26^th Sunday after Pentecost

Daniel 12:1-3; Psalm 16; Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8 

Mark 13:1-8

¹ As [Jesus] came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” ² Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
  ³ When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ⁴ “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” ⁵ Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. ⁶ Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. ⁷ When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. ⁸ For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

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Grace Stewardship IV: Keeping the Faith

Grace Stewardship IV: Keeping the Faith

Grace to you beloved of God and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

I am sorry to be the one to tell you. It is mid-November in North America. It is time to start thinking about the impending gloom. The sun is about to surrender its light. Those who enjoy longer, sunnier, and warmer days may relate to the feeling of dread that the “Game of Thrones” refrain brings: winter is coming. 

Sure, we will hold things together between holiday feasts in anticipation of the celebratory coming of our Messiah. Things will be OK for the winter birds. However, those of us who will remain bound to the northern territories will surely and slowly transition to darker, colder, and maybe even more chaotic days. We know the sun will reign in the sky again and bring about Sprint time. It always does. Yet, some of us, especially the ones not hardwired to see the light of the world be gone for about 16 weeks, will certainly be crying out for it comes February. It becomes despairing depending on how things go. Believe me. 

It can get really hard. Grief can take hold of us without daylight. The shortened daylight cycles and the grayish skies can throw our happy neurochemicals in the brain out of wack. The empty chairs become more noticeable. The calls or messages that no longer come become more silent. The new person, group, or crowd we now share our days with gets stranger. Losses and new realities become heavier and harder to carry or overcome, and it is not even Valentine’s Day yet. 

We should get immune to it at a certain point, right? We know that the sun always rises again the next morning in the east. Yet, deep darkness can be overpowering. Negativity, the fog of evil, frankly, can cloud our vision and judgment, and in the middle of the night, we may find ourselves too anxious or afraid to trust that light will return. The most simple and natural evidence of God’s abundant grace, that what goes around comes around and that there is always a chance to begin life anew, becomes hard to see. We forget it has always been this way. 

We are built to survive the longer nights and the harsh winters. It is part of who we are. Every faith community in the history of our relationship with God has experienced various degrees of hopelessness and despair. The Bible and the historical record tell us so. Our faith that confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord was born out of profound loss and uncertainty. The tomb was empty. He was killed, and his body was no longer there. Now what?

Scholars agree that Mark wrote his gospel, the first, on the wrong side of the first sixties, closer to the year 70. It was likely written in Rome but could also have been written in Palestine. This means a few things.

We may remember a few things from our journey through Mark this past year. We may remember that the disciples left everything they had and did not have, everything they knew to do well, to follow this rabbi of questionable authority at the time back and forth across dangerous waters and unsafe territories. They saw amazing things. Things no one would believe – many did not. They struggle to process the new inverted norm that the one they acknowledge as the son of God was introducing to the world. The first would be the last, and the greatest would be the lowest. They did not understand when he proclaimed their true disciples would pick up the cross and follow him. Ah! The cross. It was not about gold or silver. It was about the cross. But I digress. 

Now he is dead, and they took his body. The opposing forces thought they had in the bag. However, something must have happened. The disciples did not stop. The gospels tell us that Jesus had a few here I AM moments with them post-mortem. That could be it. The promises became real, and they would certainly see him again, so off they went, proclaiming the good news to the world. This was about year 33.  

Now, more than 30 years have passed. Most of them had been martyred or died of natural causes without seeing their teacher and Lord again. I am sure a crack was made in the collective of the faithful. Could it be that everything was about to be for nothing? It was then that things got even worse. It did not matter if you were still in Jerusalem or had migrated across the Mediterranean Sea to proclaim the gospel in Rome. 

If you had gone to the heart of the empire, you were being scapegoated by Nero for setting Rome on fire. You were the cause of all evil and death around. You could have been shackled to a pole in the middle of the Roman circus wearing the skin of wild animals, and the lions or the dogs were unleashed at you. Or, you became a human torch in Nero’s garden, illuminating the suffering and darkness you were falsely accused of bringing upon the people. This one was particularly cruel and nefarious because it was meant to mock the followers of the light of the world in its biggest city. There were other public tortures. The brutality was myriad.

If you had remained in Jerusalem or returned there to the Passover, you would have witnessed the Jewish revolt and never imagined the destructive power unleashed by the Roman legions. You would also never though the words of Jesus to be possible. Who could bring down the majestic stones and buildings of Herod’s temple? Yet, if you had survived the fury and the slaughter, the words of Jesus about what took place in front of your eyes would ring true in very somber ways.

Beloved, I suspect that to remain stewards of Grace in our times, despite the real and sometimes crippling grief we may face, cannot be compared to the mountain the early church had to climb. For us, the better life, the joyful and gracious life, is very much at hand. A little kindness, a little forgiveness, some working together for Christ, more constructive communication, and investing in a frame of mind that restores Jesus to a higher priority in our lives will do wonders. It was not so when Mark set himself to write about Jesus.

His world and his community, either in Rome or Jerusalem, were no more. For him and other survivors of the apocalypse that became real, there was no longer any hope of a better life, of a joyful and gracious life. Everything and mostly everyone was gone. How could one remain a steward of God’s grace in a situation like this? Where was the God of deliverance in the first place?

Something must have happened. Something lost to the collective memory of the community of all the saints. Nonetheless,  it happened, and it was powerful and inspiring.  See, until Mark wrote about Christ, his good news was proclaimed mostly by oral tradition, saving for the letters the apostles wrote for the churches they founded. I suspect that proclaiming the truth about the good news of Jesus of Nazareth has always been dangerous, especially in times of intense oppression and persecution. What is said can always be denied. 

So this is what happened. In a time when confessing the Christian faith was a death sentence, Mark provided irrefutable evidence of what he believed. He put in writing what he learned or even witnessed about Jesus, inviting others to do the same, to meet in Galilee, the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, that once sat in deep darkness and started all over again proclaiming what we all know always happens, that the light of the world always returns to shine brighter. 

I don’t need to tell you how that ended up. The truth becomes self-evident after we once again gather to read the verses Mark carefully strung together with love and courage in his heart. We can certainly do what needs to be done. Faith is enough. Give back to God. Amen.