Meditations In Mark – chapter 13 06/11/2023

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Welcome and Prayer: Nancy Lopez

Good morning, welcome!            The Lord is with you!

Why am I here?  How many times a day do I move from one room to another and then stand there and ask myself, “Why am I here?”  Do you ever do that?  I knew what I was going to do, but even after a very short distance I lost track of it. I know even that I’m in the right room or standing in front of the right cabinet…but I don’t recall why.

Life can be like that.  We get distracted, off track; we lose our purpose.  Our minds are chattering away.  It’s often needful just to pause and ask ourselves, “Why am I here?”  Of course, this can apply to the existential “why?”—the meaning of life, our life, and that’s worth pondering.  But even just this morning, we started off knowing that we wanted to come to this place.  Now, we’ve had a lot of thoughts and conversations right up until now.  So, it’s good to pause and re-align ourselves with our “why”; and we can start by just asking the questions: “Why am I here?” “Why have I come to this place? “ 

We might have to give it some time to let the answers work themselves up to our consciousness, through all the chatter, to allow for the space to remember ourselves.  I think that’s why we do start in this place with some quiet time.

Will you pray with me?

Father, we return to the here and now, we return to Presence.  We allow the flow of Spirit to take us to where we need to be, in awareness and presence.  We remind ourselves that we have a purpose in your grand design and a place of belonging in the family of things.  We are yours, each an individual, alive and growing, known and loved, becoming whole, becoming love.  Set us in our rightful place, settle our hearts and minds, let us allow for a receptive space, that we might find ourselves, and find that you already here.  For the sake of the Kingdom.  Amen

Morning Talk: chuck smith, jr.

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 on 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.”

Intro: The temple plays an important role in Jesus’ story

The one clear accusation brought against him at his trial was,
“We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands’” (Mk. 14:58).
– but they weren’t certain what that even meant
Yet even about this their testimony did not agree (Mk. 14:59)
• I tend to think, if something was sacred, it is sacred forever
◦ if God visited a place, the ground would always be holy
• that’s kind of the idea people have about going to Israel
◦ “I want to walk where Jesus walked”
◦ as if I’ll experience something unique or supernatural
– when Solomon built the first temple, a phenomenon occurred
And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD (1 Ki. 8:10-11)
• but God spoke to Solomon twice, first before it was built and then again afterward
◦ the LORD was willing to dwell there, but his presence was provisional (1 Ki 6:11-13; 9:1-9)
◦ the king and the people had to remain loyal to God’s covenant with them
• years later, God stationed Jeremiah in temple gate with a warning
◦ if they did not turn and do as God desired,
◦ he would abandon temple and it would be destroyed
Go now to my place in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel (Jer. 7:12)
– not long afterward, Ezekiel witnessed the glory of God departing from the temple (Eze. 10:4, 19; 11:23)

It was in keeping with this flow of prophetic history, that Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple

My meditation on these five verses has focused on two phrases

The first phrase is “Do you see?”
(this was Jesus’ response when a disciple said, “Look, Teacher”)
– by now we could expect to hear Jesus ask, “Do you see?”
• after all the times disciples have missed the point
◦ they’ve had trouble seeing with their eyes, and hearing with their ears
• the temple was a tribute to human design, engineering, and wealth
◦ but it wasn’t as rock-solid as it appeared – it was transient
My meditation: “Jesus saw the stones and architecture of the temple differently than they saw them. He saw what they could not see. They saw a temple, he saw a den of thieves–a people who had lost contact with their God. Jesus also saw into the future, when the entire complex would be torn down. Jesus sees through facades to essence. He sees the destiny of each religious institution and each believer–a destiny that is either fulfilled or forfeited.”
– the second phrase occurs in verse 3, “opposite the temple”
“he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple”
My meditation: “Jesus positioned himself ‘opposite the temple.’ He was on one mount and the temple on another, with a valley between them. It was a stare down. The temple would either be the end of Jesus, or Jesus would be the end of the temple.”
• for several chapters, Mark has tracked this conflict between Jesus and what was going on in the temple
◦ Jesus comes as a living force, empowered by God, for God
◦ the temple, with its dead religion, resisted and opposed him — it could not tolerate the “new wine”
• after 2,000 years, Jesus is still moving in the world
◦ but the temple has never risen from its ruins
◦ dynamic movements inevitably become institutionalized
• institutions can be very impressive and attractive
◦ but life in Jesus is not something we can organize and manage
◦ religion dies in our hands

