Sermon from December 16, 2001
The Book of Common Prayer, used in the Anglican/Episcopal churches, traces its origins back to the prayers of God's people in the region around Salisbury, England in the fourteenth century. The Prayer Book came to its present form some time in the 17th century. For each Sunday it provides a short prayer to help Christians frame their thoughts when speaking to almighty God.

The four Sundays that precede Christmas begin the Church calendar, and we call them the four Sundays in Advent. What caught my eye about the four short prayers for these Sundays was not their references to the first coming of Christ, which I expected, but to the Second Coming of Christ, which I did not expect. Here is what the short prayer for today, the Third Sunday in Advent, says.

"O Lord Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee; Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen."

As an unworthy but joyful minister and steward of God's mysteries, I would like today to prepare and make ready the way of the Lord, so that at His Second Coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in His sight. This work of preparation takes us once again to Mark 13:1-4.

As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!"

"Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?"

It is easy to read this chapter and begin immediately to speculate on what it tells us about the end of the world. I will not do that. Jesus has predicted the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, and whatever horror they may have felt, Peter, James, John and Andrew have asked Him to help them anticipate that terrible event. In verses 5-37 Jesus answers their question about the destruction of the temple before He answers our question about the end of the world. If we read Mark 13 first as Jesus' answer to the question of His troubled disciples, it may help us see better how it also answers some of our questions about the end of the world.

Now, we have to admit that He gave a long and strange answer to their question. I want to give you a guided tour of Jesus' answer in the hope that I can help us hear Jesus' answer more nearly the way He intended it.

The key to my guided tour is this. "The biblical writers believed literally that the world had had a beginning in the past and would have an end in the future," (G.B. Caird, The Langage and Imagery of the Bible, 256-271). But some times the biblical writers "used end-of-the-world language ... to refer to (catastrophic events) which they well knew was not the end of the world," (ibid.). This is not as strange as it seems, because you and I do the same thing in English.

Have you never heard a teenage girl say after breaking up with a boy, "My life is over!"? She is using langage that properly applies to death to describe the emotional trauma of breaking up. Or how about this one? "The sky fell yesterday on the stock market." That uses catastrophic, astronomical language to express a painful downturn on Wall Street. A divorced man says, "I thought it was the end of the world." The politician says, "The lights went out all over Europe." The rescue worker in New York City says, "This is hell." You can probably add dozens of your own.

Using language that would be familiar to His peers, that is what Jesus is doing in Mark 13. With that in mind let's read through the chapter, and I will try to make you feel more at home in this strange way of putting things. We begin with verses 5-8.

Jesus said to them: "You want to know the sign that will precede the destruction of the temple. Well, there is more than one you need to watch for. The first is deception. Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' 'I am the long-expected Messiah,' and will deceive many." Don't listen to them, but when you hear them, let their messianic delusions remind you that the destruction of the temple is coming.

"A second sign is intense suffering. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don't be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end of the temple and of course the end of the world is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginnings of birth pains." When these sufferings come upon the nations of the earth, let them remind you that the destruction of the temple is coming.

"A third sign is religious suffering and the unexpected spread of the gospel. You, my followers, must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.

"Some of this suffering will take the form of betrayal by those you love and an irrational hatred for you by others. Brothers will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 

"I just don't want your fascination with the destruction of the temple to sidetrack you from the costly witness you must bear before that destruction takes place. So, stay faithful to your task, but at the same time, there is one sign in particular I want you to be on the lookout for.

"When you see 'the abomination that causes desolation' standing where it does not belong" – let the reader understand." When Mark interrupted Jesus' speech to say, let the reader understand, he was assuming that his readers would know what Jesus meant by 'the abomination that causes desolation.' You and I need some help understanding that, and I think I can help us.

About a century and a half B.C., a Syrian king named Antiochus the Illustrious, invaded and defeated Egypt and then turned his attention to Jerusalem. A Jewish writing called 1 Maccabees describes what he did in Jerusalem. "After his conquest of Egypt, in the year 143, Antiochus turned about and advanced on Israel and Jerusalem in massive strength. Insolently breaking into the sanctuary, he removed the golden altar and the lamp-stand for the light with all its fittings," (1 Maccabees 1:20-21).

