Mark, Day Twenty

Mark 13

• This chapter is one that I'm sure Rapture enthusiasts would point to if trying to convince me of their point-of-view (an end-times theology like the Left Behind series).  As you may guess, I'm not a fan of this interpretation.  Now, I'm not knocking you if you do hold to this kind of end-times theology (truly, I'm not).  It just doesn't work for me.  There are literary reasons for this (apocolyptic literature being more about encouraging the people of the day than about prophesying the exact future), but I'm no literary expert. 
• So what I see when I just read this is that the tribulation Jesus is talking about (nation against nation, earthquakes, famines, persecutions, betrayals) - all this stuff is already happening and has been happening for thousands of years.  It's not like that's new, but it was new for the very young church community when Mark was written.  And that young community has just experienced the destruction of Jerusalem (I think? I know Mark was the earliest gospel, and I think it was written right around the time of the destruction, but I don't remember exactly).  That's a truly horrific historical event, particularly for a young community struggling with how to survive.  So when Jesus promises He will return "in clouds with great power and glory," that seems to me more like an encouragement to stay strong in the midst of unspeakable agony than an exact prediction of the future.  Jesus is promising that in the end, it really will be better.  In the end, God's glory will triumph.  But we don't know when that end will be (which he also says).  So in the meantime, we work every day to bring the kingdom of God to earth, expecting that such a kingdom will ultimately be the only kingdom.