DYNAMIS!
A publication of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral
Wichita, KS
St. Mark
13:14-23
(2/19)
Gospel for Tuesday of the Week of the Prodigal Son
Fleeing:
St. Mark 13:14-23, especially vs. 14: “Let
those who are in Judea flee to the
mountains.” In the face of threatening circumstances, wisdom often dictates
rapid departure, or in plain terms, fleeing. In today’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus
says frankly that life does occasionally suggest urgent reasons for taking
flight, and He gives an example of an appropriate time to withdraw. Furthermore, He counsels that, when
circumstances dictate a quick retreat, we should not just leave, but really
flee - get away as fast as possible.
Of greatest importance, the Lord suggests the basic reason for choosing
to flee.
What constitutes a genuinely threatening circumstance according to what
our Lord teaches in this passage?
Some background is helpful: first, He provide this counsel about fleeing
during the final days before His arrest, while He was teaching in and around
the Temple
precincts (Mk. 12:35,41;13:1,3). Also, His mention of
the “abomination of desolation” (Mk. 13:14) made reference to prior
events well-known to His first-century listeners, events with allusions
involving the Temple. Subsequent events involving the Temple that occurred
after the Lord’s Crucifixion and Resurrection add even greater weight to
His counsel.
The Lord Jesus warned His first disciples that they would “see the
‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the Prophet,
standing where it ought not” (vs. 14). In the sixth century BC, the Prophet
Daniel had prophesied that a time would come when “the daily sacrifice is
taken away, and the abomination of desolation is set up” (Dan.
12:11). Centuries later, during the
time of the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes
(175-169 BC) , a desecration of that sort occurred
when the king “...set up the abomination of desolation upon the
altar...” (1 Macc. 1:54) in
the Temple as part of a total effort to
eradicate every trace of Judaism in Judea.
Since those acts of profanation were past history, our Lord was warning
of a future act of sacrilege, one so appalling that the Temple would be abandoned by God. At the beginning of the revolt against
the Romans in 66 AD, Jewish forces led by the Zealots at first were successful
against the Twelfth Legion of Rome.
Still, many knew that the Romans would return in force.
The Zealots, in the flush of victory, took over the Temple
and permitted outlaws to carry out all sorts of terrible crimes within the Temple, including murder
and dressing up in mockery of the High Priest. A former High Priest said at that time:
“It would have been far better for me to have died before I had seen the
house of God laden with such abominations.” Most Jewish members of the Church saw
these events as the signs of which the Lord had warned and they fled to Pella across the Jordan River. The Lord’s prophecies prepared
them to flee. There clearly are
times when withdrawal is indicated, and flight by God’s People is fully
warranted.
When it is clear that flight is appropriate, one should not hesitate,
but do as the Lord urges (Mk. 13:15,16). By God’s mercy, flight will not be
necessary for nursing mothers nor during harsh weather (vss.
17,18).
The early Christians who heeded the Lord’s prophecy during the
Jewish wars fled Jerusalem
without grave difficulties. As Eusebios says in his Ecclesiastical History: “those
who believed in Christ migrated from Jerusalem. Once the holy men had completely left
the Jews and all Judea, the justice of God at
last overtook them [the Jews], since they had committed such transgressions
against Christ and His Apostles.”
One should flee to hold fast to Christ and to reject “false christs and false prophets” (vs. 22), and many
Christians have rightly fled when social darkness threatened the Faith. Consider also Lot
and his family!
O Thou Light of those lying in darkness, O Christ our Savior, enlighten us with Thy radiance that we may know and serve
none other gods beside Thee.
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