NOTES for Mar 13:1-13

When speaking of the imminent destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the end of time, Jesus undoubtedly has in mind not a distant future, but a near and even very near one: the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, following the anti-Roman revolt begun by the Zealots, only a few decades after the conversation reported by the evangelist. Jesus mentions ‘pains’ (the corresponding Greek word literally means ‘birth pangs’, or the pain experienced in childbirth), pointing to famine, epidemics, natural disasters and wars as their source and root (such is the meaning of the corresponding Greek word, which literally means ‘beginning’, ‘cause’, ‘source’). The ‘pains’ mentioned by the Saviour are clearly connected with the birth of something new—in this case the Kingdom, which, as He repeatedly said, must sprout in the world like a seed cast into the earth.

These ‘pains’ clearly refer to what Jewish tradition usually calls the ‘messianic tribulations’: persecutions and upheavals that fall upon God's people just before the coming of the Messiah, signalling the imminent advent of the messianic age and the establishment of the messianic Kingdom. Evidently these are the tribulations of which Jesus speaks, for alongside famine, epidemics, earthquakes and wars comes the persecution of His disciples. All this takes place against a backdrop of numerous false messiahs springing up like mushrooms after rain, drawing the gullible after them only to abandon them to their fate.

There were indeed many such false messiahs at that time. All of them called for rebellion and war, and all such uprisings ended in punitive expeditions. Their leaders often managed to slip away, while punishment fell on those who would not or could not flee in time. Thus, according to the Saviour's words, history turns out to end with the end of the Second Temple, built long before by the repatriates who had returned to Judaea from Babylon. Everything that follows is no longer the old history running its course, but something new, unfolding according to different, new laws.

As far as we can judge, the Lord Jesus Christ’s prediction of coming disasters refers first of all to the destruction of Jerusalem that was to occur in AD 70. This tragedy still lay in the future when the evangelists, including Mark, wrote down their accounts. Yet what the Lord says next is striking. His words can be applied to practically any time, to any era of human history. We can therefore see in these words a brief summary of the way the history of the world always unfolds, in every age.

The Lord speaks of natural disasters and conflicts between kingdoms, of wars and famine. The Lord speaks of the things that frighten us in every age and make us die of terror and the expectation of calamity. But that is not what matters! “Watch yourselves,” the Lord says to the disciples in Mark’s account. “All this will take place, but the end is not yet,” Matthew conveys His words. “When these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near,” Luke records. The preaching of the Gospel is what matters most. It is this that determines the time for the end of history: the time when every person will receive the opportunity to turn to God. Through all the upheavals of tragic history, the Lord calls His disciples to think first of all about God and His Kingdom.

This is important because for centuries people have looked in the events of their own time for signs of the approaching end of the world. But such signs can easily be found at any time. And at every time, Christ’s disciples need faith and faithfulness in order to fulfill His commandment of love. According to the evangelists, this alone gives meaning and purpose to the painful history of humankind.

The destruction of a temple was a real tragedy for pagans, for they thought that the god perished together with the temple. This is the main content of idolatry. The destruction of the Temple built by Solomon, on the contrary, becomes an enormous spiritual event. But the paradox is that in its outward appearance the Temple differed little from some pagan temples. As excavations have shown, in its architecture Solomon's Temple was a "typical Phoenician temple" (G. Wright, quoted in A. Men, Isagogics). That is precisely why, when the disciples draw the Teacher's attention to the outward appearance of the Temple, Christ does not share their enthusiasm, but prophesies its destruction. But perhaps the most important thing to remember when reflecting on today's reading is Christ's conversation with the Samaritan woman. And the words Jesus said to her: "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such worshipers for Himself. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:23-24). This allows the Temple, broken into shards scattered throughout the whole world, shards that have the form of temples of different confessions, spiritually to raise itself to the one Temple once destroyed, just as had been foretold.

As a rule, in the Christian environment each new war gives rise to rumors and talk about the "last times," about the near end, and about everything else that modern Christians associate with the end of times and the day of Judgment. And today's passage, it would seem, gives these interpretations and rumors quite sufficient grounds, although in the most immediate sense Jesus' prophecy refers to the events of A.D. 70, when shortly before the anti-Roman revolt that began that year, Palestine was indeed full of rumors about the imminent end of history, about the Messiah and the coming messianic war, about the imminent triumph of the Kingdom. And various kinds of "messiahs" were also growing in those days like mushrooms after rain, so that Jesus' warnings proved by no means unnecessary. But He does not speak of wars and alarming rumors as what begins the calamities preceding His return, called "pains" in the Synodal translation; He speaks of them as the source of such calamities, for the corresponding Greek word means beginning precisely in this sense. The source of all humanity's troubles, as can be seen, is the same in every age: mutual aggression producing wars, aggressive religiosity feeding them, and human gullibility making people believe "messiahs" and "prophets" who propagate such religiosity. It would be no surprise if some new paroxysm of such madness became for humanity the last historical cataclysm after which Jesus truly returns in order to intervene in events personally. But there is no point guessing about times and dates here: even Jesus Himself did not try to determine them in advance.

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.

