“Oh, Buy Those Green Bananas”

Mark 13:1-8

Today’s sermon is a teaching sermon in which I will be quoting from three commentaries. The setting for today’s text is in the week leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus. The text opens as Jesus and his disciples are leaving the Temple. It then continues as Jesus sits on the Mount of Olives with Peter, Andrew, James, and John.

Jesus’ first words are spoken in response to the disciples’ awe-struck comments about the grandeur of the Temple. Jesus in essences says, “So what? This entire edifice will come tumbling down.” The Temple and the institutional Judaic religiosity it represents will be coming to their end. Please note that Jesus doesn’t say when this will happen.

On the Mount of Olives the four disciples sitting with Jesus did what a lot of modern Christians do; they asked for timelines and signs. And Jesus answers them, sort of. But he’s still didn’t set any dates. A rendering of the remainder of Mark 13 deals with both short- and long-term events yet to happen. Again, there are no timelines set forth by Jesus.

Most New Testament scholars refer to Mark 13 and its parallel chapters in Matthew and Luke as the little apocalypse, sort of a highly condensed version of Revelation. An apocalypse is an unveiling, revealing, or disclosing, thus we refer to The Apocalypse of John as the Revelation of John. Apocalyptic sayings or literature are set forth in language that is more symbolic than literal. It was a code language which protected those speaking it from oppressors like the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans. Apocalyptic biblical literature originated in times of political distress. In Mark 13 Jesus is speaking in apocalyptic language.

Hear some of what William Barclay had to say about that: “[Jesus] is giving us neither a map of eternity nor a timetable to the future… he is simply using the language and pictures that many Jews knew and [had] used for centuries…”

He continues: “Mark 13 is one of the most difficult chapters in the New Testament to understand. That is because Mark 13 is one of the most Jewish chapters in the Bible. From beginning to end it is thinking in terms of Jewish history and Jewish ideas… Jesus was using terms and pictures that were very familiar to the Jews of his day, but are very strange, and indeed unknown, to many modern readers.” Jesus was using apocalyptic, symbolic terminology.

And from whence did this language come? The Old Testament. Dr. Barclay continues: “… they [the Israelites] were confident that in the end God would directly intervene in history and win it for them. The Day of God’s intervention was The Day of the Lord. Before [that Day] there would be a time of terror and trouble. It itself would be a shattering time when the world would be shaken to its foundations, and when judgment would come. But it would be followed by the new world and the new age and the new glory.”

In his commentary of Mark 13 Johnnie C. Godwin addresses why Jesus was sharing these words with his disciples: “… the purpose of Mark 13 is to provide Jesus’ followers with enlightenment to live by, not obscure teachings that cause anxiety.”

He then goes on to deal with Mark 13 within the context of the modern reader: “The disciples Jesus spoke to had concerns about the future; the first readers of Mark’s Gospel had concerns about the future (They were, after all experiencing a time of vicious persecution.); and we have concerns about the future. The good news is that the future is secure in Jesus Christ and that he tells us how to face the future as we live in the present… Mark 13 is a call to practical faith and not just a battleground for competing views of interpreters.”

Continuing that theme, John J. Kilgallen had this to say specifically about verses 3-8 of our text: “Jesus begins to outline for the disciples some of the trials and tribulations they will likely have to face. His major theme [is]a general notice to be on guard against anything, trial or deception, which can draw one away from Christianity… the sufferings about which the disciples are assured are not to be interpreted as signs of ‘the end’.”

In those verses Jesus speaks of false messiahs and teachers, wars between the nations, earthquakes, and famines. Jesus could’ve been describing our world today. There are plenty of false messiahs and teachers. Our nation is itself involved in two wars. Iran and North Korea walk around with chips on their shoulders, daring anyone to knock them off. We have our share of natural disasters. Famines are horribly real occurrences in our world. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it?

But let’s not head for the hills just yet; let’s not drop everything we’re doing or stop living our lives. Let’s not adopt a short-term mentality. Today’s sermon title is drawn from a sad, but funny, old joke about aging. When we reach a certain age it’s suggested that we not buy any green bananas because we might not live long enough to eat them.

That’s absurd. We’re all going to die, and odds are that when we do we’ll leave some green bananas uneaten, some books unread, and some projects unfinished. But that’s no reason to stop living. And it’s the same with the Second Coming of Christ. He’ll come when he comes. Meanwhile let’s go out and buy those green bananas, plant those gardens, plan for our retirements, and schedule those vacations.

But what about all those false messiahs, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, and famines that we read about and sometimes live through every day? Are they not signs that the Second Coming is just around the corner? Well, yes – and no. These things have been going on since Jesus ascended back to heaven. And in every century somebody reads Revelation and related apocalyptic literature and starts spouting out timetables and warnings, tries to figure out whom Gog and Magog are, and identifies some poor soul as the Anti-Christ. And in every century people buy into these doomsday predictions, get all excited, and then end up disappointed and disillusioned when, oops!, the timetable turns out to be wrong.

There are folks right now making big bucks off such timetables and predictions. Why? Because they and those of us who buy, read, and believe their spoutings forget that the apocalyptic literature of the Bible was written in symbolic language as a code for particular groups of people at particular points in history. They forget that Jesus was talking to his disciples about the trials and tribulations they would face just because they were his disciples, trials and tribulations that every disciple of every age might have to endure.

They forget that both Mark’s Gospel and the Revelation of John were addressed to Christians enduring horrible persecutions. They forget that Jesus was neither drawing a map of eternity nor a timetable to the future when he spoke the words of today’s text; that he wasn’t trying to make his disciples anxious or confused but to assure them that the future, whatever it might be, was secure in him. Or as Billy Graham once said, the secret of the Book of Revelation is this: “Jesus wins.”

So do we ignore or forget about the Second Coming? No, we just don’t dwell on it. This is the point William Barclay was trying to make in his commentary: “ … it is not possible to disregard [Mark 13] and simply slip over it, because this chapter is the source of many ideas about the Second Coming of Christ. The difficulty of the Doctrine of the Second Coming is that nowadays people are apt either completely to disregard it, and never even think about it, or they are apt to become so completely unbalanced about it that it becomes for them practically the only doctrine of the Christian faith.”

Being a good Presbyterian I try to hit a mark somewhere midway between those two extremes. One way I do that is to take seriously our Confessions. My favorite Confession isn’t officially a Confession. It is the proposed but never adopted document entitled “A Declaration of Faith.” I find comfort in its final words:

“Hope in God gives us courage for the struggle. The people of God have often misused God’s promises as excuses for doing nothing about present evils. But in Christ the new world has already broken in and the old can no longer be tolerated. We know our efforts cannot bring in God’s kingdom. But hope plunges us into the struggle for victories over evil that are possible now in the world, in the church, and in our individual lives. Hope gives us courage and energy to contend against all opposition, however invincible it may seem, for the new world and the new humanity that are surely coming. Jesus is Lord! He has been Lord from the beginning. He will be Lord at the end. Even now he is Lord.”

Or to quote again Johnnie C. Godwin: “The good news is that the future is secure in Jesus Christ…” Thus we can buy those green bananas. Amen.