and we try to arrange them into this framework with flow charts and timetables of signs and happenings in order to figure out that Jesus is going to return on December 17th, so we better be ready. You’ve gotten those forwarded emails, haven’t you? You’ve seen those Facebook posts, that normally end with “If you really love Jesus you’ll like and share...” You’ve seen these people on TV. They’ve got big hair, and they want your credit card number.

So these are the two extremes. We can put this up as a paradigm for how to respond to world that is out of control. On one end is an apathetic attitude that says ignorance is bliss and on the other, an obsession that sees signs of the end times in every crisis. Think about where you might fall on that paradigm.

But the question that we’re asking this morning as we look at this incredibly strange passage in Mark is this: What does it look like for followers of Jesus to live faithfully in a world that is out of control? What does Jesus want us to be and do in the midst of the perpetual cycle of crises that we face as human beings? How can we be intentional in our lives so that we don’t slide into one of these extremes?

This is what Jesus is speaking to in our text this morning. Jesus is warning his disciples about the coming destruction of Jerusalem and all the horrors that will accompany it. But he is far less concerned about what is actually going to happen than how his disciples should behave in the midst of it. So that is what we’re going to look at today.

To really understand what Jesus is saying, we have to know the context of this passage. So, this is the story that we’ve been following, leading up to Mark 13.

Jesus has been announcing throughout Israel, the upside down kingdom of God, and he’s claiming to be its king. Now, he’s come to Jerusalem, the City of David, where the Temple sits. He rode into the city like a King, and the first thing he did was he asserted himself in the Temple, turning over tables and teaching with authority, even calling out the religious leaders, and he’s now exiting the Temple.

According to Matthew’s telling of this story, before he leaves the Temple Mount, he looks over the city and he says,

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

That image is so touching and so sad. Evidently, Jesus sees himself like a mother hen trying to protect her young from danger. This is what he sees himself trying to do as he is calling them to a new way of life, he is trying to protect them like a mother hen.

What do they need protection from? Well, if you remember, Israel was not a free nation. They were a defeated people who were forcibly occupied by one of the most oppressive empires in the ancient world, the Romans. And what Jesus has been calling them to do is to not respond with violence or revolt or hate, but with unthinkable acts of generosity, forgiveness, and peacemaking. Jesus said that this was how the kingdom of God would come, as you live in this way.

But Israel’s leaders rejected him and the way of life that he was calling them to adopt as God’s people. Instead, they continued down the road that they were on. By rejecting the way of Jesus, they chose to embrace the way of conflict and revolt against Rome, and Jesus predicts that road will lead to the destruction of the city. And this is what Jesus begins to speak about in Mark 13. He’s going to describe what they can expect to face in the next few years as Israel continues to meet the oppression of Rome with hatred and violence and revolt. And he’s going to give some pastoral advice about how to live in that world as his disciples. So let’s read beginning in verse 1.

And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.

We can see here is that Jesus is preparing his disciples for a world that will be very difficult to live in. Things aren’t going to be well. He says that there will come people who say that Jesus of Nazareth was a fraud. Clearly, he is a terrible Savior, because he got himself crucified. He can’t help you. But I can! Jesus says they’ll see war at home and they’ll hear about wars abroad. There will be earthquakes and famines, natural disasters.

The disciples can expect to experience all of these things, but what is Jesus’ advice to his disciples? Do not be alarmed. Do not let these things throw you off the rails. You should expect the world to be crazy and out of control. You’re going to think that it’s the end of the world, but I’m telling you that it is not. In fact, they are the birth pains.

This is such an interesting metaphor for Jesus to use. He describes the world as a woman who is in labor. Nations rising up against nations, natural disasters, it’s like the world is writhing in the pain of labor. And labor pains build up to a singular moment when something new is born. The pains of labor lead up to this moment of arrival when new life comes forth. And this is how Jesus sees the world. We live in a world that is wracked with human evil and sin and death, but it’s leading up to a moment when something new is born when Jesus returns and the kingdom of God comes in full, when the dead are raised to eternal life in the New Heavens and Earth. What a hopeful lens by which he thinks about the difficult realities that we face in this world. They are birth pains.

The truth is that every generation believes that it will be the last. Every generation believes that it will see the end of the world. Whatever crisis we are facing, we feel like it is the most significant crisis ever to be experienced on earth. In today’s political and societal climate, every crisis and issue is painted in apocalyptic terms, and so it seems like we’re always teetering on the edge of total societal breakdown. When you turn the news on it always seems like the sky is falling and the world is ending.

And this is why Jesus’ advice applies to us in our context today. Even though Jesus is talking about a specific situation, his counsel applies to every generation, because people continue to live in a world that is out of control. Jesus says, “Don’t be alarmed.”

But he also tells us to do something. What does Jesus tell his disciples to do? Skip down to verse 12,

And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake.

Jesus keeps explaining that things are going to be difficult, but then he says...

But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

But the one who endures to the end will be saved. What does it look like for followers of Jesus to live faithfully in a world that is out of control? It looks like standing firm in the things that Christ has called us to be about - and we don’t have to guess about that. He has told us exactly what we are to be about in this life - love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus tells his disciples that even when it seems like the world is ending, stand firm in your love for God and your love for neighbor. Do not let your fears distract you or pull you away from that.

And I love that he tells them to endure. He doesn’t say, “The one who triumphs…or the one who has immaculate success…or the one who wins all their friends to Jesus!” No, he says, just hang on to the end. I find that so encouraging, because He knows that a lot of the time, that’s all I can muster.

When we read or watch the news and the headlines are projecting doom. Inflation Crisis. Border Crisis. Pandemic Crisis. Climate Change Crisis. Or even on a more personal level. A crisis at home or at work. Jesus cares about how we live in those moments, and he’s telling us to not let them shake us to the point that we forget what he has called us to do: which is to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

We abdicate our responsibility as disciples of Jesus when we live our lives consumed with every crisis of our day, wondering if the end is near. But at the same time, we abdicate our responsibility when we withdraw from the world in apathy, when we are not moved by the crises of our lives and seek ways to bring the light of Christ to bear on the people who are affected by the chaos of the world.

So what do we do? We endure and bear witness to the good news of Jesus. That’s the mindset we are to cultivate every day in a world that is out of control.