(Mark 13. 1-8)

Intro

He has not said anything – he still has not – I don’t think he is going to

Historical context

The Gospel of Mark was not actually written down on papyrus until AD60. Knowledge was passed along by word of mouth (the oral tradition) and it was only as the first generation of believers began to die out that it was thought necessary to keep a written record. Believers were being persecuted (even by family members) and arrested (vv. 9-13). As many of the original disciples of Jesus were being martyred, the loss of these eye-witness "authorities" created the need for another, reliable "authority," such as a written account.

• The story Josephus tells of the sixties is one of famine, social unrest, institutional deterioration, bitter internal conflicts, class warfare, banditry, insurrections, intrigues, betrayals, bloodshed, and the scattering of Judeans throughout Palestine.... During the years of siege (66-70 C.E.), stories spread of popular messiahs, prophets crying out woes on the city and temple, mock trials, and crowds creating tumults at the times of pilgrimage. There were wars and rumours of wars for the better part of ten years and Josephus reports portents, including a brilliant daylight in the middle of the night

• Only a generation later, the Roman army advanced against the city. The destruction Jesus prophesies comes to fruition in AD 70, when Romans under Titus completely destroy Jerusalem, and even pry apart the temple stones to retrieve the gold leaf that had melted from the roof while the temple burned. Only a small part of the support wall around the temple was left of the once beautiful temple. Today it’s known as the Wailing Wall.

Apocalypse

This warning of doom and destruction is a strand of Christian writing known as apocalypse. Apocalypse in Christian terms is the idea of the next life breaking in on this life.  Apocalypse is the Revelation of the end times (granted to St John).  Eschatology is the doctrine formed round the idea of end times.  The Bible is very clear that we don't know when this is going to happen.  Paul rebuked the Thessalonians because they were sitting around waiting for the second coming to happen.  Paul challenged them not to be idle and to work for their living (2 Thess 3:6).

Christians often - perhaps more often than not - think of death as the gateway directly into their ultimate destiny, 'eternal' life. 'Mors Janua Vitae', 'Death the Gateway to Life', is inscribed on crematorium gateways. But the New Testament demands that we take seriously a two-stage process - first to 'sleeping' or 'being with Christ', and only after that to resurrection, to the remaking of ourselves, at 'the End'. It is Christ Jesus alone who has already been 'raised' from death into bodily life, but bodily life of some mysterious new kind. To think of death as the gateway immediately to our ultimate fulfilment is nearer to the essentially 'pagan' dualism, which sees an individual person as a self entrapped in a body, so that at death it is released from the body, like a bird from a cage, and simply goes on living. By contrast, the Jewish-Christian doctrine of the remaking after death of the whole person goes with belief in a Creator, for whom re-making, re-creating, is the climax of the pattern of salvation. When the Old Testament writers talked about their hope in God, they spoke about the resurrection of the body:

I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God (Job 19:25 – 27)

Application

Jesus warns us, we shouldn’t get hung up on exactly when and how these things will happen.  We can leave that up to God.  The reason these prophecies matter here and now is that they challenge our priorities here and now. The purpose of apocalyptic literature is not to foretell the future, but to encourage faithfulness and patience in the present time (To be true to what the Bible is saying we should only ever say – ‘see you next week, God willing!).

The false Messiahs are well known to us (eg the lure of a commercial Christmas)

• There were those coming in Jesus' name, claiming to be Jesus and leading believers astray (vv. 6, 21-22)
• The false messiahs claim to be Jesus, but "lead people astray" (planaomai). The literal meaning of this word is "to wander off the path" = "to go astray," "to be wrong." For someone to "wander off the path," they need to be on a path. These verses suggest that threats to discipleship are not only external dangers, as the next verses indicate, but also from those that are inside the household of faith -- but who have distorted it.

We are people of hope
Ignore the second coming and then we shut out God and put too much pressure on the here and now. A common "wrong" view in our day is an understanding that there is no end. Rather than living our lives today guided by the future Jesus has promised, we are guided by today or the past, e.g., "This is the way we've always done it." (If I am running a marathon, it is the fact that it will soon finish that energises me). We may also experience that our lives are laid in ruins. Fear, depression, illness, divorce, war or disasters, we don’t know what we might face. There might be occasions in our lives when our dreams of a good life crash. But the faithfulness of the Lord isn’t over even if our lives look like a ruin

Conclusion

The Challenge to Be Ready, serving and watchful while waiting for Jesus' return - God didn't give us prophecy to encourage speculation or to satisfy curiosity. He gave us prophecy to alert us to vigilant Christian living and devoted service to Christ.