Mark 13:1-8
I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Let’s start with the bad news which is that all temples eventually crumble and fall. Now that may not sound like particularly bad news to you because none of us live around temples. But to the ears of the disciples it was frightful.
Frightful because they had a temple in Jerusalem. And it was beloved and it was massive. Over a quarter of a mile long and roughly nine stories high with stones that weighed anywhere from 20 to 600 tons! It really is hard for us to imagine how big and grand and seemingly indestructible this temple appeared. And yet even more than being an immense building and the center of Jewish worship, this temple provided the people with identity, security, and meaning. It was the anchor of their life. So, understandably, it sounds like the worst news ever when Jesus calmly declares that it’s all going to fall. "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."
But when he says that Jesus isn’t talking about one particular temple in Jerusalem, which did fall in the year 70 at the hands of Roman powers, he is speaking about all types of temples. Not just the ones we build with brick and mortar but the temples we work so hard to build in our lives. For we expert builders of temples: personas, families, beliefs, institutions, reputations, accomplishments, hopes, and dreams. We build these temples hoping that they will provide us with identity, security, and meaning. That they will anchor our lives. But over time, the structures that we work so hard to build and maintain, Jesus tells us, eventually crumble and fall. Now by saying this Jesus isn’t really predicting the future nor forecasting doom and gloom. What he’s really doing is stating the reality of life. Because life changes, loved ones die, institutions fail, people disappoint, relationships break up, bodies get sick. And when such things happen the great stones of the temples that we have erected are all thrown down - and it can feel like our world is coming to an end. That is the bad news.
But here’s the good news. When this happens - when the temple you built, the one that you depend on, the one that means everything to you - when that temple crumbles and falls, as difficult as that can be, Jesus tells us that we need not fear. For a while it may feel like the world is coming to an end, it is not. In fact it is just the opposite. It is the beginning. The beginning of the birth pangs, Jesus explains. Now that’s not to minimize what’s going on. Everything isn’t rosy and bright. When temples fall there is often pushback with wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famine, false prophets and various forms of chaos. Which makes it so easy, and even natural, to get caught up in all of the turmoil and miss the very point of it. The point that all the woe, the sense of loss, the temples falling, all of it is actually a natural part of giving birth to something new. In a sense Jesus is saying, “Everything in life must give way. And, yes, it is painful. But that is the way of birth. New life has come to you. Birth is happening.”
Jesus is revealing the way of change and transformation, the way of new and resurrection life. As God’s people we are meant to live in the throws of birth. We are called to live a life of ongoing change and growth. Our life, from our first breath until our last, is a series of such births. God calls us into one way of being and, for a time, we live into that deeply. We build various temples in our lives and make them grand and glorious. They feel stable. But, eventually, they fall, in one way or another. And in such moments it doesn’t feel like the birth of something new because all we can feel is the squeeze and that hurts. But Jesus says, “Do not be alarmed…[for] this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” So we breathe and breathe and eventually find ourselves birthed into a new way of being, of loving God and loving our neighbor ever more deeply. And we begin again in the construction of a new temple. Until the time comes when things change, the temple starts to crumble, the birth pangs return and again something new is born.
Now this is not to say that God causes the temples of our lives to fall or that God makes bad things happen in order to teach us an important lesson or make us better Christians. That is not how God operates. Instead God is always present with us in the midst of the turmoil reminding us that whatever we are going through, it is not the end: it is the beginning. For the truth is temples falling and new birth are woven into the very nature of what it means to live. And through it all, Jesus is a trustworthy midwife, guiding us and delivering us through our birth pangs into new life.
So what temples in your life are falling? What things are changing or in transition right now? What would it be like to reframe the experience of upheaval or loss not the end of things but the beginning? How might God be using a falling temple as an opportunity to be birthing something new? Because ultimately fallen temples are not about loss and destruction but about birth and creation. The good news is that our God is the God of life, not death. The God of creation, not destruction. We need not be afraid and resist with wars or rumors of war, famine or earthquake. We need only to trust. Trust in God. Trust in Jesus. Trust that we are being born into steady hands. Trust that we are being born into new and resurrection life.
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