Conversation Points for Mark 13:24-37

Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?

Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• As we switch from Matthew to Mark, let’s first orient ourselves into the Markan Gospel. Written around the time of the Jewish War (66-70 CE), Mark is believed to be the first of the Gospels to be written. Matthew and Luke both pull heavily from Mark in setting the action and order of the narrative. Mark’s Gospel is characterized by a sense of urgency. “Immediately” is a key word in the narrative. Another uniquely Markan trait is the “messianic secret.” Jesus often urged his disciples and others to “tell no one” about who he was or what he was doing.
• Mark 13 especially seems to be addressing the time in which it was written, the unrest and uncertainty of the Jewish War. David Hellholm calls this “crisis literature,” written to address a particular crisis moment in which the righteousness of God is called into question. The destruction of the Temple was just such a moment. The Temple was not only the religious, but also the social and political center of Jewish life. Its destruction called into question whether God was, or could be, still present with the people of Israel. Mark 13 sought to assure its listeners that even though in this moment of the destruction of the Temple it felt as if “the sun [was] darkened, and the moon [would] not give its light, and the stars [were] falling from heaven, and the powers of the heaven [were] shaken” (Mark 13:24-25), God was still with them, and “the Son of Man [would still be] coming in clouds with great power and glory” (Mark 13:26).
• The images in v. 24-27 pull from a variety of common prophetic sayings (cf. Isaiah 13:10; 34:4; Ezekiel 32:7-8; Joel 2:10-11; 3:4, 15). The coming of the Son of Man in v. 26 and the gathering of all the elect in v. 27 encourage the followers of Jesus not to concern themselves with what will happen to their enemies. No explicit judgment occurs in Mark’s apocalyptic account. Instead they are to focus on their own participation and the promise that no one will be left out when the Son of Man comes.

Works Sourced:
Jacobsen, David Schnasa. “Commentary on Mark 13:24-37.” Working Preacher. . Accessed: 27 November 2017.
Perkins, Pheme. “The Gospel of Mark.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Powell, Mark Allan. Fortress Introduction to the Gospels. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998.