Mark 13:7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
Scary times seem to be upon us. We have seen some scary things happen in the last few months, haven’t we! But as I have said before, these are not things that haven’t happened before in our history. The “White House” is called the White House because it was burned in 1812 when the city was occupied by the British and it was painted white to hide the burns. And I remember the riots in the 60’s and 70’s.
Unfortunately, for the vast majority of Americans, war is something that is distant, something other people fight. Less than ten percent of the adult population has served in the Armed Forces. That means very few people have “skin in the game” when wars happen. We tend to fight wars in other places rather than on our own soil.
So when things get out of hand here, we tend to get our alarm bells ringing. We like our comfortable life. We don’t want anything to disturb what we have.
Our text says “don’t be alarmed”, but then goes and outlines things that would naturally alarm us. National wars, earthquakes, flogging, arrest, trial, death, hate, fleeing, dreadful for pregnant women, days of stress unequaled, if not cut short, no one would survive. These are not encouraging words. These words raise the fear level, not lower it.
So how can Jesus say to not be alarmed and yet know that these alarming things are going to happen? Does this make sense to you? There seems to be a disconnect between these beginning words and the explanation that follows. Let’s take a look.
These words are spoken to the disciples as they are trying to understand the timing of the coming of God’s Kingdom. Jesus has just announced to them that Jerusalem itself will be destroyed. Is another exile going to happen? So their natural question is about timing and clues for them to watch for that would give them a hint of that timing.
Jesus answers by telling them that things are going to get really bad. Things are not really bad yet! But they will get very bad. These don’t sound like words that answer the disciple’s questions. At least not the kind of answers I would be looking for to help quell my fears.
But Jesus knows what He is doing. He lays out the terrible things as signs, clues that they need to keep waiting, holding on, sticking in there. And this is grace in action!
If you know something is going to get really bad, then you can prepare yourself for it. You can mentally and spiritually get prepared. You can get your “to go” bag ready. You can stockpile food. You can trim off the fat before the events happen. Knowing what is ahead is a great help. Otherwise you might be taken by complete surprise.
Jesus tells us that persecution is in our future! It has happened around the world throughout history. Why should we be exempt. We can see the winds changing already in our country. Christians have become a popular target of joking, but one of these days there will be more than jokes thrown at us. And we need to be ready.
Just as the disciples had time to prepare, we too have time to prepare. We need to stop hiding our heads in the sand. Persecution is coming to us. We need to get prepared.
The Arnold Journey 