06.05 | Confidence
Mark 13
“So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
Mark 13:29-31
On a recent Wednesday morning in London, five military horses, spooked by the sound of nearby building works, threw their riders and went on a six mile gallop across central London. Talking about this with another parent at the school gates that afternoon, she used a word to describe these scenes:
Apocalyptic.
Galloping horses have always been associated with the End Times, with reference to the horses of the apocalypse. The imagery was heightened in this instance by one of the horses suffering an injury, and thus running through the city covered in its own blood—shades of the red horse of war in Revelation 6.1
When we hear of or think through those questions of the End Times, our question is often the same as the disciples.
When.
When is this going to happen?
Jesus, however, does as Jesus does.
He steers the disciples to a better question.
His emphasis is not on when (He’s clear: not even He knows). Rather, He wants to curate something distinct in the hearts of His disciples. It is not to do with the when: it is rather how they are to inhabit this time of waiting.
Look at where it begins.
The disciples are impressed with the temple. It is strong. It is beautiful. It is huge. For these young Jewish men, it is the lead visual of the strength and stability of their nation and their religion, and they place confidence in its presence as an emblem of the strength of their God.
Jesus’ words are not encouraging.
There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.2
Do not put your confidence, He is saying, in the temple.
He goes on to speak of coming wars, earthquakes, famines, and persecutions. He refers to the presence of an idol in the temple itself3 and the scattering of His people from this city that has been so central in the story of God. He speaks of the darkening and falling of the very sun, moon, and stars, acts of decreation in direct contrast to Genesis 1.
Do not put your confidence in political stability.
Do not put your confidence in the natural world.
Do not put your confidence in the comfort of your circumstances.
In these last years, many of us have felt shaken. Those things that we had trusted in—like a stable economy, predictable health, relative absence of warfare (at least in the Global West) or the basic assumption that liberal democracy would lead to a global progression into some kind of utopia of individual autonomy and self-actualisation—have been revealed as far more fragile than we had ever imagined.
Our confidence, too, had been in our temples.
Jesus’ words come right to us in this moment. Because He says to us, as with the disciples,
Do not put your confidence there.
Rather, Jesus is orchestrating in them an atmosphere of soul that anticipates global unrest, but that can stand firm through it, because our confidence has always and only and ever will be in one place.
The unbreakable word of our Lord.
Jesus’ words to us today are not there so that we can suddenly start heralding His imminent return. We have always been called to herald to His imminent return. We, with the disciples, have been this final ‘generation’ of history from the moment Jesus breathed His last upon the cross. We have been in the ‘last days’ since He dealt the death blow to death and showed us that the path before us leads upwards out of the grave.
The nations will shake. The creation will groan. False prophets will arise.
Take heart. Stand tall. Your confidence is in the only place of surety in this uncertain world:
The word of our Lord.
Who is coming soon.
Reflect:
Look back over the past years. What has rattled me the most? Where has my anxiety grown the strongest?
Bring these things back to the face of Jesus. Remind your soul that He is seated already on His throne. Remind your soul that all these things will soon pass , and that the Father holds all history in His hands.
Ask the Spirit to settle these truths into your heart.
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
When I listen and read and scroll through the events of the world,
I see a lot of anxiety.
It’s so easy to get drawn in.
It’s so easy to join the narratives of hopelessness and fear,
Of anger and division,
Of advocating solutions that are less than your fullness.
But, Lord,
Today,
Draw my heart afresh to a single confidence:
You, and your certain words;
The imminence of your return;
The surety of your victory;
And the certainty of your coming reign of justice and truth and goodness and life.
Change the atmosphere of my soul —
From anxiety
To resilient and joy-filled hope.
Because this:
You are my stability
You are my hope
And your word is my confidence.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Our confidence and our hope,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
1 Samuel 22-24 | Psalm 59
Revelation 6:3-4
A prophecy fulfilled within a generation, at the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70.
Using language taken from Daniel that had been understood to be partially fulfilled in the Inter-Testamental period