In my previous post I had meant only to address certain questions about Jesus’ view of the “end” but thought it might be more illuminating to set Jesus’ apocalyptic teaching in Mark 13 in the context of the events of the last week in Jerusalem. There is only one story here, after all—not multiple disconnected stories about the temple, the atonement, the resurrection, and the second coming. So how does it all hang together?

I started out meaning to reply to a few questions sent to me about Mark 13: Isn’t it the case that Mark places the “final apocalypse” immediately after the destruction of the temple? Doesn’t this point to a failure of prophecy? Didn’t Jesus say that he would return within a generation? I thought it might be helpful to address these “apocalyptic” questions in the setting of the narrative in Mark beginning with the entry into Jerusalem. Just reading difficult texts in context can solve a lot of problems.

Here we go again.

In a response to my recent piece on James Tabor’s “failed failed apocalypse of the New Testament” argument, Edward Babinski, one of a number of vociferous ex-fundamentalist critics of conservative orthodoxies, has outlined an obscure but interesting argument regarding Jesus’ belief in an imminent cosmic judgment, based on the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch (1 En. 1-36). I offered a brief response, but on further reflection, I think that any analogy between the Book of the Watchers and the apocalyptic outlook of the New Testament points in quite a different direction. I will suggest that Jesus actually comes off the better for it.

My recently developed narrative missiological model has three main parts to it. During periods of stasis the people of God is 1) new creation and 2) royal priesthood. During periods of crisis those functions tend to be reduced, and 3) a prophetic identity comes to the fore.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the church in the West is facing an existential crisis. Most of the remedial effort has gone into doing things differently—trying new approaches, developing ways of operating that restore confidence, find favour, get attention, etc. Much good theological thought is birthed in the renewal of practice, but it seems to me that the crisis calls for a different type of theological response—to step back and see the big picture.

The standard simplified evangelical understanding of New Testament eschatology is that Jesus will “come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,” the world will be brought to an end, all evil and death will be destroyed, and there will be a new heaven and new earth, “his kingdom will have no end,” etc.; and we continue to affirm that hope, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, in our creeds.

Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22:1-14, like the two parables preceding it, is directed against the chief priests and elders of the people who questioned his authority to pronounce judgment on the temple (Matt. 21:23-27). The leaders of Israel are those who refuse to attend the marriage celebration for the king’s son, and in his anger the king “sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city,” which is an unnerving image to evoke today against the backdrop of the massive Russian advance on Kyiv (Matt. 22:7).