For the remainder of the chapter, Jesus answers two questions

The disciples asked Jesus about the when and the what of his prediction
– humans are possessed by a fixation with the future
• Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth – sold 35 million copies
• many Christians believe we have an exact script for specific future events
– the questions the disciples asked are sort that can lead to wild speculation
• Jesus knew that! and so he inserted warnings in his teaching

I have written more than thirty years of meditations from the Scriptures
– but rarely have I ever meditated on any verse in this chapter
• when I came to it in Feb. 2020, I wrote myself a note
“This is a difficult chapter for me, mostly because I cannot enter it with a clear and innocent mind. I have heard it taught too often, and everything explained so fully that there is no room for new insights. It feels like the door to its meaning is locked, so I cannot hear a fresh word from Jesus in it.”
• what I did observe at that time were snippets of information
My meditation: “The scenes Jesus describes occur in a world where he is no longer present, ‘like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge’ (v. 34). Yet he continues to be represented by his followers, who will be dragged before ‘governors and kings, to bear witness before them’ (vv. 9-10). And one day he will return, ‘And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory’ (v. 26). Otherwise, history will move forward through dark ages of violence, betrayal, false christs and false prophets, over an unstable landscape in an uncertain world. Meanwhile God’s work will also continue to move forward within it.”
– in many minds today, our world fits this description
• I’ve read a couple of recent reports regarding billionaires talking with consultants
◦ the want to know the surest way to survive the end of the world
• some are building underground bunkers
◦ others are looking for inhabitable planets to colonize
◦ Luke records an additional line in this talk that speaks to the growing panic
“people fainting with fear and foreboding of what is coming on the world” (Lk. 21:26)

What is the first answer Jesus gives his disciples?
“See that no one leads you astray”

This is his first and most important lesson
– Jesus repeatedly reiterates this warning
v. 9, But be on your guard
v. 23, But be on guard; I have told you all things beforehand
v. 33, Be on guard, keep awake
v. 35, Therefore stay awake
v. 37, And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake
– in one med. I wrote, “I wish I had Secret Service training”
My meditation: “They are trained be always alert, to see everything, quickly assess their surroundings, observe everyone. A janitor may not be a janitor, a reporter may not be a reporter. They must be able to discern the presence of a concealed weapon. And so on.”
• but sadly, I am not always on guard–and easily distracted

Last Sunday a story broke regarding an embarrassing incident that occurred in April. An inebriated man broke into the home of Jake Sullivan, the US National Security Adviser to President Biden. Mr. Sullivan forced the man from his home, and then went looking for Secret Service agents who were supposed to be on duty, watching his home. How had they missed the intruder? They were on their cell phones.

◦ what distractions are preventing me from being “awake” in the present moment?

I want to share one quick meditation from last November

It has to do with what Jesus says regarding “false christs and false prophets”

