Mark 13:1-8
Look at These Stones
1As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, “Teacher, look at the magnificent stones and buildings!”
2“Do you see all these great buildings?” Jesus replied. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
3While Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Him privately,
4“Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to be fulfilled?”
5Jesus began by telling them, “See to it that no one deceives you.
6Many will come in My name, claiming, ‘I am He,’ and will deceive many.
7When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. These things must happen, but the end is still to come.
8Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, as well as famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.
Berean Standard Bible
They are on their way out of the temple when one of the disciples says the kind of thing a visitor says. He points at the stones and the buildings and calls them magnificent, and he is not being foolish. That place was one of the wonders of the ancient world, standing on foundation blocks larger than anything most people had ever seen moved by human hands. There is more than sightseeing in the remark, though, because this was God's house, and a building that size was supposed to mean permanence.
Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.
Mark writes that down and gives us nothing back from the man who spoke. No protest, no follow-up question, nothing. They keep walking.
They cross the valley and sit on the Mount of Olives, which faces the temple, so the building is in front of them the entire time they talk about it coming down. Four of them come to him privately, Peter and James and John and Andrew, the same four he called first at the water in chapter one, and their questions are the ones anybody would ask. When will this happen, and what will be the sign that it is about to?
He answers neither one the way it was asked. The first thing out of his mouth is not a date but an instruction, that they are to see to it nobody deceives them. Men will come using his name and claiming to be him, and they will be believed.
When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. These things must happen, but the end is still to come.
Then earthquakes in various places, and famines, and nation rising against nation. He is naming the ordinary catastrophes of history, the ones every generation has lived through, and then he puts a phrase on the end of the list.
These are the beginning of birth pains.
Labor is terrible and labor is not a catastrophe. Nobody hearing a woman in labor concludes that the world is ending. The pain means something is arriving, it gets worse the closer that something comes, and it is going somewhere. They asked for a calendar, and this is what he handed them instead.
Faithful readers have understood parts of this chapter in more than one way for a very long time, and we are going to say what the text says and leave those arguments where they are. What he says plainly here is that his friends were going to be frightened, and that being frightened is not the same thing as having been abandoned.
How We Know
The disciple's remark in verse 1 is about size, and the size was real. Herod's temple platform was built on foundation courses of dressed limestone blocks, some of them weighing many tons. Sections of those retaining walls are still standing in Jerusalem, including the lower courses of the Western Wall. What survives is the platform the temple stood on, not the temple building itself.
Stone still standing corroborates verse 1 as the reaction of somebody looking at an actual building rather than reaching for a figure of speech.
It also sharpens verse 2. The temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, within the lifetime of people who heard this, and the platform walls are the part that survived.
- Britannica, "Western Wall."
Questions
1 What is the biggest building you have ever stood underneath? One of the disciples is having that moment here.
AnswerHe points at the magnificent stones and buildings on the way out. The temple was one of the wonders of that world, its foundation blocks larger than anything most people had seen moved by hand, and on top of all that it was God's house.
2 What does Jesus say is going to happen to it?
AnswerThat not one stone will be left on another, and that every one will be thrown down. Mark gives us no reply at all from the man who spoke, no protest and no question.
3 The four of them ask when it will happen and what the sign will be. Does he give them either one?
AnswerNot really. He starts with a warning about being fooled rather than a date, and he keeps handing out instructions where they were hoping for a timetable.
4 What is he saying when he calls all of this the beginning of birth pains?
AnswerThat the pain is real, that it is not the disaster itself, and that it means something is on the way. Labor gets worse as the thing it is bringing gets closer.
What This Means for Us
They asked him when, and he answered by telling them how to stand. Do not be deceived, do not be alarmed, these things must happen.
We ask the same way they did. When something frightening starts, the question we want answered is how long it is going to last, and God tends to answer instead by telling us who he is and what we should do next.
So the next time the news is bad, and it will be, practice the sentence he gave them. Do not be alarmed. Not because nothing is wrong, but because the pain in this world is going somewhere.
Prayer
Father, we want to know when, and you keep telling us how to stand. Give us steady hearts when the news is frightening. Keep us from being deceived. And thank you that the pain in this world is going somewhere. Amen.