“Nobody knows…but”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Sunday, December 3, 2023
Mark 13: 24-37 (Forward, p. 35) CEV p. 1046
Apocalyptic passages like this have bedeviled believers almost from the very beginning of the Christian church. I mean, what were they back then (and we today) to make of it?
On the one hand, Jesus says that no one, not even He Himself, knows the day or hour of His coming, His return to the earth. But then, He also speaks of various things—signs in the heavens, for instance—that will immediately precede His coming. He speaks of these as being such inevitable and predictive signs as trees breaking forth into leaf are indicators that summer is on its way.
So, again, I ask, “What are we to make of this?” Many well-meaning Christians have tried to keep count of the omens in the sky (as mentioned in verses 24-25) or the false prophets or the suffering or the abominations or the persecution described in verses 5-23 and thereby give themselves a kind of count-down to the end. I would suggest, however, that as useful as this might be in some senses, it is essentially a dead-end route if it does not manifest itself in action, in an actual preparedness.
The whole passage, I would allege, is a call to preparedness, to be ready no matter what. And not, I would say, with an eye upon the celestial other-worldly calendar, but rather with an eye, a focus, on the work still to be done. Jesus tells us plainly that we have all been given tasks to perform and suggests rather bluntly that we should be busy at these when He returns! ‘No clock-watching’ is His adage, but rather ‘nose to the grindstone’.
“Now what,” you might say, “are we to keep busy at during our time of waiting?” Well, right within this immediate passage, we hear of Jesus telling us to be faithful in ‘managing’ His household, taking care of it, which can be interpreted narrowly as applying just to His Church, or widely, as applying to His entire world, the entire world He came to save. Surely, just that should occupy lots of our time! And then, in some earlier verses (verses 9-10) we are reminded of our verbal witness to the authorities, the chance to ‘tell about your faith’. Indeed, we are told that ‘before the end comes, the good news, the Gospel, must be preached to all nations.’ We
are to be like light, salt and leaven in this needy world. And, of course, we are also told throughout the other parts of the New Testament to redeem our time, to make use of the manifold gifts we have been given, and to encourage and help each other. Surely, all of this is plenty enough to spend our time on without ‘watching the clock’ in terms of His return. And surely, given His words, this is the very best way to be alert, on our guard and ready for His return. Surely, this is what He would have wanted!
Forward notes: “Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come” (verse 33).
“Thieves broke into my childhood house deep in the night. They jimmied the lock on the porch sliding door. In the morning, my parents showed the police footsteps in the dew on the flagstone porch floor. My father’s wallet lay on the living room floor along with a few helter-skelter coins. The thieves had apparently fled before they could steal very much. Why? My mother told a story.
“She had been up late sewing curtains. She would run upstairs to check measurements in the dining room, then back downstairs to sew, then upstairs to hang the curtains. On one trip up, she heard a rhythmic banging sound and found the sliding glass door open. The wind caught the cord weight, and it swung back and forth, hitting the frame. She closed the door and continued her work. Only later did my mother realize she had interrupted a crime in progress.
“Luck. Watchfulness. Wakefulness. God’s purposes need not require analysis or conscious decisions. Sometimes the time comes to run up the stairs without fear.”
Moving Forward: How do you ‘keep alert’ in your spiritual life?