Calling His disciples not to think about what they will have to say when testimony before persecutors is required of them, Jesus at the same time reminds them that only the one who remains faithful to the end amid universal madness will be saved. One would think that this is exactly where everything should be carefully weighed and considered before saying anything: before such an audience, testimony must be especially vivid, and at the same time especially measured, so that everything said would sound flawless both in content and, preferably, in form. Jesus, on the contrary, calls them not to think anything through in advance. Of course, this call can be explained by the fact that it is practically impossible to think through all possible situations in advance and work out in advance some models of behavior for one case or another: there are usually too many situations, especially in troubled times, for such planning to become possible. But the point is probably also something else. Who, and when, can afford not to prepare for a responsible speech? Probably only the one who is sure that someone else will prepare his speech for him, and someone who can be trusted unconditionally. And the Savior, as we can see, offers His disciples exactly that option. But for this, their whole life must be part of the Kingdom that He brought into the world and in which one can live one life with Him. Then one can pass through all the twists and turns of a troubled time while remaining a faithful witness of the Kingdom whose life one lives.

Today we read a passage in which Jesus speaks to the disciples about what is coming, about what awaits them and their descendants. This speech of Jesus is the longest one in Mark. Let us listen to it more attentively: what prompted the conversation? what can be said about the disciples' attitude toward Jerusalem and its temple?

Jesus' own words can be divided into three parts: about the destruction of Jerusalem, about His return and the end of this world, and two parables. The intersection of these themes can seem unexpected, but prophecy is not a chronological account of the future. It is, rather, various images of it, so that in the destruction of Jerusalem one can also see the end of this world.

It is interesting to trace whether the disciples' initial curiosity receives an answer. It appears that a direct answer sounds only at the very end of the chapter: in the parable of the fig tree He speaks about signs. But about the exact time it is said that it is hidden from everyone except the Father. And if He himself is what matters to us, then we must keep watch, like the doorkeeper in the second parable. This final summons will help us hear all the other words of Jesus as well, which seem to stand apart from the disciples' question: He is addressing each of us personally.

If Jesus does not answer the disciples' question before verse 28, then what is He speaking about in verses 5-27? What stands out is how often Jesus addresses them directly. Jesus is concerned not so much with the future itself as with people, His disciples, in that future. Jesus makes them understand that what they need most in this life is God and His guidance, something that is especially visible "against the background" of the end.

When reading this chapter, a natural feeling often arises: although one would very much not want to take part in the events described, there is one thing to be glad about. If all this does happen, then (vv. 19-20 and vv. 24-27) Jesus will return and save His chosen ones. He is God and Savior.

Today's reading is remarkable for the transition reflected in it from history to the end of time. It begins with Jesus' prophecy about the Temple, which, according to His words, awaits complete destruction (vv. 1-23). This prophecy was fulfilled in A.D. 70, when, after the anti-Roman uprising raised by the Zealots in Judea, Jerusalem was taken by the Romans by storm after a long siege, and the city, together with the Temple, was destroyed to its foundations. Only the foundation of the Temple remained, whose western retaining wall is known today as the Wailing Wall. These events were preceded by a powerful rise of the messianic movement. Shortly before the uprising began, claimants to messiahship appeared regularly in Judea, and some of them managed to organize local rebellions that were harshly suppressed by the Romans; it is evidently about such claimants that Jesus warns His disciples (vv. 5-6). The atmosphere of the era was restless and fevered. Rumors spread about an approaching war, which the Zealots said would be the final, messianic war, and every military action, even a minor one, gathered rumors around it, sometimes the most unbelievable, further intensifying this atmosphere of universal, excited expectation of the end (vv. 7-8). Jesus' warning about coming persecutions was not in vain either (vv. 9-13): persecutions of Christians really began even before the uprising of A.D. 70; and Paul's preaching had already sounded throughout the Roman Empire before the fall of Jerusalem (v. 10). When the uprising began and failed, and Jerusalem came under threat of a severe and lengthy siege, Christians, remembering the Savior's warning (vv. 14-23), left the city (the Pharisees did the same). Josephus Flavius, one of the witnesses and participants in these events, writes in detail in his book "The Jewish War" about what happened in the besieged city, about the general hatred, intolerance, and violence that reigned there.

And so, after the prophecy about events that were to happen very soon after His death and Resurrection, the Savior turns to the account of the end of time and His second coming (vv. 24-37). It would seem that these events should have followed at once, or almost at once, one after another. However, Jesus Himself says plainly that the time of His return is known only to the Father. In that case the question arises: what connection is there between the events of A.D. 70 in Jerusalem and the second coming of Christ? For believing Jews the Second Temple, built by the repatriates who returned from Babylon in the sixth century B.C., was the messianic Temple. The Messiah-Christ was to preach there, and the end of this Temple was also to become the end of earthly history and the arrival of the messianic Kingdom. And Jesus, as we can see, confirms this idea that earthly history will be completed with the defeat of the Temple, adding that it will end while the contemporaries of His earthly life are still alive (v. 30; "this generation" means "this generation"). But between the completion of earthly history and the final triumph of the Kingdom, as we can see, some time must pass, known only to the Father. And we are left to wait and keep watch (vv. 33-37): to wait for the Savior's return in the fullness of the Kingdom and to keep watch so that His return does not catch us unprepared.