Mark 13:32-37 - Homilies By J.j. Given

Parallel passages: Matthew 24:36-51 ; Luke 21:34-36 .—

Preparation for Christ's coming.

I. TRANSITION FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM TO THE DAY OF JUDGMENT . Again our Lord passes from the typical event to the anti-typical consummation of all things—from the destruction of the holy city to the dissolution of things visible. The limitation of our Lord's knowledge with respect to "that day and that hour" must be understood of his human nature as the Son of man, in which he was subject to such other sinless conditions of humanity as increasing in wisdom, growing in stature, feeling hunger, thirst, lassitude, and the like; or it did not come within the sphere of his prophetic office to reveal it, as it belonged to "the times or the seasons which the Father hath set within his own authority." Our Lord, according to Meyer, knew this κατὰ κτῆσιν , i.e. with respect to possession, of which, however, in his humiliation he had divested himself; not κατὰ χρῆσιν , in regard to use, viz. for revelation.

II. THE GREAT EVENTS CONSEQUENT ON HIS COMING . One of these events shall be the resurrection of the dead. "Now," says the apostle, "is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept;" but then shall be this world's great harvest-day. Then shall a shout be heard, so loud, so piercing, that it will reach the dull, cold ear of death; the voice of the archangel shall re-echo through the dismal recesses of the tomb, and call to life the buried dead; the trump of God shall resound through the caverns of earth and the caves of ocean, till earth and sea shall give up the dead that are in them. Then shall be fulfilled the saying of our Lord elsewhere recorded, that "the hour is coming, in the which all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and come forth; they that have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation." Further, on his coming at the day or hour here spoken of, the Son of man shall judge the world in righteousness. The dead, small and great, shall stand before him; the judgment shall be set, and the books opened. All nations, and kindreds, and tongues, and peoples shall be assembled at that bar of God; "we must all appear before that judgment-seat of Christ, to give an account of the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or evil." The decisions of that day shall be final, allowing no alteration, no appeal, and no reversal. Not only so; based on the unvarying principles of justice and equity, righteousness and truth, they shall commend themselves to the consciences of all concerned. The condemned and justified alike shall acquiesce in them; sinners shall assent to them as just; saints shall approve of them as gracious; angels shall applaud them as worthy of the Judge; and all intelligences shall acknowledge them to be as impartial as irreversible.

III. THE FOURTH PRACTICAL DIRECTION . The fourth great moral lesson of the chapter is watchfulness. This lesson our Lord insists on, repeating it with great earnestness, and conjoining with it the duty of prayerfulness: "Take ye heed, watch and pray;" "Watch ye therefore;" and again, "Watch:" The two duties of watchfulness and prayerfulness are frequently associated; thus, "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." Both together represent Divine and human strength in co-operation with each other. If we watch without prayer, we depend on human strength, and dispense with Divine aid; if we pray without watching, we depend on Divine strength alone, and despise the human means of help which God himself has commanded us to employ. They are the two strong arms of defense against the evil one; and we may not, we cannot, without serious dereliction of duty and gravest danger, part with either of them. This duty of watchfulness is enforced by a beautiful parabolic illustration; though it is not a formal parable, as the words supplied in the Common Version make it. Those words, "For the Son of man is," should be struck out; equally unnatural is it to supply the words, "The kingdom of heaven is;" neither is Kuinoel's mode of supplying the ellipsis by ποιῶ any better; while Euthymius, who seems to refer the words to Christ and to understand the future of the substantive verb, as though it were, "I shall be as a man setting out on a far journey," is even less satisfactory. In addition to this, απόδημος , said of one " already abroad, or an absentee from his people," is confounded with ἀποδημῶν , which signifies "going abroad." Fritzsche rightly explains as follows:—"Res ita habet ut—die Sache verhalt sich so wie," and compares therewith the Horatian use of ut si in the words, " Ut tibi si sit opus liquidi non amplius urna ." So also the Revised Version, correcting both the errors of the Common Version, renders correctly: " It is as when a man, sojourning in another country, having left his house, and given authority to his servants, to each one his work, commanded also the porter to watch." This translation helps us much in the right understanding of the illustration. The man is already abroad; but before he went abroad, he, as a matter of course, left his house, having previously to leaving given authority to his servants in general to manage matters for him in his absence, and having appointed to each in particular his special work; and when on the threshold, as it were, he gave a charge to the porter also to watch, and so be prepared for his return.

