Mark 13:24-37

KNOWING THE TIME

As Jesus concludes his sermon to His disciples about “what will be the sign of His coming and of the end of the age” (Mt 24:3.Mk 13:4), He gets into His actual coming, the moment when He appears in “great power and glory.” He speaks about things happening to the sun, moon, and stars that we’ve never seen or heard of. But it wasn’t the first time this was spoken. 

Through the prophet Isaiah – 700 years previously – God said: “Behold, the day of the Lordcomes … The stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. I will shake the heavens …” (13:9-10.13). God had also said through the prophet Joel: “I will show wonders in the heaven and in the earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord” (2: 30-31).

What is the purpose of all this? To frighten us? If you know Jesus – as we do – you know His purpose is not to frighten you but to give you hope, and it’s a sure and certain hope of everlasting life. We hear the end of His sermon:

St. Mark 13:24-37. “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars of heaven will fall, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send His angels, and gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of earth to the farthest part of heaven. Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender, and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you see these things happening, know that it is near—at the doors! Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch.

 

Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning— lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”

Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. Lord, only You know the day and hour in which You will return to judge the living and the dead: Grant us grace to watch and pray continually, so we are ready, expecting Your return with joy, made ready by Your Spirit in Your Word. Amen!

Dear fellow redeemed in Christ, whose grace makes us unafraid when He comes: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

We might feel a little uncomfortable when Jesus says: “You do not know when the time is … you do not know when the master of the house is coming.” This all began when the disciples asked Jesus, “When will these things be?” This is Jesus’ answer? He doesn’t answer “when.” 

He only says what they already knew: “You do not know.” Even more – still keeping us uncomfortable – He says, “Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Now this makes us uncomfortable, if not even Jesus knows. Isn’t Jesus omniscient, all-knowing? If He knows all, surely knowing the Last Day is part of it! As God He is all-knowing. But when He said this, Jesus was in the days of His suffering as a Man, when He chose not to fully use His glory as God. He didn’t do anything just because He could. He came to redeem us. Knowing the hour for the end of the world wasn’t part of that. He was content to be “not knowing” this, until His redeeming work was finished.

It’s hard for us to be content with “not knowing.” We’re worried and troubled about many things, like little children who just want to know!

But there’s a good reason why God doesn’t let us know the time of Jesus’ coming, why it’ll be “suddenly,” as Jesus says here. It’s because of our sinful nature. By nature we’re lazy. By nature we procrastinate. 

Why repent of my sins today, if I know for sure that Jesus isn’t coming for quite some time? Why read the Bible today, if I know I’ve got tomorrow? Why fight so hard at overcoming temptations today, if I know I have a long time to work on it? Why not go to bed angry at someone, if I know that I have plenty of time to get around to forgiving or reconciling with them? Why tell others about a Savior, and how they need to repent of their sins and believe in Him, if we know for sure that Jesus isn’t coming back anytime soon?

The more I put off repenting of my sins, the more they bury me. The more I put off reading the Bible, the less familiar my Savior is to me and the more strange and remote God seems. The less I fight to overcome temptations, the more I give in and get used to them, the less I even recognize them as sins. The more I delay reconciling with or forgiving someone, the harder it is to ever do it. The more I ignore the work of the Gospel, the more attention I give to worldly work and material things, the weaker the Gospel seems. 

This is why the Lord doesn’t let us know when our lives will end either. If we keep putting things off, suddenly we’ll stand before Him unready, now knowing the seriousness of our sins, and we can only be afraid and full of sadness, regrets and terror, all out of time to do anything more about it.

So as Jesus says, “You do not know the time,” He’s actually helping us. This “not knowing,” this sense of urgency, is good. 

And when Jesus says it’s “not knowing the time,” that’s even better. Jesus said this word, “the time,” once before in Mark’s gospel: way back in chapter 1, in fact the first words out of Jesus’ mouth recorded by St. Mark: “Jesus came preaching … saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.’ ”

If I didn’t tell you that was from Mark chapter 1, before Jesus’ baptism and temptation, you might think it’s from this chapter, where He speaks about the Last Day: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent …” It sounds like time running out. It sounds like He’s giving you a Last Chance.

But what was Jesus saying? The whole verse from Mark 1 says, “Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.’ ”

Here Jesus is preaching the Gospel to you. 

He is saying, “This is the opportune time. This is the good time. This is the time that gets filled up with the Gospel. This is the time in which I take all those sins of yours, I take them from you, and I’ve carried them with Me to the cross, buried them in My grave. This is the time in which all I speak to you is not about your tower of sins that you build, but only about how I make all that disappear and your sins all go away. And then you get to stand before Me, without any sins, and what do you think I’ll say then? ‘Come, you blessed one, inherit the kingdom I’ve prepared for you.’ 

“But do you know when that time will be? No. So fill up the time with Me and all I give you, fill the time with telling the truth about yourself and your sins, and I’ll fill you with the truth I tell you about Myself and your forgiveness. Then My coming will be like the fig tree coming out of winter into perpetual summer sunshine. With Me everything is bright for you. The time belongs to Me! Share it with Me!”

This is how we can rest content in “not knowing.” If we don’t know when He’s coming back, we know what to do with the time we have: fill the time with Him, draw close to Him in repentance, let His Gospel fill us with faith.

This day may not end before the Lord returns, for “you do not know the time.” But you do know, as Jesus says in Mark 1:15, that “the time is fulfilled,” it’s a time in which you “repent and believe in the Gospel,” you meet Jesus in His Word and Sacraments, where He speaks His forgiving love into your ears. 

So any way you’ve misspent or wasted the time is totally erased, by God’s decree of grace. All the sins are gone; all He sees is (1) your faith in Him and (2) the time you spent doing for the least of these His brethren, out of love. 

This is how we do “know the time” better. We use this “not knowing the time” to know Christ better. We fill our ears with what He says – which cures us of all the wicked things we hear. Our mouths are filled up with Him too: instead of hurtful or discouraging words, cursings or complaints, our mouths are filled with His praise and with His honor “all the day,” what comes out of us is singing, rejoicing, encouraging and comfort – what He fills us with. 

This is how we “fill up the time.” It’s His time, we just share in it. When He comes again, and the Eternal Day dawns when time no longer will exist, we’ll stand before Him filled up with Him –confident, joyful, ready. Amen!