NOTES for Mar 13:9-13
The word that the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to the disciples on the Mount of Olives is very difficult to fulfill. The Lord speaks about the end times, about catastrophes and horrors: nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom... All this presents real dangers for us, and it is completely natural that we think and speak about such events. In essence, instinctively, in every catastrophe we see symptoms of the approaching end. In conveying this same conversation of the Lord with the disciples, the evangelist Luke gives us a strikingly exact formulation: "people will faint from fear and expectation of what is coming" (Luke 21:26).
And at the same time the Lord commands the disciples: "...watch yourselves..." This does not mean that we should not pay attention to what is happening in the world around us. On the contrary, the Lord tells the disciples: "pray," so that for the sake of the prayer of the elect this time of catastrophes may be shortened. But, as the evangelist Mark conveys this thought in the passage read today, we can observe the final battle in ourselves, in our own life and in our own heart. The Lord speaks of persecutions and division between those who accept Him and those who do not. One can say that this is precisely the essence of what happens at the end times, while, strictly speaking, a catastrophic character belongs to every age.
But the most important thing is that the Lord tells us about the other side of the matter: "And the gospel must first be preached to all nations." Amid all the chaos of the approaching end, Christ's disciples must therefore carry out this task, because it is the chief thing that must be done for the salvation of the world.