Do you see these great buildings? A Meditation on Mark 13, for the 25th Sunday after Pentecost

 

And as he went out of the temple, one of his

disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones

and what buildings are here!  And Jesus answering

said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall

not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

There is a great and enduring temptation to see the edifices of man as eternal, or at least the things in which we should trust in our own time and place.  To see the great cathedrals of Europe, or the great monuments of our Republic, with their splendors cast in stone, wood, metal, and glass, is to see some of the great artistic achievements of mankind.  I remember walking through the ancient cathedral of St. Mark in Venice, and at the same time, noticing the much older city all around it, and the majesty of the place was breathtaking.  Roman canals, roads, and bridges were still in use many centuries after their construction, with their engineering and artistic prowess still visible.  Such buildings and monuments give a sense of constancy which endures beyond a single generation, and provides grounding in a contemporary culture driven by short lived passions and fads.

But in the end, such great monuments are still only of human construction.  From the great pyramids of Egypt still standing 3000 years after their building, to the cathedral of Notre Dame, to the Lincoln Memorial, each is a wonder built by human hands.  It is easy to forget that while modern human hands (and those hands of humanly controlled manufacturing robots) craft many things that are useful today and tomorrow are cast into the rubbish heap, those same hands are capable of crafting places and monuments which endure even across millennia.  And yet like the men and women who build them, such works of human hands are bound by time… eventually destined to fall and decay, some in shorter and some in longer horizons.

As His disciples were walking through Jerusalem, they took a moment to express their awe of the city to Jesus.  Lest His disciples place their hope and trust in such beautiful but passing things, Jesus began an apocalyptic discourse which must have been shocking to His hearers.  The city of Jerusalem was the City of David, which he conquered nearly 1000 years before, and featured prominently in the prophecy of the Old Testament.  While it had been harassed by many nations in its history, eventually destroyed by the Babylonians in the 6^th century BC and rebuilt again later that same century, and even at Jesus’ time was a Roman vassal state without true independence, Jesus’ disciples wanted to find something enduring they could hold onto in those sacred and ancient stones.  And yet, as the bedazzling of their eyes by the works of human hands was pierced by the Word of God, they could see that it isn’t man, his cities, his temples, nor his monuments which endure, but God alone.

Indeed, Jesus describes the fall of Jerusalem, which in an immediate sense happened around 70 AD, as Jewish rebels were destroyed by Roman armies, and the people were scattered so that they might not ever build it again.  But what was immediate in that prophecy paled in comparison to the Last Day Jesus warned His disciples of, in which all the works of man—and even all creation—would be brought before God Almighty and judged forever.  In that Last Day there would be nothing left of the monuments of men, nothing left of their cleverness or artistry, as the very elements of the universe dissolved in the purging fire of God’s eternal justice.  For on that Last Day, all the hearts of all mankind would be revealed before the all seeing eyes of their Creator, and all the works of men would be revealed for the corrupt and prideful things they are.  On that Last Day, all the pretensions of man and all the images he has crafted to give himself a sense of permanence and endurance would be stripped away, and they will stand before the only Holy and Eternal God to give account for their lives—every thought, word, and deed, of things done and left undone.

Jesus warns His disciples not to be dismayed or distracted by the calamities they might mistake for that Last Day.  Earthquakes and floods; wars and rumors of wars; nations rising against nations; parents and children betraying each other to death; the persecution of the saints of God by the corrupt governments and religious institutions of the earth; false christs and false prophets proliferating across the globe, deceiving many, and trying to draw away even the Elect; all these things would be only the beginning of the end, and all these things we have seen across the centuries even unto our own times.  Should the Lord tarry, they are things which will be seen by our children and our grandchildren, as they mark the great persecution of Christ and His Church in every age.  The wickedness of a fallen world will ever be persecuting the Word of Christ, and those called into His eternal fellowship by it.

But it is Christ and His Word which endures forever, and not the works of men.  Jesus takes our eyes from the gaudy and prideful crafts of human hands, as transiently beautiful as they may be, and fixes them rather upon Him.  For it is Jesus, the Word of God Made Flesh, who would give Himself as the ransom of salvation for all who would trust in Him; Jesus, who would pass through the Last Day of God’s great and terrible judgment on our behalf, bringing back to us peace and forgiveness and reconciliation with God; Jesus who would endure death and the grave, returning to give us His victorious resurrection and eternal life; Jesus who would establish His Church by His Word of this Holy Gospel, calling all mankind to faith and repentance; Jesus who would remain with His Church by His Word through every persecution, famine, war, and tumult, preserving His people by grace through faith in Him; Jesus who would meet every believer at the portal of their own death, and welcome them into His eternal and blessed embrace; Jesus who would, at the end of all things, come upon the clouds of glory on that Last Day to gather His Elect from every corner under heaven, that they be not consumed by the fires of judgment He has already born for them in His own body.

And so to you, dear Christian, comes the Word of Jesus, to give you comfort, strength, and courage in these days.  Do not be dismayed by the teetering edifices of man, be they political or ecclesiastical, for no work of man endures forever—rather they come and they go, rising and falling like the ocean’s tides.  But the Word of Christ to you is certain and sure, and will endure even when the last distant star flutters its last dying light.  It is a Word of forgiveness and hope, of salvation and love written irrevocably in the Holy Blood of Jesus.  It is a Word which by His Holy Spirit gives you the faith to believe in Him, though everything in heaven and earth give way.  It is a Word that proceeds forth from the finished work of Jesus to call even unto you, that you might turn from the ways of death in which there is only destruction, and live in Him forever by His wondrous grace.   By this Word of Christ’s Gospel, you are called to sing with the Psalmist (16), and with the whole People of God in every age before and yet to come:

I have set the LORD always before me:

because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth:

my flesh also shall rest in hope.

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell;

neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is

fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

Amen.