When I was a pastor in 29 Palms, California, my friends and I were young and zealous for God. Whenever we saw hitchhikers, we would pick them us so we could share our faith with them. That is how a couple of us met Glen. Glen had traveled from Colorado to San Francisco to purchase a van full of hash for himself and his friends. On his way home, he fell asleep, rolled the van, and his cargo burned to ash. So he was returning to San Francisco to resupply and make his way home again.
Glen had been raised in a Pentecostal church until he was old enough to choose for himself whether or not he would attend. He chose not to. But when our friends began sharing with him that they had also used marijuana and LSD, but now found meaning and fulfillment in Jesus, Glen decided he wanted to God in the way they did.
Glen stayed in 29 Palms for a few weeks, hardly ever leaving the dining room of the home that took him in. Every day, from dawn until evening Glen was reading the Bible. It was a phenomenon we had not seen before. One day he announced that he had to return home to face a warrant that was put out on him. He was convicted and given a six month sentence in an “honor farm” facility. He wrote to us frequently to tell us how he was doing. After the first couple of months, he told us about several guys he had been talking with about Jesus. Then he told us that he was teaching a daily Bible study to five of the inmates. A couple of month later the Bible study was up to ten guys, and by the last month of his sentence there were twenty in mates studying the Bible together. Glen felt torn about being released, because of his ministry with those men.
Early one Sunday morning, we receive a telegram from Glen’s mother. She thanked us for the influence we had on Glen’s life, that his relationship with Jesus was the answer to her desperate prayers for him. Then she told us that he had taken a job in the oil fields, fell from a rig, and was now in heaven with his Lord.
Once, when I had been asked to speak at my dad’s church, I told Glen’s story. The next week, a man contacted me and told me that he produced Christian films. He asked for permission to tell Glen’s story in film. We secured permission from Glen’s mother and the film make went to work. However, when he negotiated with the company that was going to distribute the film, they wanted to make some changes in the story line to make it more acceptable to church youth groups. They said to change the part where Glen was hitchhiking (they had him walking down a suburban street instead and meeting a Christian who was outside his home watering his lawn). They did not want the Christian youth who would see the film to get the idea it was alright to hitchhike or to pick up hitchhikers. They also said that no one would believe that twenty men were led to the Lord and attended Bible studies while incarcerated, so they dropped the number to five (for them that was miracle enough).

• of course there are other reasons why facts are ignored or discarded in film-making
◦ sometimes it is to accommodate the short duration of the movie, or make it more entertaining, or more marketable
– now, if I tell a story based on actual events and involving the people who were actually there
• and if I present it as a “true story,” and my motive is to introduce people to Jesus,
◦ but in telling the story, I make up conversations and events that never happened, or I misrepresent the people who actually lived the true story, have I sacrificed my integrity?
◦ have I done the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way?
• can I justify misinforming people if it brings them to Jesus?
◦ if people learn the story I told them wasn’t true, will they still trust me when I tell them truth of the gospel or will they wonder if I’m fabricating portions of that too?
◦ Paul asks,
if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? (Ro. 3:7)
◦ the answer is, because in God’s eyes, the ends do not justify the means

Conclusion: The point of Mark 13 is not for us to match “the signs” with current events

It is to live in a state of wakefulness and remain on guard
– my most useful meditations on this chapter have been about staying awake and aware
• in my first conversation with Fr. Romuald, he told me to
“pay attention to what you are doing every moment, because the divine could break through at any moment. You could be brushing your teeth or preaching your best sermon. God truly does not care at what point he enters or what you’re doing at the time. Be where you are right now; that’s all you have to do. Do one thing each day, fully present. Maybe then you could begin seeing differently.”
– the normal activities of our daily lives alternate between heaven earth
• we swing from the sacred to the mundane – the awe-inspiring to the boring
◦ we set aside time to pray and we pump gasoline into our cars
◦ rarely and only briefly are we fully aware of being here, now
When I wake myself to the moment, my thinking mind slows down, quiets down
My attention becomes more focused
and if in that moment I turn my attention to God, I wake up to him
I experience the reality of his presence
And I realize that he has been here the whole time

(I did have one other meditation from Mark that I could not fit into this talk, but I can share it here. So, only if you’re interested . . . .)

“And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.”
The sun set last night while I was walking Kona along the San Juan Creek. I was not expecting much from the sky, because it had been rather dull all day. Even when the first few shades of yellow appeared in the diffuse grayness, there was little indication of the light show that would follow. But soon the western sky was aflame with golden light from the lowest point on the horizon and upward into the heavens above. The unevenness of the clouds created breathtaking three-dimensional effects and gradations of color. There were luminous mountains floating in the sky, flanked by light that rolled out in ripples, and stretched eastward in long streaks. I walked backward to keep my eyes on as much of it as I could absorb. I stopped and let the magnificent display thrill my body. One word escaped my lips: “glorious.”

It seemed obvious to me that I would never share so much as a spark of Jesus’ glory. Then the passage from our Lexio Divina the night before returned to me, that “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18).

No, I will never emit so much as a photon of glory. I am that dull gray mist that obscures the stars and distant mountains. But when the light of Jesus passes through me–glory.

What we experience in this world is meant to awaken us to a larger reality. Parables abound.