Commentary on Mark 13:24-37

In the book of Daniel, the first six chapters are in the genre of court tales—short, episodic stories about the precarious adventures of Daniel and his companions as they navigate life in exile. Beginning in chapter 7, however, the book shifts to the genre of apocalypse. The text employs highly symbolic language presented in cyclical patterns to convey the message that God is on the cusp of transforming the world in a radical way.

The coded language of ancient Jewish apocalypse interacts with its own present context (whenever the text is written) to affirm that God is on God’s way to deliver the oppressed and deal in a full and final way with the ills of the world. This coded language is less about predicting the minutia of the future in highly specific ways and more about using symbolism to speak to the current (oppressive, worrisome, et cetera) situation, expressing the conviction that God will make all things right.

The latter half of Daniel was written during the 100s BCE, in the midst of the struggles the Jewish people were having with their Seleucid overlords (one of the subkingdoms that formed in the wake of Alexander the Great’s creation of a Hellenistic empire). A portion of the Jewish people experienced the Seleucid approach to rule, which included an aggressive program of Hellenization, as a serious threat to their religious identity. Not everyone agreed on how to respond to this threat, but the text of Daniel represents one strategy: Stay faithful and wait for God to come fix it all.

As part of such a strategy, Daniel 7 envisions a certain figure “like a human being”—or, literally, like a “son of humanity”—“coming with the clouds of heaven” (verse 13). Arriving in the presence of the “Ancient One,” this figure is given everlasting power and authority over the whole world (verse 14).

In Mark 13:24–26, Jesus draws upon Daniel 7 to assert that this powerful agent of God will come to liberate God’s people. They will be gathered up, not to be whisked away from the world, but to be rescued from their strife. Adela Yarbro Collins explains that the language here “alludes to the motif of the gathering of all the exiles of Israel from the nations.”¹

Jesus does not directly state here that he is the Son of Humanity of whom he speaks, but the inference is very defensible. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus has used the term Son of Humanity as a circumlocution for himself, a way of referencing himself in the third person.

Notably, as Jesus describes the plight of the Son of Humanity elsewhere in Mark, he makes it clear that the Son of Humanity is going to suffer before coming in power (8:31–38; 9:9–13; 9:30–32; 10:32–34). This kind of suffering would not have been what people were expecting from such a figure. But for Jesus, his devotion to the kingdom of God at all costs means that he will give up everything to be faithful to it.² Familiar as we are with Jesus’s life story, we know he follows this through to his end.

At the same time, we know that his end is not really the end at all, and even Jesus’s resurrection is only a beginning of sorts. The image Jesus paints of the Son of Humanity coming in future glory offers a glimpse into his full vindication.

This hopeful image not only says something about the power and identity of Jesus but also features Jesus as an exemplar for his followers. Mark 13 anticipates a time when Jesus’s followers will undergo great suffering. Wars, false messiahs, natural disasters, followers being handed over to hostile governments—trouble is coming.

In fact, the larger narrative progression of Mark sets up such a truth: First, John preaches, is arrested, then is killed; Jesus, too, preaches, is arrested, then is killed; finally, Jesus’s disciples are called to preach and are warned of the suffering that will inevitably come.³

Just as trouble is coming, so too is God’s victor coming to deliver God’s people. It may be that no one knows when, but there is no if.

An interpretive challenge of this passage is to take seriously its message that followers of God will experience suffering, that God is at work to end suffering and oppression, and that God can and will make all things right—but without falling into a victim mentality or an idling passivity.

First, we need to take a sober approach to what is and is not suffering for the faith. Yes, faithfulness to God costs us something, and there are times when Christians are truly persecuted because of their commitment to the faith. This makes it even more important to be able to recognize what isn’t persecution.

Existing in a society where people with different convictions about ways of being in the world are allowed to express those convictions is not, in itself, inherently persecution. When in the United States, whether de facto or de jure, Christians (all or some, since not all Christians share all perspectives in common) are not afforded pride of place, this is not persecution.

Second, the conviction that God is going to make all things right is not a mandate to do nothing to address injustice. It should not be used simply for platitudes in the face of suffering. Here we must remember: The truth that faithfulness to God will entail suffering does not mean that God wills our suffering. Instead, God wills our faithfulness.⁴ We may not always understand why suffering occurs, nor may we always be able to fully alleviate it, but neither should we believe that any sort of suffering is God’s will. We must ask where we can take part in the manifestation of God’s kingdom by being agents of justice and healing in the world.

Notes

1. Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Fortress, 2007), 615.
2. For a great resource that differentiates between suffering as Jesus’s call and suffering as a consequence of Jesus’s call, I recommend Raquel A. St. Clair, Call and Consequences: A Womanist Reading of Mark (Fortress, 2008).
3. See R. Alan Culpepper, “Mark 6:17–29 in Its Narrative Context: Kingdoms in Conflict,” in Mark as Story: Retrospect and Prospect, ed. Christopher W. Skinner and Kelly R. Iverson (SBL, 2011), 145–163, here 160.
4. Here again I recommend St Clair, Call and Consequences.