David Orendorff        Mark 13:1-8        November 22, 2009

At his trial Jesus was charged with threatening to tear down the temple. (Mark 14:57-59).  The temple was meant by King David to be a symbol of God’s abiding presence.  When God left Mount Sinai and traveled with Moses and Hebrew people on the Exodus, God was housed in a traveling tent, a sign of being with the people no matter where they were.

But to be a nation the people had to stop their wandering.  So King David pleads with God that the people need to stay put and that God should stay put with them to assure them.  David begged God into accepting a temple (2 Samuel 7). In the end it is Solomon, David’s son, who by God’s command builds the temple.  So God left the wandering tent behind and took up residence in a massive stone building; or so the Hebrews of that day believed.

By Jesus’ day the temple had been the center of Israel’s national and religious life for a millennium.  Though often badly damaged and rebuilt once it had survived the rise of kings and the fall of the nation.  The Hebrew people’s identity, religion, history and aspirations were all tied to this one building. For the temple to fall would be a disaster.

There are numerous examples of how the attack upon a people’s primary symbols can be demoralizing and threaten its’ collapse.  In Ireland 1500 years ago each clan had its sacred tree of life.  It was usually an oak or a yew, hardy long lived trees that symbolized the health of that clan.  As long as the clan’s tree stood the clan felt connected to its past and secure in its future.  But should nature or an enemy destroy the clan’s tree, the clan became vulnerable and faced almost certain misfortune.

We too have our symbols which function much like the temple and the clan tree as protective and lucky charms.  Many of us feel our national life threatened when we hear of someone burning our nation’s flag.  Some of us feel the roots of our religion eroding when sectarian led prayer is removed from schools, or a plaque of the Ten Commandments is removed from a court house.  Al-Qaeda’s attack on 9-11 was aimed at symbols primary to our identity and security; the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the White House or Capital building.

It is understandable then that the people are fearful when Jesus says, “Do you see these great buildings?  Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” Many heard this as a direct threat to their faith and nation.  Those who loved God and country quickly acted to save the temple by bringing Jesus to trial.  It is not just the building they are protecting; it is their history, religion and nation.

All the above is pretty straight forward.  What is surprising in this passage is Jesus’ response to what he sees as the coming destruction of the temple.  Unlike the crowd, he does not respond with fear seeking to protect and preserve the temple.

Jesus says instead, “Beware that no one leads you astray.  Many will come in my name and say, I am he! And they will lead many astray.  When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.  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.”  For when my Father in heaven is handed lemons, he makes lemonade (OK - I added that last part.)

The Hebrew people see the destruction of the temple as the end of their security; Jesus sees it as “birth pangs.”  And as it turns out Jesus is right.  In 70 CE, to put down yet another uprising in Palestine, the Roman army invaded and again conquered Jerusalem.  To demonstrate the thoroughness of their conquest, they destroyed the temple.  They stole all the treasures stored there, including the holy scrolls.  They hauled stones of the temple back to Rome to use in the building the Coliseum.  Then they built a great fire; a fire so hot the remaining limestone exploded and the temple became a pile of ashen rubble.  Every stone, just as Jesus had said, was thrown down.  The destruction of the temple was as complete as destruction can be.  Only what is now called the Wailing Wall survived.

Though the symbol of the God’s presence and care was destroyed the gloomy predictions of an end to Israel did not come to pass.  The Roman conquest of 70 CE and the destruction of the temple were not the end or death of Judaism but the birth of a new and revitalized Judaism.  The destruction of the temple freed God, in the Hebrew mind, to the world.

After the destruction of the temple, Judaism spread with the Hebrew people around the world in what is called the Diaspora.  And the nature of Judaism changed as well, moving from a temple centered faith to a faith anchored in God’s universal presence; a faith studied not in ritual but in God’s word and lived in congregations. As a sect of Judaism, Christianity also spread around the world until within 250 years it was the official faith of Rome, supplanting the worship of the emperor. And because of the destruction of the temple, the dispersion of Rabbinic and Christian Judaism and the transformation of the worship of God into the universal presence of God, Islam grew up as yet a third faith born from Abraham.

Before the destruction of the temple those whose faith was in the God of Abraham were a miniscule part of the world’s population.  Now, those whose faith is in the God of Abraham (Jews, Christians and Islam) are 55% of the world’ population.  The closest rivals are the so-called non-religious with 16%, and those that are the adherents of Hinduism with 14%, almost exclusively in India.[1]

Those who sought to protect the temple had hoped to preserve their institution and protect their lives when they brought Jesus to trial, but they failed.  God made what they feared and fought into the salvation and expansion of monotheism.  God made the death they sought to avoid the birth of the most progressive and love centered faith on earth.

People sometimes mistakenly identify God with the institutions they have created.  When these institutions are threatened they react in fear and try to preserve and protect the institution in the name of God. When the fearful were trying to protect the temple they believed they were protecting God’s presence with them.  But God needs no protection.  God takes the destruction of the temple and uses it to give birth to the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.

On our lesser days we are not so unlike the fearful of Jesus’ day.  We protect our symbols that promise security believing it is a good thing for us and for God.  But what I learned from Jesus in studying the Word for today is that God would have us be unafraid of losing our institutions to terrorists or anyone else.  God uses destruction as a means of birth for the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus says, “Do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come….This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

It is a remarkable perspective, is it not?  While those who fear focus on the coming destruction, Jesus focus is on what God is doing even in war, earthquakes and famines.  While those who fear fight the future, Jesus offers eternal hope no matter what future comes.  While those who fear fight off suffering, Jesus embraces suffering as the way to the kingdom of heaven.

I pray daily to have the faith of Jesus.  I pray it for myself and I pray it for you.  For I am certain that when for even a moment we trust God to be God a tall times we will know peace; we will live more completely in the kind of peace that Jesus’ certainty of God’s compassion and ultimate victory brings.  If we could trust, deep down to the toes of our souls trust, that God cares for each of us personally and for all the world; that God makes every suffering the birth pang of a new and better world then we could follow Jesus’ and Bobby McFerrin’s advice to “Don’t worry, be happy.”

But just because we fall short of full trust does not mean that we must live with no trust in God.  We are called not to be perfect in our faith, but to remember our faith and to strive in it as God perfects us.  With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are called to act as if we trust completely, as if we are perfect in confidence.  When terror strikes us, we are called, in spite of very real fears, to turn to God (Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit) to confess our fear; and to look with confidence for what is being born to us for the world.

The story of our believing as contained in scripture again and again reminds us that God is the God of history.  That God has taken every apparent defeat and turned it into victory.  And that God is doing the same today for each of us, for our nation and for the world.

So when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.  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.

Shalom and Amen.