​​Pentecost 26B/Proper 28 (Mark 13:1-8)

“Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down,” says Jesus. What a downer! Why can’t he just appreciate the magnificence of the temple, the very heart of identity, worship, and religious life?

But no, he can’t. Jesus knows his time is limited. His message of God’s inner presence carries a profound sense of urgency and immediacy. This isn’t a message that people can casually accept or reject. He dedicates his entire life to this cause, even risking death. With this priority in mind, his seemingly nihilistic comments about the temple’s destruction aren’t hopeless.

If we interpret his remarks on the vanity of great buildings outside the context of his gospel, it leaves his followers and us with nothing to look forward to in life. Why care about anything when everything and everyone will eventually be gone? While it’s true that nothing lasts forever and change is inevitable, the danger of nihilism is that it discourages people from striving forward and flourishing. It’s one thing to acknowledge and accept that all things change, but it’s another to steadfastly seek the presence of God within. This presence, the focal point of Jesus’ good news, serves as the center of our ontological gravity. Though everything, including our lives, may fade away, we hold fast to the one thing that endures—the union of our breath with the Breath of God within.

So, we confess with confidence and conviction, because we embody it through our breath, that the presence of God within is our refuge. It’s a sanctified space deep within the mind. By dwelling in this eternal sanctuary, we can appreciate the beauty hidden in the perishability, impermanence, and incompleteness of all living things. We see the fleeting beauty of cherry blossoms not just because they are pretty, but because we are grounded in what is eternal—the presence of God within.

This deep, loving gaze upon the beauty of all things perishable, and therefore perfectly imperfect, transforms our attitude toward ourselves, others, and life itself. We do not become easily disheartened as great buildings fall, as nations rise against nations, and kingdoms against kingdoms, at the beginning of the birth pangs. We become hope embodied in a world of death. 

The temple bell stops-
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers. 

- Basho (1644-94)

Can you be that sound?