A 40-DAY JOURNEY WITH THE KING: Lenten reflections from Mark’s Gospel (35)

 


“But in those days…

the sun will be darkened,
    and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,
    and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.” (Mark 13.24-27)

     We have seen that several dark themes converge as Jesus enters Jerusalem and teaches day-by-day in the Temple.  In the preceding chapter, Jesus had told the apostles:

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.” (Mk. 10.33-34)

Not only will Jesus suffer, but Jesus predicts that his entire generation will experience a time of intense suffering, not least of which will include the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem (Mk. 13.1-2, 30).  Through all of these dark and traumatic events, the kingdom of God will be established, as the crowd of pilgrims had sung during Jesus’ triumphal entry (cf. Mk. 11.9-10).  However, this kingdom will not be won through victory…

     Jesus appeals to Scripture in order to explain what these events mean.  All of these dark themes – the Son of Man, Israel’s suffering, divine judgment of the enemies of God’s people, the establishment of the kingdom of God over against all human kingdoms – are found in chapter 7 of the book of Daniel.  Jesus often refers to himself as the “Son of Man” (cf. Mk. 2.10, 28; 8.38; 9.9; 10.45; 13.26; 14.21, 41, 62).  In chapter 7, Daniel has a dream in which he sees 4 monsters emerge from the sea to attack the people of God (“the holy ones of the Most High”: 7.1-8, 15-18).  Following this series of attacks on God’s people by four different pagan empires, God (“Ancient of Days”) sets up thrones in order to sit in judgment on these oppressive kingdoms.  Once God has taken his seat and deposed the monsters, Daniel sees “one like a son of man” ascend from the earth and approach the Ancient of Days on the clouds of heaven in order to share God’s throne and receive an eternal kingdom (Dn. 7.9-14).  This dream is a vision of the people of God (represented by the Son of Man) being granted the kingdom of God; it is a vision of Israel’s vindication over and against all the pagan empires that had oppressed her since the time of the Babylonian exile (7.19-27).  This dream was a promise that God would grant his people victory over her enemies and that the kingdom of God would displace all Gentile kingdoms (cf. Dn. 2.44-45; 4.34-35; 6.25-27).  There would be one world, governed by one divine kingdom, presided over by one king (the Messiah of Israel; cf. Ps. 2.7-9) – and all this, under the sovereignty of one God.

     Daniel’s dream is a vision of vindication after suffering, of sharing divine glory after having been oppressed and persecuted by human powers.  Jesus always refers to himself as the Son of Man when he predicts his suffering – not at the hands of pagan empires, but rather at the hands of the leaders of God’s people – “the chief priests and the scribes” (cf. Mk. 8.31; 9.12, 31; 10.33).  In other words, Jesus is describing his sufferings as the precursor to the establishment of the kingdom of God.  There was an understanding among Jesus’ contemporaries that there would be a time of national “testing/trial” (Gr: peirasmos) before the coming of the kingdom (cf. Mk. 1.13; 14.38; 13.19, 24; Jer. 30.7).  In Jesus’ prophecy against the Temple (Mk. 13), he links the time of suffering – which will include the Temple’s downfall – with the vindication of the Son of Man, the result of which is the establishment of God’s eternal kingdom.  Once Jesus arrived in Jerusalem (Mk. 11.1-18), it became very clear that Jesus’ predictions of his suffering/death were going to be fulfilled.  The Son of Man will suffer first, then – within one generation (13.30) – the city/people that put him to death (cf. Mk. 12.1-12) will undergo a period of intense tribulation and that will be the sign that the Son of Man has indeed been vindicated and the kingdom of God has been established “with power” (Mk. 13.24-27; 8.38—9.1).  For a human being to be given a place on the divine throne is for that person to receive authority to act in God’s name; more than that, to act with divine prerogatives, as God.  By quoting Daniel 7.13, Jesus is saying that this is indeed his destiny…on the far side of suffering and death.

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