The End (Mark #45)

When I was in fourth grade, my teacher pulled my parents aside and told them I needed to see an eye doctor. My seat was in the back of the room, and apparently I had been squinting to make out the chalkboard. So we made the appointment, the eye doctor agreed with my teacher, and I walked out with my very first pair of prescription glasses.

What happened next genuinely startled me. Suddenly I could see the chalkboard — but I could also see the scoreboard at the football game. I could recognize a classmate across the playground. I discovered I had been missing out on a great deal of the beauty of the world without ever knowing it. I had no idea how fuzzy everything had become. Things that were blurry beyond recognition snapped into focus the moment those lenses went on.

The Ancient Jews Were Squinting Too

The ancient Jews studied the Hebrew Scriptures — what we call the Old Testament — and as they studied, they kept discovering that a Messiah was coming. But when they read those passages, everything was blurry.

You’ve heard the phrase “hindsight is 20/20.” Peering into the future is another matter entirely. They caught portions of it. They began to see that this Messiah would come from Bethlehem — but there was also a passage that seemed to say he’d be from Nazareth. There were passages showing a great conquering king, and other passages that painted a suffering servant. There were passages saying this Messiah would be divine, and others that seemed to indicate he’d be a man. It was confusing. They did the very best they could to assemble the picture, and it still wasn’t clear.

If you’re a Christian, you can look at those same messianic passages today and see them clearly — because you’re wearing the corrective lenses of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Suddenly you look and think: yes, Jesus was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth. Both were true. He was a conquering king through his resurrection from the dead and a suffering servant by going to the cross. He was both. He was divine — we see it in his miracles and his teaching — and he was fully human, which we see in his suffering, his hunger, his exhaustion. With those four Gospels on, the picture is crystal clear.

Why I’m Telling You This

I bring this up because our series in Mark brings us to chapter 13, and when most people read it, they see the end times — and much of it stays blurry. There are parts that simply don’t make sense to us. We’re a lot like those ancient Jews squinting toward the Messiah; we’re squinting toward the end of time.

Some people will tell you they have Mark 13 completely figured out. They’ll say it’s all about A.D. 70 and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Others say a portion is about the temple but most of it is about the end times. Still others say it has nothing to do with the temple at all — it’s entirely about the end. And they’re all convinced. These are very intelligent scholars with a high regard for Scripture, and each can build a genuinely compelling argument for their position. But the very fact that they all disagree with one another keeps confirming for me that the picture is blurry.

So I’m not going to pretend that when we’re finished, Mark 13 is going to fully make sense. I’m not going to be your corrective lenses. I hope portions of it come into better focus, but I want to be honest: after a week of study, parts of it are still blurry to me too.

What I do hope is that you walk away seeing one thing with total clarity — the same thing that has been standing out through the entire book of Mark. Chapter 13 is about Jesus. And I think that will both encourage you and challenge you, no matter where you are in your spiritual journey.

The Turning Point of Mark

What we’re about to read is known as the Olivet Discourse — the longest recorded speech of Jesus, delivered on the Mount of Olives. But before we read it, you need to understand that chapter 13 is the turning point of Mark’s Gospel.

In chapters 1 through 12, we’ve been watching the person of Jesus. We’ve seen his character. We’ve heard him teach. We’ve watched his miracles. Chapter 13 is where things go dark — the way a long book series gets progressively darker as it moves toward its climax. This is where Jesus begins to speak about genuinely frightening things, and it’s immediately after this discourse that the events leading to the cross begin to unfold. Mark is pivoting from the person and work of Jesus to his purpose: going to the cross.

Mark 13 opens with Jesus and the disciples coming out of the temple. One of the disciples says, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus replies that not one stone will be left upon another — every one of them will be thrown down. Then, sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew ask him privately when these things will be, and what the sign will be when they’re about to be accomplished.

Look at the Stones

Let’s slow down and figure out what’s happening here.

Last week we finished chapter 12 with Jesus at the temple watching people put their offerings into the collection boxes outside the court of the women. These were freewill offerings — different from a sacrifice or a grain offering — used to fund the functioning of the temple and to care for the poor. Think of it as benevolence giving. Wealthy people were putting in their gifts, and then a very poor widow walked in and gave two small coins worth next to nothing. Jesus praised her, because he knew that what she gave was everything she had. That moved him deeply, and I think it’s because within a few weeks Jesus himself would give everything he had. He would give his very life. The widow performed a profoundly Christ-like act, and Jesus drew attention to it.

