Mark 13:1-8
“Stones to Knock Down”
November 18, 2012 - Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost

         The rockets are flying and the bombs are dropping after a cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants of the Gaza Strip fell apart last week. Hundreds of rockets have flown toward Israel after the Israelis launched an airstrike on Wednesday and killed the military chief of Hamas and destroyed dozens of rocket launch sites. Forty-two Palestinians and three Israelis have died, with many more injured on each side.

         Some of the Hamas rockets flew toward Jerusalem on Friday. We all know it won’t be the first time or the last that ancient city has been threatened with destruction. In our Gospel lesson for today we find Jesus predicting one of the worst threats, the total obliteration of the city that occurred in 70 A.D., forty years after Jesus prophesied.

         The occasion was Jesus’ final departure from the Temple. He was in Jerusalem for the last time and had been teaching there in the Temple courts. As He was leaving one of His disciples was overwhelmed by the size and grandeur of the structure, and says in verse 1, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”

         It was a fabulous structure. About seventy years after it was destroyed by the Babylonians in the sixth century B.C., it was rebuilt under the leadership of Ezra. But by the first century B.C. it was in terrible repair. So Herod the Great began a massive reconstruction and expansion project that took almost fifty years. The stones the disciple noticed were massive blocks of white rock that Josephus the historian describes as twenty-five cubits long by eight cubits high by twelve cubits wide. That’s single stones forty feet long and twelve feet high! They weighed about a million pounds. You can still see some of these in Jerusalem today.

         The whole temple complex was the size of twelve football fields. The columns were forty feet tall. The main building was decorated with gold all over its face. What was not covered in gold was pure white. The foundation reached two hundred feet down the steep drop into the Kidron Valley to the southeast. Josephus says that from a distance it looked like a mountain covered with snow, shining in the sun. No wonder they were impressed.

         Jesus stood beside those massive chunks of masonry—each two or three times the height of a man—and in verse 2 announced it would all be torn down, “Not one stone will be left here upon another.” Amazingly, His disciples took Him seriously.

         We are fascinated by the thought of coming devastation. From relatively serious predictions like Hurricane Sandy to the absurd idea that some mysterious planetoid called Niburu will strike the earth on Wednesday, we are all ears for news about impending catastrophe. So were the disciples.

         Peter, Andrew, James and John were fascinated. We find them in verse 3 seated with Jesus across the valley now, looking down on the Temple and the city from the Mount of Olives. The gleaming building was spread out before them, and they wanted to learn more about its destruction. “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” they beg Jesus in verse 4.

         Like those disciples, we still look for signs. Last week we observed a Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. We hear the news about Israel and Palestinians and Iran. Some Christians think the outcome of our presidential election bodes ill. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to connect the dots, to figure out how what the Bible says about the future fits with current events? You may even be hoping this sermon will do just that. Tell us what’s going to happen and how to be ready for it.

         I’m sorry. I can’t do it anymore than Jesus did in His answer to the disciples. He refused to name names and set dates, even though He clearly knew it would be the Romans who would invade Jerusalem and tear down the Temple in 70 A.D. But they couldn’t pin it down and you and I are given lots less information than the Lord gave them.

         The Christian record of predicting the end times is not very good. Whether it’s identifying the anti-Christ or determining the date of Christ’s return, we’ve come up short and wrong over and over. My mother told about one of her uncles who studied the Bible feverishly and thought he had mapped out the whole course of the battle of Armageddon, when it would take place, which nations would be involved, the whole thing. Now some of the nations he identified no longer even exist.

         Jesus just isn’t into that kind of thing. So I don’t see why we should be into it. Our text is not at all about discerning the signs of the end times and being able to stockpile supplies or create some sort of Christian defense plan. It’s about what kind of people we will be, what will be happening in our hearts when times are difficult, even disastrous.

         It’s fairly clear that our text and much of what Jesus has to say in the rest of this chapter is not about events that are still future for us. He’s talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century. He’s warning His disciples that just as His church is beginning, Jewish believers will face this terrible challenge of having the capital of their nation destroyed. Christians and Jews will have to run for their lives. Jesus’ concern is how His people are going to behave in times like that.

         Jesus and the rest of the Bible teach us that morbid curiosity about the end times is wrong. Peter, Andrew, James and John wanted to know when those big stones would come down. Their master was much more concerned to pull down some other stones, some stumbling blocks, two stumbling blocks in particular.

         So in verse 5, Jesus says nothing more at all about when Jerusalem will be destroyed or what signs to watch for. Instead, He says, “Beware that no one leads you astray,” that no one deceives you. They are concerned about the fall of marble and granite. Jesus is concerned about the fall of our souls. He wants to pull down and throw away the stone of gullibility, of faith that is too easily deceived.

