Mk 13:24-32
The Gospel passage comes from Mark’s apocalyptic chapter. Apocalyptic literature usually comes into existence during a period of cultural collapse. It is characterized by dualism; the good God is removed from the evil world, small forces of good battle huge forces of evil.
Apocalyptic writing divides time between the present age and the age to come, when God will bring an end to the battle and a final solution. Those who live during the present age are exhorted by the author to remain faithful. Mark employs this type of literature to discuss the Second Coming of Jesus and to exhort the members of his community to remain faithful while they wait for this great event to take place.
Mark describes the Second Coming of Jesus by borrowing Old Testament apocalyptic images from Ezekiel (32:7), Joel (2:10), and Isaiah (13:10): the sun being darkened, the moon not giving light, the stars falling from the sky, the powers in the heavens being shaken, and the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
From Mark’s perspective, Jesus will come as the divine judge. “Coming in the clouds” indicates his divinity (cf Ex 34:5, Lv 16:2, and Nm 11:25). Jesus looks “like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven,” who “when he reached the Ancient One and was presented before him… received dominion, glory and kingship” (Dn 7:13-14). Thus, the Old Testament apocalyptic images are applied to Jesus by Mark.
When will this final intervention into and triumph of God in history take place? Mark believes in an imminent Second Coming, but he does not speculate when it will take place: no one but the Father knows the day or hour (cf v 32).
All his readers can do is to take their cue from the fig tree whose tender branches and sprouting leaves announce the coming of summer. In Israelite culture the presence of the fig tree represents blessing, while its absence represents curse.
In this “lesson,” Jesus erases all time. The story goes from spring (sprouting leaves) immediately to summer. What happens takes place in the present. In other words, for Mark, the end is near. The present is the time of blessing for those who see these things happening.
He, like Jesus, does not know when this will happen. But he knows that he must warn his readers. “Be watchful! Be alert!” he says. “You do not know when the time will come” (13:33). The final triumph of good is about to take place in the present.