Now they leave the temple, and as they’re walking out of the city, one of the disciples — we don’t know which one — blurts out: “Jesus, look at these buildings! Look at that stonework!”

Here’s something worth noticing. Jesus was a carpenter by trade before he became an itinerant rabbi. In his day, because there weren’t vast forests, a carpenter didn’t only work with wood — he also worked with stone. So perhaps this disciple, knowing Jesus had worked stone, was pointing it out the way my brother and I used to shout “Daddy, Daddy, look!” every time we passed an old car, because we’d figured out our dad liked classic cars. (My dad actually had taste and didn’t like every old car, but we didn’t know that. We just knew: Dad likes old cars, so look at that one.)

And the temple genuinely was impressive. Construction had begun before Jesus was born, and here he is at roughly thirty-three years old with the work still going on. It was so magnificent that archaeologists and historians have said it could have been considered the eighth wonder of the world. I picture this disciple having a country-boy moment — maybe he grew up in rural Galilee and now he’s in the big city, like an Iowa farm kid seeing New York for the first time. Or like a city kid seeing the mountains. He can’t help himself: “Jesus, look at all of this. Isn’t it impressive?”

Words More Startling Than We Realize

That’s when Jesus says those startling words: not one stone will be left on another.

I don’t think we appreciate how shocking that was, because we don’t have an equivalent to the temple. The temple was not merely the center of religious activity for a religion-based culture. It functioned something like the seat of government. The market operated just outside it, so it anchored the economy as well. And it served as an icon — the people poured enormous amounts of their identity into that building.

For those of us who are Americans, imagine combining the National Cathedral, the White House, the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial into a single structure at the center of our culture and our nation — and then hearing that it’s going to be leveled. Think of how deeply September 11th shook this country. That’s the emotional weight of what Jesus just said about the iconic center of their religion, their culture, and their world.

In verse 3, Jesus and the disciples make their way up the Mount of Olives, a hillside east of Jerusalem. From where Jesus sat, he would have looked out over the whole city and down onto the temple. Two sets of brothers — Peter and Andrew, James and John — see him gazing out with his own shocking words still reverberating in their minds, and they quietly come over and ask: Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?

Two Questions Disguised as One

Notice that the phrase “these things” appears twice. Matthew 24:3 helps define that second occurrence, where the disciples ask, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

The disciples think they’re asking one question. Jesus’s words were so deeply unsettling that they simply want to understand — but it’s all blurry, so they’re hoping he can be their corrective lenses. Here’s the thing: in their minds, the only conceivable way a building that impressive could be destroyed is if the world itself were ending. So without realizing it, they ask two questions: When will the temple be destroyed? and When will the world end?

And Jesus sets out to answer both.

The temple’s destruction came in A.D. 70. Jesus doesn’t give them a date, but we know the history. In A.D. 66, Israel decided it was tired of paying taxes to Rome. They were largely governing themselves anyway, they wanted autonomy, and in effect they declared independence. Rome, however, liked the revenue and intended to project its power. Rome was not going to let a province go rogue. War followed for four years, Rome won, and in A.D. 70 the temple was utterly destroyed. Most people think that’s what all of Mark 13 is about.

But the disciples also asked about his coming and about the end — and Jesus answers that too. That’s where the chapter gets messy and blurry.

A Week of Contradicting Experts

Normally when I work on a message, I read through the passage, sometimes read it again in another translation, and try to wrap my mind around what God wants to say to our church family through it. Then the questions come, and that’s when I start consulting commentaries.

This week I had a lot of questions.

I reached for one commentary that has been genuinely helpful to me — it illuminates the cultural background these texts were written into, what other religions and philosophers were saying, what was happening historically. It made a compelling case that most of Mark 13 concerns A.D. 70 and the destruction of the temple. That’s the position known as preterism. I read it and thought, there’s more to this argument than I originally assumed.

But I still had questions, so I picked up a second commentary — one that came highly recommended a couple of years ago and that I’d invested in and enjoyed. It made nearly the opposite case: much of this is about the end times. Now I was more confused.

Then I happened upon a scholar with a thirty-minute video on Mark 13:1–13. He made excellent arguments, and he landed with the first commentary: it’s all about the destruction of the temple. Maybe they’re right, I thought. So I consulted one more — a seminary professor’s extensive notes on the passage — and he argued that most of it concerns the end of the world.

