Mark chapter 13 is primarily referencing the coming
destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in AD 70. It’s theme of being watchful (vv. 5, 9, 23, 33, 35, 37) has
application for Christ’s second coming as well for our own personal endings in
death. I thought of the words of
Sophie Scholl who lived in the midst of the nightmare that was Nazi
Germany. In her diary entry for
August 9, 1942 she wrote:
Many
people believe that our age is the last.
All the omens are terrible enough to make one think so, but isn’t that
belief of secondary importance?
Mustn’t we all, no matter what age we live in, be permanently prepared
for God to call us to account from one moment to the next? How am I to know if I shall still be
alive tomorrow? We could all be
wiped out overnight by a bomb, and my guilt would be no less than if I perished
in company with the earth and the stars.
–I know all that, but don’t I heedlessly fritter away my life just the
same? O God, I beseech you to take away my frivolity and self-will, which clings
to the sweet, ephemeral things of life.
I can’t do it myself, I’m far too weak.[1]
