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Mark

13:24-37

 

"But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

 

"From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

 

"But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake- for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the cock crows, or in the morning- lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake." (ESV)

 

 

Jesus' Ignorance

Monday after the Epiphany

7 January 2013

Upon reading the statement of Jesus that He does not know the day or hour of the end of the world and His attendant return to judge the living and the dead, many people conclude from His apparent ignorance that he cannot be God. After all, God must know all things. Jesus Himself said: "But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come" (Mk 13:32-33). Jesus' unwillingness to divulge this information to the disciples has been a gold mine for unscrupulous authors willing to claim knowledge of which Jesus is ignorant. How many people have claimed to have divined that day and hour? Of course, recently many people presumed that the Mayan calendar's expiry was a harbinger of world's end. In the 1970s the so-called Jehovah's Witnesses predicted a day and hour when Jehovah was to return. Needless to say this failed to pan out; and only then did the claim arise that it was a secret return, "He came back. You just didn't notice." Uh-huh. It is quite a feat to know what Jesus declines to know and refuses to tell His own Spirit-anointed spokesmen. The nonsense of end-of-the-world predictions makes it even more difficult to understand and explain Jesus' apparent ignorance in Mark 13.

 

Jesus' "ignorance" can be properly understood in several different ways. First, according to His human nature, Jesus, like us, would have had no knowledge of the hidden mysteries of that day and hour. Jesus did not fully use his divine power of omniscience keeping it in decorous and humble control in service to His mission to save us poor sinners. He did not lust to look into those things closed to us humans, even though He had access by right of His full divinity to know what we must not. His omniscience was quiescent, kept within the bounds set by our need. So it is that His indestructible life is offered unto death. He does not put into action His immortality upon the cross but truly dies in the mystery of the cross. So Jesus out of love for us does not know what He knows.

 

Second, the Father has intentionally hidden this from us, not only to keep us ignorant like a blind man is ignorant of the color of the sunset, but also that we should not concern ourselves about this time or fret unnecessarily about this last epiphany of our Lord when He comes in fearsome judgment. We are to be prepared every day through watchful faith. We are not to dabble in empty speculation about the precise date of "that day." So Jesus, not only refuses to look into this knowledge in His earthly ministry, but upon His resurrection declines to inform the disciples about His knowledge as He in His resurrected glory is now exercising His divine power and authority. The disciples, upon His resurrection see greater glimpses of His refulgent glory now shining forth which leads them now to ask about the days and seasons. It is then that He refuses to tell them what they need not know. He however, does not now indicate that He is unaware of the Father's plan, for He knows it full well, but just declines to tell them. And that should be enough for us.

 

Hilary of Poitiers

 

"The Son is ignorant, then, of nothing which the Father knows, nor does it follow because the Father alone knows, that the Son does not know (Mk 13:32). Father and Son abide in unity of nature, and the ignorance of the Son belongs to the divine plan of silence seeing that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. To this the Lord Himself testified, when He answered the question of the Apostles concerning the times, 'It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority' (Acts 1:7). The knowledge is denied them, and not only that, but the anxiety to learn is forbidden, because it is not theirs to know these times. Yet now after He is risen, they ask again, though their question on the former occasion had been met with the reply, that not even the Son knew. They cannot possibly have understood literally that the Son did not know, for they ask Him again as though He did know. They perceived in the mystery of His ignorance a divine plan of silence, and now, after His resurrection, they renew the question, thinking that the time has come to speak. And the Son no longer denies that He knows, but tells them that it is not for them to know, because the Father has set it within His own authority.

 

"If then, the Apostles attributed it to the divine plan, and not to weakness, that the Son did not know the day, shall we say that the Son knew not the day for the simple reason that He was not God? Remember, God the Father set the day within His authority, that it might not come to the knowledge of man, and the Son, when asked before, replied that He did not know, but after the resurrection, no longer denying His knowledge, He replies that it is not theirs to know, for the Father has set the times not in His own knowledge, but in His own authority. The day and the moment are included in the word 'times.' Can it be, then, that He, who was to restore Israel to its kingdom, did not Himself know the day and the moment of that restoration? He instructs us to see an evidence of His birth in this exclusive prerogative of the Father, yet He does not deny that He knows: and while He proclaims that the possession of this knowledge is withheld from us, He asserts that it belongs to the mystery of the Father's authority.

 

"We must not therefore think, because He said He did not know the day and the moment, that the Son did not know. As man He wept, and slept, and sorrowed, but God is incapable of tears, or fear, or sleep. According to the weakness of His flesh He shed tears, slept, hungered, thirsted, was weary, and feared, yet without impairing the reality of His Only-begotten nature; equally so must we refer to His human nature, the words that He knew not the day or the hour."

 

Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, 9.75  

 

Prayer

Lord Christ, You have told us that no man knows the day or hour of the coming of the Son of Man. Keep us from speculating about such secrets. Let us look into the mystery of Your love for us and in that, seeing of Your grace and mercy, prepare us every day to meet You with joy and high expectation at the final epiphany. Amen.

 

In thanksgiving to God for the many blessings that Memorial Lutheran Church and School has experienced this school year and asking God for a greater abundance of such gifts in this new year

 

For Pastor Bernie Schey, that he would regain his strength after surgery

 

For Stanley Ruehs, who was bereaved of his mother, that he would confess Christ and the power of His life in the midst of grief

Art: CORREGGIO Nativity Holy Night (1528-30)

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