At that point I threw up my hands. These are men far more educated than I am, several with multiple doctorates, who read the Greek that I don’t — and they flatly disagree with one another. So what are we supposed to do? Pick a camp and reject everything else? Cobble together a hodgepodge theology out of the bits we like best? Or throw up our hands and refuse to deal with the chapter at all?

Where I’ve Landed (With a Grain of Salt)

Here’s where I’ve landed after this week — and please take it with a large grain of salt. This isn’t biblical truth handed down; it’s one pastor working through a hard text.

Prophecy throughout Scripture often carries a dual layer. It’s spoken to a specific group of people at a specific moment in history, and we see it fulfilled in the near future — but because of that dual layer, we also see it fulfilled again later, often in the person or work of Jesus.

Take Deuteronomy 18:15. Moses tells the people God will raise up a prophet like him to lead them. That was fulfilled shortly afterward in Joshua. Joshua had served as Moses’s right-hand man, but it wasn’t simply assumed he’d inherit the mantle — God chose him. Joshua led the people across the Jordan into the promised land and led them in battle, and God told him to be strong and courageous, promising his presence. God raised up another prophet like Moses. Fulfilled.

And yet in the book of Acts, the apostles use that exact passage to point to Jesus — because just as God used Moses to bring the people out of slavery in Egypt, God used Jesus to bring us out of slavery to sin. Jesus is the true and better Moses. Fulfilled in Joshua; ultimately fulfilled in Christ. That’s the dual layer.

My conjecture is that something similar is happening in Mark 13: on the surface, much of what Jesus describes concerns the destruction of the temple, but those events echo forward and recur on a broader, deeper scale at the end of the world.

Seeing the Dual Layer in the Text

Picking up at verse 5, Jesus warns them not to be led astray, because many will come in his name saying “I am he.” He tells them not to be alarmed at wars and rumors of wars — this must take place, but the end is not yet. Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, there will be earthquakes in various places and famines. These, he says, are but the beginning of the birth pains.

Look at verse 6: many will come in his name. Jesus is describing false prophets, and history records them. In Acts 5, the rabbi Gamaliel addresses the Sanhedrin and references a couple of these figures — Theudas and Judas of Galilee. Josephus, the famous Jewish historian, refers to others. These false prophets appeared, people followed them believing they’d found the Messiah, the man would be killed, and the movement would collapse. This was happening in the years leading up to the temple’s destruction.

Then look at Revelation, and you find similar figures gathering before the end of the world — false prophets, a false priest, a dragon, beasts, and ultimately the figure called the antichrist. The pattern echoes forward.

Or take the earthquakes in verse 8. Josephus records a significant earthquake in Pompeii in A.D. 62 and another in the region of Palestine in A.D. 67 — just three years before the temple fell. And if you study Revelation, you’ll find five separate earthquakes referenced. Again, the dual layer: fulfilled in what Jesus described about the temple, and echoing into the end of all things. I think we could say much the same about the kingdoms and several other details.

Where the Dual Layer Runs Out

That said, I don’t think all of Mark 13 carries that dual layer. Look at verses 24–27. Jesus says that in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory, and he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

I don’t believe those things happened in A.D. 70. I found nothing indicating historians recorded stars falling from the heavens, the sun going dark, and Jesus appearing to everyone in the clouds. The language here echoes Old Testament passages — verses 24 and 25 allude to Isaiah — and we hear it again in 1 and 2 Thessalonians and in Revelation. Nearly all of it is apocalyptic language referring to the end of the world.

But I could be wrong. The preterists have an explanation for why they read even verses 24–27 as A.D. 70. Maybe they’re right and I’m not. That’s exactly why I said you’re not going to walk away from this with complete clarity.

And you know what? I’m actually at peace with that. So often we let ourselves get consumed by details. We want every piece to fit perfectly — and in the process we get distracted from what matters most.

The One Thing That Isn’t Blurry

Because through this entire chapter, one thing has been shining with perfect clarity: Jesus himself. Everything here has Jesus at the center.

Go back to verse 6. It begins with false messiahs and false prophets essentially claiming, “I’m the one.” They’re attempting to seize a position they know everything centers on. They’re counterfeiting Christ because Christ is the center.

