Signs of the times

 

Now as soon as the army had no more people to kill or plunder...Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple...this was the end which Jerusalem came to.  --Josephus, War of the Jews

Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "The only constant in life is change."  Every time I drive through my old home town I notice something is different.  The theater or restaurant where we used to hang out is closed or torn down.  New shops and restaurants are popping up all around.  The intersection that once had a stop sign now has a traffic light, or even a traffic circle.  The whole skyline of the town seems different, as does the soul.  Although the changes may be good for the community, they never seem as good as our memories of the way things used to be.

In the book of Mark, the thirteenth chapter begins with Jesus and the disciples coming to Jerusalem and describing the Temple, the most important landmark there, as if they were tourists.  Surely these men had seen the Temple before, but they were still in awe of it. "Then as He went out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, 'Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!' " (Mark 13:1).  This exclamation is not as strange as it may seem.

History tells us that Herod's temple took over 80 years to build.  Construction began in 19 BC and wasn't totally complete until 63 AD, and the finished product was almost 500 yards long and 400 yards wide.  Historian Josephus said that the temple was covered on the outside by gold plates that were so brilliant that when the sun shone it was blinding.  Where there wasn't gold, there were blocks of marble of such a pure white that from a distance, strangers thought that there was snow on the temple.  So when this unnamed disciple was visiting the temple with Jesus in 32 or 33 AD, it was still under construction.  Perhaps construction workers had just set a slab of marble so white it was blinding, causing the disciple to marvel at the stonework as if he were seeing it for the first time.

Jesus' response, however, was unexpected.  Mark 13:2 says, "And Jesus answered and said to him, 'Do you see these great buildings?  Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down."  Jesus prophesied the utter destruction of the temple, which we now know occurred in 70 AD.  It is said that at the fall of Jerusalem, the last surviving Jews of the city fled to the temple because it was the strongest, most secure building remaining.  Roman soldiers surrounded it, and one drunken soldier started a fire that soon engulfed the whole building.  Ornate gold detail work in the roof melted down into the cracks between the stone walls of the temple.  To retrieve the gold, the Roman commander ordered that the temple be dismantled stone by stone.  The destruction was so complete that today researchers have some difficulty learning exactly where the temple stood.

Almost 40 years before the destruction of Jerusalem, I'll bet that the disciples looking at the building's construction and materials actually thought the temple would last forever.  If Jesus was prophesying the destruction of this massive building, with stones too large for modern machines to lift, then He must have been talking about the end of the world.  So four of the disciples approached Jesus and asked Him about the end times.  "Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked Him privately, 'Tell us when will these things be?  And what will be the sign when all these things will be fulfilled?' " (Mark 13:3-4)

Signs and symbols were very important in Jewish history and religion.  Many signs or symbols were kept as a remembrance of what God had done for His people.  Moses was commanded to build the Ark of the Covenant, and inside it were placed a jar of manna, to be sign that God provided for them in the wilderness; Aaron's rod that budded, to be a sign of God's direction to them in setting up the priesthood; and the two stones on which God had written the original ten commandments.  Joshua was commanded to take twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan river, where God had parted the waters so that the people could cross into the Promised Land on dry ground, and set them together as an altar as a sign of God's leadership (see Joshua 4).

Throughout Jewish history, too, God had sent prophets to give signs of things to come.  In 1 Kings 13 an unnamed prophet spoke words against the evil king Jeroboam, saying that another king, Josiah, would be born in the line of David and defeat Jeroboam.  "And he gave a sign the same day, saying, 'This is the sign which the Lord has spoken: surely the altar shall split apart, and the ashes on it shall be poured out.' "  Sure enough, the altar was split and the ashes poured out, just as God had said.  Perhaps more familiar to us is the passage from Isaiah 7:15, "Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel (God with us)."  That was a direct prophecy to Ahaz, king of Israel, but was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:22-23, "For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."  The disciples were Jews, and they asked for a sign to watch for, something that might signal the end of the world.  Jesus responded over the next 30 or so verses, which we will study in more depth in the coming weeks.  

However, I think it is important that we heed Paul's advice when people ask for signs: we should look to Jesus.  Yes, the miracles He performed were signs that He was divine.  The greatest sign of all time was the resurrection of Jesus, because it signals God's love for us--the sacrificial, substitutionary death of Jesus is foundational to our faith; the bodily resurrection is our hope of heaven (see 1 Corinthians 15:17).  

As we wade into the answers that Jesus gave in Mark 13 to the disciples' question about signs of the end times, some of His statements may be hard to understand.  Jesus only gave them as much light as they needed--remember, this was before His death and resurrection, which they could not fathom at the time; how, then, did they think that they could comprehend end times prophecy?  It is the same with us: we have the benefit of 2000 years of history and hindsight, and although Jesus' words are as true today as they were when He first spoke them, we have no more clue what they mean than did those four disciples.  We should preach what we do know: that Jesus is God's Son, that He came to earth to dwell among us, that He died in our place, and that He rose again and ascended to the Father.  That is all we really know, and all we need to know.