October 4, 2025

Signs 2

Mark 13:14-23

The desolating sacrilege that is talked about may be a more general sense of the intrusion of the Gentiles into the temple of Jerusalem, or it may more specifically refer to the invasion of the Romans wherein they destroyed the temple in the year 70 CE.  In either case, this was such an incursion into Jerusalem, and an intrusion into the temple, that people were told to flee for their lives.  It was, or will be, a time of great distress and persecution.

While this certainly comes to us as words of warning from Jesus, we also should remember that the Gospel of Mark was written right around the year 70 CE, and so the actual events of the time may have been reflected in Mark’s telling of the account as he was writing his gospel.  Mark may have very naturally brought his own experiences of the destruction by the Romans into his remembrance of the words of Jesus.

There is also the warning to beware of false prophets and messiahs, so that the believers are not led astray.  Even today, these words encourage us to always be wise and discerning when people talk about the end times.  Indeed, as Jesus says, we are to be alert, and to be faithful to what we know from him.