September 28, 2025

Signs and Questions

Mark 13:1-13

In some ways, this chapter should be taken as a whole, since the entire portion concerns the end of the age.  But I am still going to address parts at a time, since there is a great deal here.  The first interesting thing to note is that this is the only place in the gospels where Jesus speaks in any depth about such things.  This chapter of course finds its parallels in Matthew and Luke, and one can easily be led to consider the content of Revelation as one reads through this chapter.  And there are certainly parables in the gospels that point to ideas about the end times, but this is the one place where Jesus addresses the questions of the disciples.

The first thing that this tells me is that the end times were not a topic of constant concern for Jesus.  Elsewhere in the gospels, especially in parables, we hear Jesus tell people that no one except God will know when that final consummation comes, so the important thing is to live one’s life in such a way that one is always prepared for that moment.  Indeed, much of Jesus’ teaching has to do precisely with how we prepare ourselves daily, and that includes how we interact with others on a daily basis.  Jesus made it clear that the Kingdom of God was not just some future event and time, but that the Kingdom is among us now, and our call is to be making that Kingdom as full and present as we can.

Having given that context, let us begin to look at these verses.  In the opening conversation, the destruction of the temple is discussed.  That destruction did come about through the attack of the Romans in 70 CE, which is also about the time that this gospel was written.  For Mark, perhaps writing shortly after the temple was destroyed, Jesus’ words must have seemed quite powerful.  And then Jesus talks about other signs of the end, signs which people in each generation since have been able to observe in their own time.  Persecution was certainly prevalent in the early times of the church, and even today such persecution happens frequently.  So, while one can look around and say that the end is near, such has also been the perspective for many people over the past two thousand years. 

Which leaves us with the second half of verse 13, where Jesus says that we need to live with patience – patience over the presence of God, patience with one another – and in that will be our salvation.

September 21, 2025

Three Interesting Incidents

Mark 12:35-44

We have in this section three brief incidents.  In the first one, Jesus comments on the saying about the Messiah being the son of David.  It was commonly understood, and I think still is today, that the Messiah would come out of the lineage of David.  This portion appears to contradict that.  Part of the issue, I believe, is that as Mark brings this to us, he includes the quote about the Lord speaking to “my Lord.”  This quote comes from the first verse of Psalm 110, in which it reads, “The LORD says to my lord…”  This would be interpreted as the LORD (Yahweh) speaking to the king (presumed to be David).  This has to do with David’s earthly rule, and, at least in its original context, appears to have nothing to do with the Messiah.  While Jesus may have commented on the understanding that the Messiah would come from the line of David, I think this passage is the result of Mark bringing together these disparate things, and thus, to my mind, bringing confusion to the subject.

In the second incident, Jesus talks about arrogant scribes who seek to have honor for themselves, who take advantage of others, especially widows, and who think that long and flowery prayers will bring them great admiration.  Surely not every scribe would have been included in this condemnation.  Just as today, where we have ministers and other religious leaders who act in arrogant ways, while we also have many who are humble and quietly go about their callings, I am certain that Jesus is focusing upon those scribes whose actions he found to be unacceptable.

Finally, we have the story of the widow who gives all that she has to the temple.  I can’t improve on Jesus’ comments, other than to say that it is a call for our own self-reflection as to our choices in our stewardship of what has been entrusted to us.

September 13, 2025

The Two Commandments

Mark 12:28-34

This is a remarkable exchange between Jesus and one of the scribes.  In Jesus’ day, scribes were entrusted with the responsibility of studying, copying and interpreting the law of Moses.  And, after hearing Jesus’ conversation with the Sadducees, and being impressed with how Jesus responded to them, the scribe comes and asks Jesus a question.  It is an interesting question actually, because any Jewish adult should have been able to readily answer it.  And Jesus does answer it, but then adds the commandment about loving one’s neighbor as well.

This does immediately make us think of a similar encounter that we find in Luke’s Gospel, wherein someone who is an expert in the law, likely a scribe also, asks Jesus about eternal life, and when Jesus poses a question to him, answers with the same two commandments that we hear from Jesus in Mark.  The difference of course in Luke is that the expert in the law then asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Here in Mark, we have no such challenge or request for clarity, but rather the scribe affirms Jesus’ answer, and then says that these two commandments are more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices that were made in the temple.  While that statement may not have gone over well with the priests in the temple, Jesus sees the man’s wisdom, and tells him that he is not far from the kingdom of God.

We have here a very congenial exchange between the two, and also, by inference, a view into Jesus’ thoughts about the sacrifices in the temple.  Jesus apparently saw devotion to God and love of neighbors as being much more important in our relationship with God than any sacrifices that could be offered in the temple.

September 7, 2025

Resurrection?

Mark 12:18-27

Some of the Sadducees, one of a number of sects of Judaism at the time of Jesus, come to question Jesus.  One of the things that distinguished them, in particular from the Pharisees, is that the Sadducees didn’t believe in resurrection.  So, they come to question and debate with Jesus, whose own views were much more closely aligned with those of the Pharisees.

These Sadducees pose a question that finds its origin in the Levirate law that mandated that if a man died and had no children, then his brother had to marry his widow, and any children from that union would be the children of the original husband, thus carrying on his name.  So, in the question posed by the Sadducees, if one were, in this life, to determine whose wife the woman was, I would venture that she would still remain the wife of the original husband.

But Jesus doesn’t respond in a legal fashion.  Instead, he takes their leading question which they are using to perhaps ridicule resurrection, and he turns the question back at them and tells them that the truth is that they really just don’t understand things, because in the resurrection there is no marriage.

In addition, Jesus tells them, they have missed the point of the teaching of Moses, for God is not a God of the dead, but of the living.  As to whether they dismissed his answer, we do not know.  But he certainly provides clarity for us.