Do Not Be Alarmed!

Stones at the base of the "Wailing Wall" at the site of the former Jerusalem Temple

Without doubt the political season amplifies the alarm that seems to spread as epidemic contagion. From conjuring up imaginary attacks on Christianity in holiday greeting to the terrorist violence of Islamic extremism, alarms are sounding in the newspapers and newscasts, on internet social media and opinion columns, in the debates and campaigns of presidential candidates. At least those of us who aspire to follow Jesus Christ are in dire need of the word he spoke to his disciples in Mark 13:7, “Do not be alarmed!”

This counter-cultural word comes to us in a timely fashion in the Gospel reading suggested by the Revised Common Lectionary for this coming Sunday, November 15, 2015 – Mark 13:1-8. This compact vignette is a window into how our distorted perspectives rob us of joy and cripple our spirits.

Yes, the disciple who was in awe at the size of the stones in the Jerusalem Temple may have belied his small town Galilean provincialism, but we all are susceptible to overplaying human significance. The problem here was not so much undue respect for the engineering feat of building the Jerusalem Temple, but a short sighted assigning permanence to the transitory. Forgetting that construction of the Temple had only begun one generation earlier by Herod the Great, they imagined it could not be destroyed. So they could hardly grasp that Jesus said all those great stones would be thrown down, not just a physical demolition but the end of Israel as a political entity for nearly 2,000 years. The destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple by the Romans in 70 AD came in the lifetime of at least some of those who heard Jesus’ words.

Especially in the political season we hear candidates accusing each other of threatening the American way of life and the US Constitution, as though they should be eternal but could be brought down by the opposite party. Adopted in 1789, the US Constitution has served well for over two and a quarter centuries, longer than the founding document still in used today by almost any country in the world, and I expect will persist for a few more generations. As amazing as the US Constitution is, it is not divine (it doesn’t even mention God) and is not eternal. Whether in the flow of history or in apocalyptic climax, the United States and its wonderful constitution will pass from the scene of human affairs. While 226 years is a long time, it is a mere blip on the flow of God’s salvation history tracing to the call of Abraham (more or less) 4,000 years ago. (I won’t even venture a guess at understanding the timing of Genesis 1-11.) When we are alarmed about unsettling trends in our own time, we will do well to take a dose of humility as an antidote to hubris, easing anxiety with perspective on God’s hand in the broad flow of human history.

Jesus’ inner circle of first called disciples – Peter, James, John, and Andrew – want to know when this catastrophe will occur. Like many Christian through the centuries, they crave the power in insider knowledge. They want to be one up on the other disciples. They want to be able to assign special meanings to the events they witness. With periodic regularity, some self-proclaimed Bible scholar claims to have cracked the code of the last days and will let you in on the secret for the price of a book or movie or with a solicitation of a contribution to a broadcast or an organization. Not knowing their hearts, I can’t say that some of them don’t mean well, but Jesus would remind us that, at best, they are self-deluded, and he warns us not to be led astray or alarmed by them.

Human history seems to be the ebb and flow of perpetual warfare. I am writing this on Veterans’ Day 2015, which was originally called Armistice Day and celebrated the end of World War I, then called “The Great War” and “The War to End All Wars.” In retrospect, we see how The Treaty of Versailles negotiated between the Allies and Germany in June 1919 sowed the seeds that spawned World War II. Though many individual wars have started and ended, the world has floundered through perpetual war ever since.

I well remember growing up hearing how the Soviet Union was not just a threat to world peace but fulfilled the prophetic conditions to release the apocalyptic cataclysm with nuclear weapons that would precede the Second Coming of Jesus. In our time, many view Islamist violence in a similar way. I have to admit that as I observed the fading of communism and the rise of radical Islam, it seemed a closer fit to the spiritual struggles of the last days as described in the Bible than an atheistic philosophy and economic system. However, Jesus told his disciples that they would hear of wars and rumors of wars, but they were not the end. Therefore, they should not be alarmed. I believe Jesus also says to us, “Of course you are hearing of wars. Why would you expect anything else from the world? They are not the end. Do not be alarmed!”

Jesus also mentioned widespread earthquakes. Without a doubt the instant news media keep us informed about earthquake and other natural disasters from Haiti to Nepal. We even have less destructive earthquakes in previously seismically stable areas, attributed to fracking and drilling though not without controversy. The changing climate, also politically and economically controversial, is bringing not only powerful storms and rising sea levels but also drought and flooding.  My point is not to invoke Jesus in those political controversies (at least not here), but to recognize that Jesus indicated such things were commonplace and not signs of apocalyptic catastrophe but were the beginnings of birth pangs, so “Do not be alarmed!”

Having witnessed my wife’s birth pangs when she delivered our three sons, I have safely witnessed that anguish without experiencing it myself. I know it is real and at some moments can seem endless. Yet, Jesus purposely used birth pangs to describe the things about which we are easily alarmed. Birth pangs are necessary and inescapable to bringing new life into the world. If we will listen to Jesus in this compact conversation, I believe we can hear him tell us, “Do not be alarmed! New life is on the way! We may experience some of that new life ourselves as Jesus lives in and through us on our journeys, and he will give us perspective to perceive the new life that is out there beyond our personal horizons.