Then, he did something else hideous in the Jewish temple. He build a pagan altar on the Jewish altar in the Holy of Holies and offered a sacrifice to the Roman god Jupiter Olympus. 1 Macabees 1:54 puts it this way. On the fifteenth day of (the month) in the year 145 the king build the ... abomination (that causes desolation) on top of the altar of burnt offering; and altars were built in the surrounding towns of Judah. 

Jesus is saying, "When you see pagans desecrate our temple like that again, you should know that the destruction of the temple is about to happen; and you should also know that it will signal a terrible time of suffering for Israel. This is why I say:

"Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Run for your life. Let no one on the roof of his house go down or enter the house to take anything out. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that this will not take place in winter, because those will be days of distress unequaled from the begining, when God created the world, until now – and never to be equaled again. If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them.

"And in those days, more than ever, you have to be on the watch for deceivers. At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'Look, there he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect, to make them think that Israel can escape this coming destruction – as if that were possible. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

"But there is more. In those days, following that distress, 'the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.' Like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Joel before me, I have used language that is appropriate to the end of the world to describe the heart-stopping destruction that will come upon the temple and Jerusalem in your lifetime.

"And terrible as that will be, you need to know that in that day I will be vindicated, or in the language of Daniel: At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens; it will be a terrible day for my people, but the number of those who follow me will come from every corner of the globe, as a massive vindication of my message and ministry.

"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, when you see the signs I have given you unfolding before your eyes, you know that it, the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, is near, right at the door.

"I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Most, if not all of you, will be alive to behold these events in Jerusalem. You can count on it. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. But don't try to set dates. It won't work.

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. There is only one thing you can do. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It's like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

"Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back – whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.  If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone that hears these words of mine: 'Watch! Remember the signs and watch!'"

If I were sitting where you sit today, I might hear all this and say, "Well, Pastor, that is a clever bit of interpretation, and for all I know, you may be right. But it feels like you have taken away something important from me. I always read this chapter and thought it was saying something important about the Second Coming of Jesus. Now, it doesn't seem to mean that any more."

If you feel that way, I truly understand. Let me say two things. First, I feel a deep responsibility to tell you what I believe to be true about the scriptures. If you have never heard what I have said today, then it will sound strange and hard to understand, and you may feel like I have been tampering with something sacred. I would ask that you consider the merits of what I have said and remember that I will never preach my private opinions. This interpretation stands on the shoulders of responsible scholars.

Second, what I seem to have taken away from you, I think I can give back to you. In his fine commentary on Mark, C.E.B. Cranfield draws this conclusion about Jesus' prediction of the temple's destruction. "The divine judgments in history are, so to speak, rehearsals of the last judgment," (Cranfield, Mark, 404).

In other words the language of Mark 13 refers both to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and it also refers to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. If we have eyes to see and ears to hear, the same signs can alert us to the return of Christ in splendor and the unveiling of our true life under God's love and authority. When Jesus says, "What I say to you, I say to everyone, 'Watch!'" He means for us to use Mark 13 as an aid in watching for His Coming, as it was an aid in watching for the destruction of the temple.

Actually, there have been many "dress rehearsals" for the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment. Let me get up close and personal. Three months ago today, when we were all reeling under the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I as a doorkeeper on the watch said that Sunday, "When you and I saw the Trade Towers come down in those heart-rending crashes, we witnessed the end of the world. Not the end, but a vivid anticipation of what the end of all things will be like." The present crisis is another of those dress rehearsals.

"So," you ask, "if that is true, what are we supposed to do about it?" A reminder of something will help us to answer that perceptive question. Do you remember times when people have set a date for the Second Coming of Christ? Do you remember how a number of them sold their homes and gathered on a mountain to wait for the end? Others charged their credit cards to the max, because they didn't think they would be around to pay it off. Suppose we knew that the end of all things would happen shortly. Is that how we should live? The Apostle Peter had a better idea.

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming (2 Peter 3:11-12). The present crisis is no time for indulgence. It is a time for repentence and faith and holiness, and they begin with the Church. And if this is more than a dress rehearsal, then let us so live that at His Second Coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in His sight.