Out Our Way: The Gospel According to Goliath: Wait for it!

Mark 13:1-20

Out our way, spring is a longed-for and long-awaited event. When the Dairy Queen opens in late February, we know spring is coming, and while we may not be putting the snow shovels away until June, over at Walmart the Easter decorations and candy are coming into the back room along with bikinis and sunhats. We can read a calendar and even when the temperature hits 30 below and blizzards blanket the plains, we know spring is coming.

But sometimes we can also look ahead to things that are not so grand - for we also see signs of sorrows and pending darkness as clearly as we see the first crocus or robin heralding spring.

Jesus spoke to those willing to listen of the signs that would herald a time of terrible devastation, suffering and sorrow. He had spoken of His coming rejection by the religious and civil authorities with the result of His being arrested, tried and crucified. But this was not the great disaster of which He was speaking here - or, as He also had told His disciples, this was a necessary part of God's plan of redemption. And on the third day He would rise again as proof and sign that He was and is the Messiah, the Son of God.

But in Goliath's text today, the tragedy Jesus told His followers to prepare for was the destruction of Jerusalem, the Holy Temple, and the Jewish people as a nation. And the same forces that would bring about His horrible death would be the cause of this tragedy as well: human conceit, pride and rejection of God.

Someone has noted that, historically, it is often the most "religious" people who bring about the greatest cruelties and sufferings. And always it is because in their supposed zeal for God they actually begin to worship themselves. Humanity has always had the habit of dividing the human race into two categories: "us" and "them." In every culture and in every religion, many begin to see "us" as superior and "them" as inferior. Thus "they" must be controlled and exploited for the benefit of the superior beings - "us." Nietzsche and his offspring, the Nazis, were neither the first nor the worst of those who embraced this view. We know the Nazis killed 6 million in concentration camps. But it was the British who invented the concentration camp during the Boer war in South Africa. The Soviets under Stalin murdered some 12 million Ukrainians and Poles in World War 2 - and of course it was us great old Americans under such "heroes" of the Civil War like U.S. Grant, William Sherman and Phil Sheridan who came up with that dandy policy of "the only good Indian is a dead Indian."

Of course, this attitude is not limited to Europeans, as any anthropologist will tell you. This same strain of "us" against "them" is part of human nature - a trait we all carry. Hence, we all have a tendency, to one degree or another, to be racist, sexist, biased and given to discrimination. In this, the Jews were no different than any other human beings - and when the idea of the God of Israel also being the God of Europe, of Africa, of Asia etc., they rejected it as blasphemy. Jesus was a threat because the God He preached was the God of the universe and not the private property of the priests and scribes.

Though the Temple was built to the glory of God, it did not glorify Him, for, as is so often the case, absolute power given to mere human beings corrupts absolutely. In the "Name of God," the religious authorities began to "play God," deciding who was worthy and who was not. Jesus spoke to Jews who were less than faithful in attending the synagogue or the Temple - and even shared meals with people who were unwelcome in such places. Women who had to sell their bodies to support their children when their husband abandoned them. Men who had fallen for the illusion of power and wealth, sacrificing their honor and integrity in their quest for it. Jesus welcomes prostitutes and tax collectors working as collaborators with the Romans. He also had time for children, even when it was obvious to everyone else that there were far more important people impatiently wanting to speak with Him.

It was this proud attitude and dismissal of most other people that Jesus saw in Jerusalem and in the Temple itself that He identified as signs of the coming destruction. Israel had been created for the purpose of becoming a model for humanity. Back in Genesis 12, when God chose Abraham and Sarah to be the first ancestors of this people, He told them the reason. He made a covenant with them - that through them He would do three things. First, He would create a unique people who would pass on this covenant to their children in generation after generation. Second, He would make a nation of them and grant them a homeland at the crossroads of the ancient world; and third, from all this would come God's blessing of all the families of the earth.

The Chosen people had been chosen and created to fulfill God's purpose for all creation. But people got comfortable with the idea they had been chosen because they were superior to everyone else - and that they were indeed the "Master Race" Nietzsche would nearly 2,000 years later describe - suggests they were destined to rule the world. Only for Nietzsche, man and science were now masters of the universe instead of God. Well, we have seen the results of that point of view in Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Castro, to name a few. It isn't pretty, but human beings can be a pretty stubborn and pig-headed lot. Sometimes God has to wake us up.

The wakeup call Jesus spoke about was the coming destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple and the nation. Within less than 50 years, the Temple, the city, and, geographically, the nation would cease to exist. To be a Jew became a statement of one's religion and ancestry, but not of nationality, for they would become a people without a nation. Yet the Jew would not cease to exist - for they remained God's chosen and, from them, in Christ and His followers, has come the New Israel - a people created not by nationality, ancestry, race or place of origin, but by the love of God.

When Jesus rode down the streets of Jerusalem and the people shouted, "Hosanna" -  "Save us!" - that is exactly what Jesus was doing. The Temple, the city and the country did not survive, but God's people did and God's plan to redeem all of creation continues to this day. The story begun in Genesis is not over fo the plan is still being fulfilled - and we are all part of it!

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Goliath and John Bruington seek to serve the Lord and share what little knowledge He can manage to get through. After all, horses have a brain the size of an orange - and Goliath is considered the smart one of the two.