IV. REASONS FOR THE WATCHFULNESS ENJOINED . Though there is no express application of the illustration, a circumstance which adds much to the ease and grace of the narrative, we are at no loss for, and find no difficulty in making, that application. The Master of the house is our Lord; his disciples, in the first place, are the domestics whom he entrusted with the management of the household when he himself took his departure to the goodly land afar off, appointing each believer his own sphere of labor and the special duty he was bound to perform, and leaving a strict charge of watchfulness with the porter who kept the door; that is, either the ministry in general, who are watchmen on the walls of Zion, or Peter in particular, to whom had been entrusted the power of the keys in opening the door of faith to Jew and Gentile. Nor do we thereby concede anything to the Romanist in reference to Peter's supremacy—a rank which the apostle himself never claimed. Be this as it may, however, the duty of watchfulness is enjoined on all,

"Determined are the days that fly

Successive o'er thy head;

The number'd hour is on the wing

That lays thee with the dead."

Further, watchfulness is indispensable, because

V. OTHER LESSONS OF THE CHAPTER .

1 . The truth of Scripture. Besides the lessons already noticed, there are others to which we can only advert. The lessons scattered through this chapter are like flowers in a summer field. Another of these is the truth of Scripture. "Heaven and earth shall pass away." The frame of nature, stable as it now seems, has in it the elements of change. There are changes in the geological strata of the earth beneath us, in the sky above us, in the natural world around us. Great changes have already taken place in earth and sea and sky; great physical changes are daily going on; still greater changes may be expected to occur in time to come. The surest inductions of science point to such changes and collapses. "But my words," said our Lord, "shall not pass away." His words have passed into the spiritual fibre of his people, living in their lives, exhibited in their conduct, illustrated by their character, and consoling them in the hour of dissolution. Statesmen have been guided by them, lawgivers have framed laws by them, philosophers have made more use of them in building up their systems than they have been willing to acknowledge to others, or have even been conscious of, themselves. The words of Christ have for eighteen hundred years or more blended with the inspirations of the poet; they have almost moved in the marble of the statuary, and spoken from the canvas of the painter. Time has not exhausted their fullness; no taint has touched their freshness, nor has aught of their fragrance decayed. Further, the inspiration of Scripture is safely inferred from the statement in verse 11, "It is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost," compared with St. Luke's parallel statement, "I will give you a mouth," the expression," and wisdom," the matter to be expressed.

2 . The publication of the gospel among all nations. The gospel must first be published. Here was the great end to be attained. We have seen how this was virtually accomplished before the fall of Jerusalem; but the world has widened its boundaries since then. Continents and islands have been added to it; navigation and travel have enlarged geography, and geography has added to the dimensions of the globe, or at least has revealed those before unknown. And still the gospel is preached, and shall be.

"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun

Doth his successive journeys run;

His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,

Till moons shall wax and wane no more."

3. Watchfulness the lesson of the ages. Scenes similar to those that preceded Christ's coming at the fall of Jerusalem may be repeated, and repeated over a wider area and on a grander scale. Then, as before, there may be wars—some actual, others rumoured—great international conflicts, and fatal internecine strife; then, as before, there may be physical catastrophes, providential visitations, as the travail-throes of greater events—the travail-pangs in the genesis of the new order of things; then, as before, there may be persecutions, prolonged and repeated, and the severance of the nearest ties of kinship, with universal hatred for the Savior's sake. Yet, through all, men must possess their souls in patience, or rather, according to the correcter reading, gain their souls, their real life, by patience—patient endurance, not violent resistance. Men may be worn with watching, pining for peace, and aweary for rest; still the same lesson has to be repeated, the same duty practiced: "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch!" Watchfulness is still the duty of the Church and of the Christian.

"Yet saints their watch are keeping;

Their cry goes up, 'How long?'

And soon the night of weeping

Shall be the morn of song."

J.J.G.