Move to verse 9. After warning them they’ll be brought before councils, Jesus says they will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them. They’re there to share the gospel — and the gospel is entirely about Jesus, who died on a cross and rose again. You watch it happen throughout Acts: these men stand before governors and kings and make their plea about Jesus, executed at Roman hands and raised from the dead.

Even the passage I just said was purely about the end times points there. Verses 26–27 say they will see the Son of Man — a title Jesus adopts for himself from the book of Daniel, a messianic title, his own declaration that he is God the Son. They will see him coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds.

To me it’s unmistakable. This is all about Jesus. He is at the center — which makes perfect sense, because he’s been at the center of all of Mark. Everywhere we’ve gone, there he is. Chapter 13 is no different.

Be Encouraged

In light of that, I think we walk away with two things. The first is genuine encouragement.

Too often this kind of apocalyptic language — temples destroyed, the sun darkening, stars falling — becomes frightening and confusing, so we do our best ostrich impression and bury our heads in the sand. Or the topic feels so divisive, with one camp insisting it’s the temple and another insisting it’s the end times, that we’d rather everyone just get along and skip the whole thing.

Go back and read all of Mark 13. Notice that in a red-letter Bible, it’s entirely in red. These are the words of Jesus — it’s the Olivet Discourse because he is the one on the Mount of Olives delivering it. Which means that if he’s able to lay all of this out, he is in control.

He admits in verse 32 that he doesn’t know the day or the hour — only the Father does. But just because he doesn’t know exactly when, it’s abundantly clear he knows what. That ought to comfort you. If he can say, “I know what the end of the world will be like, so be on your guard and take courage,” then when your own world is falling apart, when your life feels like it’s being demolished, when you’re living through your own A.D. 70 — he’s still in control. He’s still there. He’s got you.

So read this chapter and don’t get distracted by the end-times debate. See that Jesus is sovereign, and let that comfort you.

Be Challenged

The second thing should challenge us. As I was working through this passage, a thought hit me just a couple of days ago: if Jesus is the center of Mark 13, he needs to be the center of my life.

So that’s the question for you. Is Jesus the center of your life?

If you’re not a follower of Jesus, I want you to know I’m glad you’re here. When we started this church in 2014, we did not dream of pulling Christians away from other churches so we could have a comfortable family and sing some songs together. Our goal is to help people who feel spiritually disconnected from God find him and follow him.

We believe the image of God is in you. Sin entered the world and twisted that image, distorted it — sin tried to stage its own A.D. 70 in you. But here’s the thing: though it did enormous damage, it did not eliminate the image. The image of God is still in you, which means God is passionate about you. We started this church to help you know that, believe it, and follow the one who died for you.

Because of our sin, the penalty is death. That’s the whole gospel story: Jesus died our death for us in order to give us the life God always intended us to live. We want to see that image within you completely restored, so that the image of God shines out and you begin to look like Jesus, love like him, and live like him — and then go be a blessing to the world.

That means letting Jesus be the center. Most people, when they realize the gospel story is true, take a moment to pray — confessing their sins and declaring that because Jesus gave his life for them, they’re now giving their life to follow him.

Recentering

Many of you reading this would say you’re already a follower of Jesus. I’ve watched some of you be baptized. I’ve seen some of you come to Christ, and I’ve heard many of your stories.

Sometimes in life we’re like a car whose alignment has slipped. We start drifting, and it takes real work to get back on course. If you find yourself drifting right now, it may be that you haven’t let Jesus be the center. That doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten him. It doesn’t mean you’ve stopped worshiping him. You may have read your Bible this very morning. But if you take honest stock of your life, you might realize the center has quietly become something else: work. School. A relationship. A health crisis. A financial issue that consumes every waking thought.

And Jesus is simply saying: let me be the center again. I love you. I’m with you. I’m for you. Even if you feel like you’re living through your own A.D. 70, I’ve got you. I’m with you. I can hold you together.

When we come to the communion table, let the bread remind you of the body of Jesus and the cup remind you of his blood, shed for the forgiveness of your sins. Take it in, and let it remind you that this story is meant to be the center of your life.

Father, work in us. Draw us to you. Let us see that Mark 13 is all about Jesus, and therefore our lives are to be all about Jesus. Don’t let us get distracted — not by the minutiae of this chapter, and not by the minutiae of our daily lives. Bring us instead to what matters most: your Son, sent to this earth to die the death we should have died so that you could give us the life you always intended us to live. Recenter us on Christ. In his name, amen.