MARK 13:1-11

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 26…Revised 2018

To preach we need to do our theological homework, not least when, as here, we have a complex passage of ‘apocalyptic’. Brendan Byrne¹ says, (it) ‘seems to send mixed messages to the faithful, oscillating in a rather disturbing way between reassurance & warning’? How can we preach both these notes, reassurance, &, warning, in a way that balances them without falling into either extreme? Some questions we might explore are: 

How do we set about living in ‘our time’ & ‘God’s time’ simultaneously? Can there be a better starting point than to encourage what the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ speaks of as: ‘God’s Name being hallowed, God’s Rule coming, & God’s will being done (all of these!)‘on earth as in Heaven’? Surely no-one knows better than Our Lord how ‘reassurance’ & ‘warning’ do oscillate in the realities of down to earth life? How does Jesus approach people & situations as they challenge or confront Him; or, as He challenges or confronts them in the many situations arising in Scriptural accounts? Approach them in our own strength & we will often find them too hard; a warning. Approach them in God’s strength, in the Spirit of Jesus & we will no doubt often still find them hard; but, reassuring. Even when life seems to be beating up on us. There is no way to compel what we discern to be God’s will happen ‘on earth as in heaven’. 

The alternative, putting off, pushing off God’s will into some apocalyptic future leads us only to practise (&, preach?) ‘apocalyptic escapism’. Like others, I wonder if the early churches did that from time to time, despite the witness of so many martyrs to the contrary. How many of them are rescued ‘in extremis’? Any more than Jesus Himself is? As humans, aren’t we always living ‘in extremis’?

The next chapter (14) leads into the events of ‘Holy Week’. Then, even when Jesus Himself pleads, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” We only hear the sounds of creation protesting when Jesus is, dare I say, beyond rescuing by God or any human agency. An echoing warning & reassurance that, like what Jesus teaches us in today’s passage, Resurrection mustn’t become a doctrine of escapism either!

Afterthought: David Lose², writing on today’s passage in 2015 says, ‘Living with uncertainty was hard for 1st C. followers, & it’s just as hard for His 21st C. Disciples as well…..The antidote to uncertainty isn’t certainty, but courage….’  Do I need to add that no-one on earth has ever shown greater courage than Jesus - Man & God?

Brian

¹ A Costly Freedom, Liturgical, Collegeville, Minn., 2008, p. 196  ²  In the Meantime 

PS.: Sunday, Nov. 26th is the Feast of Christ the King, with its Johannine Gospel. For my blog on that see: jottingsonjohn.blogspot.com. Dec. 2nd will be Advent 1, starting the ‘Year of Luke’ & to be found at my laterallyluke.blogspot.com.