         We might think it isn’t happening in our time, but there are people doing just what Jesus says they will do in verse 6, people coming and saying, “I am he!” Just a couple months ago I was reading about David Jang, a seemingly respectable Christian leader. But it appears he’s been letting at least one of his leaders teach others in his following that he himself is what they call “The Second Coming Christ.”

         It’s not just the blatant pretenders, though. Literally what Jesus says these phonies will say is just, “I am.” That’s the ancient Hebrew name for God. The fakes are people who claim to speak in the name of Jesus, who want to take the place of God in other people’s lives. They can be religious leaders or a political party or business gurus. They can be entertainers or exploitative employers or abusive spouses. Jesus is warning us not to be deceived by anyone who claims our first allegiance and loyalty above all others.

         How do we keep from being deceived? How do we tell the real Christ from the imposters? You might suppose the simplest approach is just not to believe anyone. Don’t trust any would-be authorities, not politicians, not the media, not business, not preachers, none of them. If you haven’t seen it with your own eyes, then don’t believe it. When it comes to faith, only believe what you find in the Bible yourself or hear God saying in your own soul. Maybe that’s your strategy to keep from being taken in. But it won’t work.

         Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things.” If you only listen to yourself and what you learn for yourself it won’t keep you from mistakes. If you are a bank teller or a store clerk, part of your job is to avoid being deceived, to refuse to accept counterfeit money. You can try to figure it out on your own. Take a real bill and compare it to every other that comes across your counter, looking for all the differences. But how do you know you even started with a real bill? If you’re going to just trust what God says to you privately, how will you know where to start?

         Banks and stores teach their clerks. You learn from others with long experience how to look for smudged ink or crooked printing or missing watermarks. You learn how crooks will try to buy something small with a large bill and other signs of deception. But you have to learn that from others around you.

         To avoid being deceived you and I learn from each other, from Christians down through the ages who’ve kept and taught the true faith and avoided the counterfeits. My mother’s uncle came up with his elaborate Armageddon scheme by studying Scripture alone. He was deceived. That’s why we’re here together and not all sitting at home reading the Bible by ourselves. That’s why we’re all going to study the same chapters of the Bible together in the first quarter of the new year.

         The first stone Jesus knocks down is that stumbling block of being deceived. But the second is bigger. In verse 7 Jesus told His disciples, “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed…” He wanted His followers, wanted us, not to be afraid. The stone of fear is huge, but Jesus wants to tear it down for us.

         It’s not just the silly stuff Jesus asks us not to fear. It’s fairly easy to be unafraid of the end of the world predicted by the Mayan calendar or the impending strike of a mythical planetoid. No, Jesus encourages to pull down the stone of fear in the midst of truly frightening world events. That’s why He starts with “wars and rumors of wars” when He tells us not to be alarmed.

         For first century Christians, wars were started by their own countrymen. Zealot Jews began a revolution for independence from Rome. For us and for other Christians around the world, it may be both wars our nations have started and wars we in which we just find ourselves caught. But if we trust in Jesus Christ our Savior, even war is no cause for alarm.

         Verse 8 goes on with the Lord’s list of all sorts of world happenings that ought not to alarm us, not just wars of nation against nation, but earthquakes and famines as well. We could probably add hurricanes, recessions, terrorism and global warming. Fear of such things must not be a rock that squashes our faith.

         To put it all in perspective, Jesus gave the disciples the last sentence of our text, “These things are but the beginning of birth pangs.” We get excited and worried and fearful about all these things which feel catastrophic, but Jesus says they are just the beginning, just the little contractions that come a week or two before the genuine labor of birth. You don’t rush to the hospital for those little pains. Instead you wait in hope for the real thing.

         All these huge and horrifying events, both global and personal, Jesus says are not the end. They are not the end of the world, and they are not the end of our lives. There’s our real foundation stone, not the rocks of deception or fear. The only end that matters is the one Christ Himself brings in God’s own time. Nuclear weapons in Iran or greenhouse gas in the atmosphere are not the final chapters in God’s book. Not cancer, not a heart attack, not Alzheimer’s disease. Those aren’t the end of your life. Not at all. Jesus is the real ending.

         Wednesday morning I told my wife, “Twenty years ago today, you were cranking out a baby.” It was our daughter Joanna’s birthday and I have a smooth way with words. But it’s true. Childbirth is hard work, and Beth was a little cranky. But she would be the first to say it was all worth it. She wouldn’t trade her daughter for a life free of pain.

         Talking to His disciples about the stones of deceit and fear, Jesus did what our lesson from Hebrews 10:25 tells us to do ourselves, “let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.” Daniel did it for the Jews in exile in Babylon, as we read this morning. And that’s our response to pain and frightening times, not confusion or fear, but encouraging one another in love. In Jesus we are being born again. We should expect some birth pangs, but the day of joy is coming. Amen.

         Valley Covenant Church
         Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
         Copyright © 2012 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj