Saturday, December 22, 2012 – Mark 13-16
Destruction – Conspiracy – Resurrection
We usually spend time with this portion of Mark’s Gospel in the spring as we near Easter; but it is also fitting to spend time with this quickly paced, action-packed Gospel as we approach the last, brief week of Advent that 2012 offers to us. In Mark’s portrayal of Jesus we see a leader who warns his follows of the coming destruction that will look like the end. We might need to hear these words today as we look at local and world events.
So often we see that life is dangerous and destructive. It seems that the promise of goodness is overshadowed by the power of darkness. Frequently we witness the victimization of the innocent who suffer at the hands of the wicked. It appears to us that those who practice corruption and betrayal with such swift precision escape any negative consequences of their actions. They squirm away from justice and delight in the evil they have wrought. Sometimes bad news arrives with a loud chorus of alarm; at other times it whispers into our lives on cat-like feet of murmuring insinuation. It announces itself with pride or glides into our lives almost unnoticed and before we know what to say or how to act we are overtaken; and yet . . . this malevolence is repeatedly drowned out by the Good News of revivification. This is what we witness as we read these final chapters of Mark. We are assured that despite gloomy forebodings and dire predictions we do constantly experience renaissance and restoration in the promise of Christ . . . the promise of the Nativity of the Prince of Peace and Light.
Today we might be swept away by the treachery of those close to Jesus; we read about the coming ruin of the Temple; we struggle with the Lesson of the Fig Tree. But we must see that we are also anointed with Christ; we prepare for the Passover with Christ; and we shudder with the miracle of the risen Christ. If we might place ourselves in Christ when evil approaches, we will marvel at the transforming power of the empty tomb. We will climb from the pit of despair to the height of salvation. When we read Mark’s rapid, sweeping, final description of the torture, the death and the annihilation of Christ . . . we are also shown the healing . . . the renewal . . . and the guarantee of God’s promised love for us.
As the earth transits its orbit around the sun and moves through times of darkness and cold to return to the warmth and light, so do we journey through shadow and bitterness to come back to God’s mercy and security. With Christ, let us travel through our agony to arrive at our own restoration. Let us stand boldly against conspiracy to secure unity with all. And let us not fear the threat of death and division for hidden in all of this suffering . . . is Christ who leads us to life everlasting.
This is the Promise of Advent. This is the Promise of Death. This is the Promise of Resurrection.
To learn more about the film The Nativity Story, click on the image above or go to: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762121/ or http://www.hopeisthewordblog.com/2007/12/18/works-for-me-wednesday-the-nativity-story/
The Noontimes 