He’s Coming Back

November 27, 2005

Mark 13

Dr. Larry D. Thorson

Intro to the reading of Mark 13

In order to better understand and relate to the Scripture that I am about to read imagine that you are in New York City in the spring of 2001. You are just leaving the World Trade Center where you have taken in a panoramic view of the city you marvel over the magnificence of the city and its buildings.

Mark 13:1-2 : ¹As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!"
²"Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."

Now the scene changes. No longer at the World Trade Center complex you’ve taken a ferry across the river to the Jersey shore where you are looking across at the two towers, curious about the strange prophecy you just heard about their pending destruction.

Mark 13:3-4 ³As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, ⁴"Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?"

They wondered how it could be possible that such a massive structure as the temple, such an important symbol to who the Jews were could possibly be destroyed down to its last stone. It was inconceivable. The temple like the World Trade Center was an engineering marvel that symbolized the faith of a nation. Destroying it was incomprehensible. Yet within forty years, in 70 AD the Romans would march into Jerusalem and destroyed it on their way to conquering Israel. Amazingly it did come down stone by stone.

I can remember September 11, 2001 as if it was last week. I was at a Presbytery meeting in McKinney,.Texas scheduled to co-teach a workshop on how our Plano church had grown and hadn’t been listening to the news. It was one of our retired lawyers now a Commissioned Lay Pastor of two churches who recited the events to me: both towers were gone, the Pentagon had been hit, another plane had been hijacked and the President had left Washington and was bunkered in an undisclosed location. It seemed that no one was much interested in hearing our talk that morning. Presbytery officials dismissed us early after some time of prayer. My wife and I went out to lunch in what we thought could very well be one of our last meals out for awhile. I can remember the hushed tones of conversations in the restaurant that day. The atmosphere was eerie.

Was this it? Was the lifestyle that we had known our whole lives about to come to an end? Would we have to ration our limited food? Would we have to live in bunkers to withstand bombs? Were the attacks over or would there be more? Was this the beginning of the great tribulation mentioned in the Bible?

That night the lower floor of our sanctuary in Plano was packed as we gathered for a unique evening of serious, dedicated prayer for ourselves and our nation. We were scared and looking to God for help as we wondered what tomorrow would bring.

Sitting on the Mount of Olives with the four original disciples, Peter, James, John and Andrew, Jesus began to prepare them for their tomorrow. He talked about nations rising against nations, earthquakes in various places, famines. But that wasn’t the end.

He talked about children rebelling against their parents, persecution against Christians, about being driven out of their homes, about false saviors rising up performing signs and miracles to deceive us. But that wasn’t the end.

Starting in v.24 Jesus described the end “But in those days following that distress, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”

The end. That’s it. Not planes crashing into towers. Not suicide bombers blowing up hotels. That’s just evil but it’s not the end of the world. When the sun no longer gets up in the morning nor the moon at night and the stars begin falling from the sky in great numbers that’s when we’re probably looking at minutes rather than hours until the end of the world.

I was curious about his reference to stars falling from the sky. In doing some research about this I read about a scientist named Dr. Jon Giorgini at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, who was one of the first people to study an asteroid orbiting the sun called 1950 DA which could possibly smash into the earth with the explosive force of millions of tons of TNT. In his article he says that if this asteroid hit the earth, it would have planet wide effects, setting off fires, changing the weather and perhaps creating immense tidal waves. But it would not be a planet killer like the asteroid thought to have snuffed out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. That asteroid was about 16 times larger than the 1950 DA asteroid discovered in 1950.

As I read his article I was relieved to read that most experts believe that the potential impact of 1950 DA was still 878 years away, time enough, he says, for the speeding space rock to alter its course. "This is not an urgent thing," says Dr. Giorgini. "We can spend a century thinking about it, another century deciding who is going to do something and then another century figuring out what to do. Three hundred years from now -- we can't even imagine how they will handle the problem." "I'm not personally going to worry about. It is so far in the future that lots of things could change."

Well I’m glad we don’t have to worry about that one for 300 years. I should have stopped reading right there. But I didn’t. Tom Morgan, chief scientist of NASA’s small planet program, said there are approximately 1,000 asteroids bigger than six-tenths of mile that can pass near the Earth in their orbit of the sun. Only about 580 have even been found and their orbits plotted. Of these, only 1950 DA represents a possible threat, but centuries in the future. Morgan said NASA continues an effort to identify all the other large asteroids that pass near Earth. "It is my great hope that we don't find any that are greater threats," Morgan said. Thanks, but I’m not very comforted about those 420 asteroids we haven’t even identified yet. .

