As I type this blog, I am anxiously waiting to learn when I will begin training for a new job I was recently hired for. It is hinted that the training will begin sometime around the end of the first quarter of the year, but the actual confirmation is yet to arrive. I trust that the confirmation (and the training itself) is not in doubt, but until I receive the email, I am left to wonder in eager expectation.
Throughout the Biblical narrative, God's people were often left in a similar limbo. God made promises to renew and restore not only his people, but his entire creation. But the fulfilment of those promises came painfully slowly, and usually in phases and stages, rather than all at once. In fact, as we can all see, the final restoration and renewal of all things has yet to be realized.
So, when in Mark 13, Jesus informs his disciples that the magnificent temple, recently enlarged and renovated by Herod the Great, was to within the present generation be destroyed, this could only mean that the end of the world as they knew it, was also soon to be realized. And if this was to go down in their own lifetimes, the curious disciples were anxious to know when this would be and what signs might signal its imminent fulfillment. Most of Mark 13 is Jesus' teaching on the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem (which occurred in 70 AD). Jesus doesn't give his disciples an exact timeline or super-detailed descriptions of the "desolating sacrilege" but gives them just enough information to be ready if they happen to be around Jerusalem when "stuff begins to go down."
There's debate amongst scholars and Biblical interpreters if the teaching in Mark 13 only concerns the destruction of the temple, or if it might also contain even more distant horizons. I think it is obvious that much, and possibly all of this teaching concerns only the coming destruction of the temple, which was realized about forty years after Jesus' passion. Jesus says in verse 30, "Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place." But even if Jesus also hints at the final restoration of all things, when he will return to make all things new, he certainly does not give us any details that should turn us into modern day Nostradamus like fortune tellers. Like God's people who have come before us, we are called to walk by faith and not by sight. It's enough for us to trust that God will be faithful to his promises in the future, just has he has been faithful to his promises in the past.
Jesus' teaching in Mark 13 ends this way, "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, and keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on watch. Therefore, keep awake - for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake." (Mark 13:32-37, NRSV).
Jesus' disciples did not know the exact day, month, or year when the Roman legions would sack Jerusalem and destroy the temple. But we know from historical records that when it occurred, many Christians living in the area took suitable precautions. Though even Jesus himself was unsure of the exact timeline, he knew that this was bound to transpire in the immediate generation - and it did occur while many of his disciples were still alive. If the final verses of Mark 13 (and as I mentioned earlier, there is debate about this) are referring more generally to Jesus' re-appearing and the eschatological restoration of the cosmos, then even Jesus himself does not know the exact day when this will occur (unless God the Father has since revealed this information to God the Son - read again verse 32). But like all God's promises, this day will come, and God will bring to consummation his work in creation. Our task is not to decipher the exact time when God's Kingdom will fully come, but to busy ourselves with Christ's anticipatory Kingdom work until he comes.
As followers of Jesus, we are forced to live in tension and with a healthy sense of anticipation. We eagerly await the new heavens and the new earth, but we patiently live in between the time of Jesus' resurrection/exaltation, and the time when his Lordship will be revealed to all of creation. Rather than becoming overly obsessed with Jesus' teaching in Mark 13, the most important thing we can all do in the meantime is to focus on Jesus' teaching in Mark 12:28-30. "One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he (Jesus) answered them well, he asked him, 'Which commandment is the first of all?' Jesus answered, 'The first is 'Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.'" (NRSV). Amen. Maranatha - Come Lord Jesus! - Shay
