Mark 13:28-31
When the Branch Turns Green
28Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its branches become tender and sprout leaves, you know that summer is near.
29So also, when you see these things happening, know that He is near, right at the door.
30Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened.
31Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.
Berean Standard Bible
After the sun going dark and the stars falling and the angels sent out to the ends of the earth, he tells them to go and study a tree. He calls it a lesson, and what it teaches is how to tell which season you are standing in.
Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its branches become tender and sprout leaves, you know that summer is near.
There is no mystery in that. It is the kind of observation anybody in that country could make, and children could make it. A fig tree drops everything in winter and stands there looking dead for months, so when the branch softens and the green comes back, everybody knows which season is arriving. He has been talking about the powers of the heavens being shaken, and now he points at a hedge. Then he says the same of the things he has been describing: when they see them happening, they will know that he is near, right at the door. They are not being asked to calculate. They are being asked to pay attention.
Then verse 30, which is one of the genuinely difficult sentences in the New Testament, and we are not going to walk past it.
Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened.
It is hard, and it deserves to be treated as hard. People who love this book and believe every word of it have understood that sentence in several ways for a very long time. Some take these things to mean the fall of Jerusalem, which did happen within about forty years. Some read generation as the people of Israel, or as the kind of people he has been describing, rather than that particular set of lifetimes. Some read it as a pattern that repeats. The text does not settle the question, and anybody who tells you it is obvious is telling you about himself rather than about the verse. What we can do is take seriously the sentence he set down beside it.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.
He is talking about the sky and the ground going, and saying that what he has said will outlast the pair of them. So the paragraph holds two things at the same time: a sentence we cannot fully untangle, and an assurance that his words do not fail. Mark leaves both of them standing, which is uncomfortable and also honest.
How We Know
Jesus uses a fig tree here, and he cursed one earlier. In 11:12-14 he finds a tree in leaf with no fruit, and in 11:20-21 Peter points out that it has withered from the roots.
Now the same tree is a lesson about reading the season: when its branches turn tender and put out leaves, summer is near.
Using the same plant twice, once as a judgment and once as a way of telling the time, is consistent with a writer conscious of what he has already put on the page. Mark never connects the two, and verse 30 is left standing without explanation.
Questions
1 What tells you at your house that one season is turning into another? Jesus picks a fig tree.
AnswerA fig tree looks dead all winter, and then the branch softens and the leaves come, so everybody knows summer is on the way. It takes no skill to read. After talking about the sky going dark, he points at a hedge.
2 What is he asking them to do about it?
AnswerPay attention rather than calculate. When they see these things happening, they are to know that he is near, right at the door. They asked him for a date and he keeps handing them instructions instead.
3 This generation will not pass away until all these things have happened. What are the ways people have understood that?
AnswerSome take these things as the fall of Jerusalem, which happened about forty years later. Some read generation as the people of Israel, or as a kind of person rather than a set of lifetimes. Some read it as a repeating pattern. The text does not settle it.
4 What does Jesus say right after the difficult verse, and what does that do for us?
AnswerThat heaven and earth will pass away but his words will not. He sets an enormous claim right beside a sentence we cannot fully untangle, and Mark leaves both of them standing there together.
What This Means for Us
There is a verse here we cannot fully explain, and the Bible printed it anyway. A table with children at it is a good place to hear that, because they will meet harder things eventually, and what they need to know now is that being puzzled is allowed.
None of which means that nothing is clear. Feed the hungry, do not despise children, take up your cross. Most of this book is not difficult, and the obscure parts are the exception.
So when somebody here hits a sentence they cannot understand, we will not paper over it. We can name it as hard, say how people have read it, and hold on to the fact that his words outlast the sky either way.
Prayer
Father, some of what you have said is beyond us, and we are not going to pretend it is not. Thank you that you did not remove the hard parts to make it easier. Give us the honesty to say we do not know, and the trust to hold on to what we do. Amen.