Remember how the disciples asked Jesus in v.4 “Tell us, when will these things happen?” Now we read Jesus’ answer in v.32

³²"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. ³⁴It's like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
³⁵"Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back--whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. ³⁶If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. ³⁷What I say to you, I say to everyone: 'Watch!' "

One summer in college I got a job as a security guard watching a Westinghouse research and development campus on the weekend night shift. My boss told me that all I needed to do was make a round of the campus once an hour with my time clock and punch the time I checked on each door on the clock. That round would take ten minutes, the rest of the time I could do my homework. The other thing I had to do was always stay awake. “Never” he said, “ever let me catch you falling asleep on the job”. That seemed like such an easy task for me when I interviewed for the job at 11:00 in the morning. I wasn’t sleepy then. It’s like declaring that you’re going on a diet after finishing your Thanksgiving dinner. Sure it seems easy then. .

If you’ve never worked the graveyard shift or driven all night through you don’t realize how overpowering sleep can be. My body would ache, my mind would play tricks and all I would want was for five minutes of sleep. One night I was passing through the executive lounge where they had a sofa. That sofa started talking to me. It had a very luring voice… “Larry, lay down here, for just a few minutes.” Well I wasn’t going to do it because I wanted to keep my job but it persisted. “No one is here, you won’t get caught.” Sofa was right, no one ever checked up on me. So I figured I’m a light sleeper and I’ll take a little short nap. It won’t be very long and I’ll feel so refreshed. I carried a walkie talkie and put it on a table near the sofa. In my sleep I heard the walkie talkie in the voice of my boss looking for me. Fortunately I realized what was going on, jumped up and learned afresh what Jesus meant when he said “Watch”. I frantically tried to rub the sofa creases off my face and rushed to the front lobby where I received a rebuking from my boss…for not wearing my uniform hat.

Jesus tells us that he’s coming back and we have to get ready. Imagine one morning your phone rings and it’s the White House informing you that the President of the United States was nearby and would like to make a surprise visit to your home as part of his effort to see how ordinary people live. Secret Service would set up in your garage in an hour and the President would arrive sometime after that. Most of us would not be ready.

That’s why once a year we have something called “Advent” or “watch” period. It’s the four Sundays leading to Christmas when we do things to remind us that all of this life is just temporary and that Jesus could come back any day. It’s time to get our affairs in order before that happens.

In my last church I paid a home visit to an elderly couple in my first month at the church. They told me highlights of their life including all about their children, grandchildren and recently born great grandchild. The mention of the great grandchild reminded the man that he hadn’t altered his will to account for the addition of this child and he pulled his will papers out of his file to add the child.

The following Monday was Memorial Day and the couple drove to Restland Park cemetery in Dallas for the annual Memorial Day service honoring those who had died in service to their country. They had done this every year since 1969 when their son was killed in Vietnam. On their way to the service they were broadsided by another vehicle in an intersection killing the woman instantly and the man twelve days later.

When their family went to their apartment they found on their desk the file the man had pulled out the week before during my visit. In that file were complete instructions for their funeral, disbursement of their belongings and their will. They had done everything they could to prepare for the inevitable end of their human body but did everything they could to put it off as long as they could. I suspect that’s how many of you live. .

That’s how Jesus urges us to get ready for his coming. Some of you have your finances and material belongings all in order but your relationships are a mess. Others have their material belongings and relationships all in order but their spiritual life is in a confusing disorder. Maybe you’ve put off committing your life to Christ thinking that once you got things together you’d do it. In the meantime you’re living life as if it’s always going to be like this.

Rather than asking the question “When will these things be?” we need to ask “Am I ready?” Centuries ago a man named Ignatius wrote a book called Spiritual Exercises. In it he encouraged his readers to take time each day to share with their family or friends what were the high and low points of the day or week. At the dinner table one could share what they were most grateful for and least grateful for that day, what they felt good about and what was the biggest struggle. Or at bedtime we could share what made us the happiest and what made us the saddest that day. He called this practice the “examen.” What examen does is keep life in perspective because the hardest part of living is keeping life in perspective. It’s like when I accepted the job at 11:00 in the morning as a night security guard I didn’t think staying awake all night would be so hard. When you’re fresh you think you’ll always be fresh. When you’re well you think you’ll always be well. It’s hard to keep things in perspective.

This Advent season as we prepare for his birthday, Jesus is calling us to daily examen our thoughts and actions, put them in perspective. As we live in a world rocked by terrorism on every side, know that it only gets worse. That’s the bad news. This life is passing away, only what lasts for eternity is worth living. The good news is that no matter how bad it gets the bad is going to pass away one day. If you trust in Jesus Christ you will see your creator in heaven. So give him control of your life, your finances, your time right now. Put everything in the perspective of eternity. His word for us today is repent of a lifestyle that says this kind of life is going to go on forever before it’s too late.