“Abomination That Causes Desolation”

Mark 13:14-23, NIV - “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.  Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out.  Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak.  How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!  Pray that this will not take place in winter, because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.

“If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them.  At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it.  For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.  So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

 

                We continue our uncomfortable journey through “The Little Apocalypse” that is Mark 13 with some graphic descriptions of the things Jesus says are coming in the near future.  Remembering that Mark is written in the time when those terrible things have happened, we can understand how these words would offer comfort to those experiencing unprecedented suffering.  To describe these coming events in a way that His hearers would understand, Jesus recalls a prophecy from the Old Testament Book of Daniel.  The term “abomination that causes desolation” is a direct quote from Daniel that most scholars believe refers to the practice of the Greek King Antiochus IV began of offering pagan sacrifices in the Hebrew Temple.  To bring this event in history to mind would serve to describe another heinous violation of the Temple of God that is to come, namely the Temple’s utter destruction in AD 70. 

                At the time that happened, Roman armies surrounded Jerusalem and laid siege to the city for many months.  It was a time when things got so bad people had begun to resort to rampant crime and even cannibalism.  Eventually, the entire city was burned to the ground including the Temple.  The early historian Josephus reported that a million people died during that siege, although more modern historians question that figure.  In any case, it was a time of “distress unequaled from the beginning” that was seared into the psyches of Mark’s first readers in the same way the 20^th century Jewish Holocaust would be in the minds of those who lived through it.  Jesus said it would have been even worse if God had not directly intervened to “cut short those days.”  A confirmation of this truth is that Jesus had taken care to warn them before it happened so that they would be more prepared when the time came. 

                The message here to Mark’s early readers is that God has not abandoned them.  Though the time is unequivocally evil, God will preserve God’s people.  There is life on the other side of this terrible time.  Over the couple of centuries since Mark’s gospel was written, Christians have gained similar reassurance from Mark 13 in times of great suffering.  The same comfort can be gleaned from Jesus’s followers in the present and the future. To say it another way, I’ll borrow a similar reassurance from Jesus recorded in the book of John:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

                We currently live in a time when the Church has been decimated by a combination of a global pandemic, in-fighting about hot-button cultural issues, seismic shifts in technology/politics/culture and many other systemic causes.  Churches are closing at an unprecedented rate in America and people are understandably concerned for the future.  Though times are not as dire as first-century Jerusalem, the same hope offered by Jesus then is available now.  God is not “surprised” by these events.  God has tried to warn us and prepare us.  God will be with us through all of it no matter how bad it gets.  We will never be abandoned by our God.  More on that next time.

 

Question:  What would you imagine it would be like to live in a time of great distress like that of the first-century inhabitants of Jerusalem?

 

Prayer:  Jesus, these warnings are hard and even scary at times to read, much less full understand.  Help us gain a sense of your reassuring presence in the midst of our life’s darkest times.  Help us cling to the truth that when everything else in our life fails, You are still God. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the people of Ukraine and Russia.

 

Song:  Jesus, I Have My Doubts – John Foreman

This is a playlist of two videos; if you click on it, it will play both in succession.  The first is a helpful introduction that explains the thoughts behind the lyrics. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGir8S9zAgY&list=PLWJPPes3ocEMVOYSX3XOcxFTj82YRWfBa