Readings for the 33rd Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11
Hebrews 10:11-14, 18
Mark 13:24-32
Jesus is on the “Mount of Olives opposite the temple area” talking about the end of the world (Mark 13:3).
That’s significant because according to prophecy it is from the Mount of Olives that the Lord will begin the last battle against Israel’s enemies (Zeccariah 14:14). Jesus – having just come from the temple, having foretold its destruction – is casting his conflict with the day’s religious and secular authorities in prophetic, cosmic and eschatological terms.
No mere peasant uprising, no mere religious squabble, Jesus’s struggle (and in short order his suffering and death) should be understood in grander terms. That is, what is about to happen in Jerusalem will involve no less than the covenantal promises made by God himself. It will also involve the final meaning of history.
There is a vision, you see, in the Book of Daniel of the arrival of one “like a son of man,” a mysterious figure who will stand before the “Ancient One” to receive “dominion, glory, and kingship.” The kingdom he will receive “shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:13-14).
We Christians believe this “Son of Man” to be Jesus, for Jesus himself seemed to say so. “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds and with great power and glory,” he says in this passage (Mark 13:26).
Jesus often spoke of himself in terms of the “Son of Man” (Matthew 17:22), and so it’s reasonable to believe here that Mark is knowingly identifying Jesus with the one like the son of man in Daniel. Jesus’s listeners and the original Jewish readers of Mark would have certainly picked up the allusion at least; they would have understood.
So, what is the claim being made? It’s that this Galilean preacher, scorned and soon to be scourged and crucified, is the one to whom God promised an eternal kingdom. Despite appearances to the contrary, Jesus is the one who will rule a kingdom without end – not the Romans or their petty clients.
The destiny of Jesus is the destiny of history. Temples, empires, kings and Caesars all will pass but not Jesus or his words. All kingdoms are going to become the kingdom of God and of his Christ; that’s what John heard at the blasting of the seventh trumpet (Revelation 11:15). That’s what Jesus and Mark are saying, that however it looks on the surface – the appearance that worldly power won out in the end – the truth is that Jesus is king, that he is victorious, that the world, the universe and history are his.
Which is a dangerous idea – especially if you misunderstand it. Read a certain way, this passage could fuel what Friedrich Nietzsche called ressentiment; that is, it could lead to hatred, the sort of hatred one finds among the marginalized or among those who perceive themselves to be marginalized.
Seeing Jesus play the underdog and to suffer and then to conquer, one could imagine oneself doing the same – yet often with a bit of hatred and revenge and a little violence added. It’s normal to brood about the wrongdoings we bear; it’s normal to dream of vindication. Reading this passage, we may think that it is a good and spiritual thing to do. But it isn’t.
And that’s because the vindication Jesus achieved was not vengeance; it wasn’t born of hatred or violence as we often so tragically imagine it. Rather, Jesus proved his “dominion, glory, and kingship” by means of the cross. Later in Mark when the high priest asks if Jesus is indeed the Messiah, he says what he said here on the Mount of Olives: “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven’” (Mark 14:62). Except here these words lead directly to Jesus’s condemnation and to the cross.
Jesus’s victory would only come at the resurrection, not before; there would be no conventional triumph, no victory as we usually understand it. The crown, you see, is made of thorns.
So, what does this mean for us? In short, this: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34).
Yes, indeed, Christ has conquered and will conquer; he will inherit the gifts of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the faithful will follow (Revelation 21:7). But not without first imitating the Lamb, not without seeking to wage war peacefully like he did. In this time of instability and division and hatred, this is a frightening message to hear. Surrounded by enemies real or even imagined, who wants to entertain non-resistance, love and suffering, or a cross? But what if that’s genuine Christianity? What if that is what Christ is calling you to do?
Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press) and other books.
