The Peace that Passes all Understanding : Mark 13

Mark 13, it could be argued, is one of the most sobering and hope-filled chapters in the Gospel.

We hear Jesus preaching not in parables, but in prophecy.

He is pulling a curtain over a history of suffering – replacing it with the promise of His return.

In this chapter, we are invited to see the world not as it is today, but as it will be in the future.

And these words don’t just inform—they transform.

They give us hope in a world today that groans and shakes.

Hope in the person who we are promised will make all things new. Jesus.

The End is Nigh

I remember as a little girl being taken by one of my aunts every year to Regents Street in London, to see the Christmas lights.

There was often a man there wearing a sandwich board proclaiming that the end was nigh. To be quite honest, we both thought he was a bit odd, as did probably most people.

But, in the opening verses of Mark 13, Jesus was indeed beginning to proclaim the end.

He was in Jerusalem, and as he left the temple that day, it was to never return, because he was rejecting its corrupt practices and leadership. 

He rejected it because he knew that God was about to begin building something even better and far more beautiful than the then Jewish temple.

Jesus knew God was planning a new temple in a new city of Jerusalem. Something far more wonderful than anyone could imagine.

But his disciples didn’t understand Jesus; how could they?  

Because the sight of the temple in Jerusalem, from far and near, truly was breathtaking. 

The Temple in Jerusalem

Herod the Great had been perfecting it, to his liking, for nearly fifty years over 35 acres, or about the space of twenty-three football pitches.

The temple was considered his architectural masterpiece.

The sanctuary walls were one hundred and fifty feet tall.  Some of the blocks of stone were sixty feet long and weighed over a million pounds.  

The columns were so thick that it took three men to reach their arms all around them.  

Ancient historians said that, from a distance, it looked like a mountain of marble decorated with gold. 

So yes, the Jerusalem temple was absolutely stunning, and people thought that it would stand for a thousand years, or more even.  

But Jesus was not impressed by it.  

He told his disciples that it would soon be destroyed, so much so that not one stone would be left on top of another.

And it was razed to the ground, along with the city of Jerusalem, in a brutal battle between the Romans and Jews just 40 years later.

This confirmed what Jesus had said, because he knew that his mission was to replace that temple with a temple in a new heaven and a new earth, and in a new city of Jerusalem. 

Isaiah and The Book of Revelation

God told Isaiah; ‘I will create a new heaven and a new earth.’ Isaiah 65:17

And when Jesus spoke of the destruction of the temple, he was also alluding to the destruction of the world as we know it today, to allow for God’s new heaven and earth.

Much of faith is mysterious, but Christians trust these words to mean that one day—at a time only God knows—all that is broken will be swept away and replaced with the goodness of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

The new world order, or renewed Jerusalem, was also foretold by St John in the book of Revelation.

John goes on to describe a glorious temple city (the new Jerusalem).

But his description of the new world with pearly gates and streets made of pure gold is not to be taken literally.

Because the new temple city will be so wonderful that words today could not possibly describe it.

For example, if you can imagine trying to explain to an indigenous person of the Amazon jungle, who has never experienced the modern world, how an iphone could be of benefit to them.

It would be impossible to describe to that person how two people at different ends of the country could speak to each other through a tiny tin box;

or, how that small box would need to be regularly charged with a thing called … electricity.

So too the new Jerusalem is impossible to describe in physical terms today.

But St John illustrated it as the most amazing thing he was able to imagine then. 

What does this mean for us today?

The disciples wanted to know when the end of time would come, but still no one knows when that will be. 

Not even the sandwich board man on Regents Street, who is no doubt long since gone and resting within the heavenly realms.

But despite his rather odd evangelising method, he totally understood that Jesus was foretelling an end to the way the world operates today.

The sandwich board man accepted that Jesus was speaking of a new order in a renewed world, in which He would reign with God and the Holy Spirit.

But still today, we do not really know what that means.

Our modern-day minds are just not capable of comprehending the unadulterated beauty of the long-planned new and holy temple;

any more than the person in the Amazon jungle could comprehend how iphones could be of use to them today.

Using our Imagination

But we can allow our imagination to explore how it might feel to live without the pain of condemnation, fear, and death that both the prophet Isaiah and St John spoke of.

We can perhaps also imagine how it would be to live feeling truly alive, totally accepted in our unique personality, and completely fulfilled in our day-to-day life.

We can imagine contentment and peace in a world at peace with itself.

And as we live with faith and hope in Jesus to be able to become all God made us for; we begin to experience less stress and more peace and contentment as we hand all that binds us over to him.

And although this is probably impossible for most to imagine, we can live in the hope we have through Christ’s death and resurrection.

Because He has already started the creation of the new world, with the temple of his body that rose from death, and of which we are now living members.

And each one of us is called to help build the new Jerusalem; and to remain faithful despite trials and tribulations.

Because at the end of time, faithful Christians will be assembled alongside one another, becoming the living stones of the ultimate and most glorious, reformed temple, led by Jesus.

And although I have no doubt it will be a very beautiful place to look at, as all God’s creation we see today is glorious.

I rather suspect it will be more about how we feel within that new world.

How the faithful can finally experience – the precious peace that passes all understanding.