Daily devotion – Wednesday 31st March, 2021.
Easter is another powerful reminder that we are all to be ready for Christ’s return!
Mar 13:30 “Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.
Sitting on the Mount of Olives, Jesus and His disciples had a magnificent view of the Kidron Valley to Herod’s Temple. It had already been about 50 years in building, and it was still not quite finished. It was a spectacular sight!
“What massive stones!” commented the disciples, “What an amazing structure!”
Yet to their astonishment, Jesus said that not a single stone would survive the Temple’s coming destruction. In 70 A.D., under the command of the Roman General Titus, Jerusalem would be under siege and from 600,000 to 1 million people would lose their lives.
Jesus gave the disciples an appearance into the near future and the extended future for the people of Israel.
Immediate signs would include the rise of false messiahs, wars and rumours of wars, earthquakes, and famines. But these, Jesus said, were “the beginning of birth pains” – see verse 8; the end was not yet.
Other signs heralding the end would include persecution and martyrdom, family divisions, great convulsions in the sun, the moon, and the stars, which is familiar apocalyptic imagery for socio-political upheavals.
And then people would “see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.” See verse 26.
Indeed, that generation would not pass away until “all these things” had taken place.
However, nobody knows that day or that hour, not even the Son Himself.
The main emphasis in this Olivet discourse is not found in any program of signs and events but in Jesus repeated summons, which I want to draw your attention to today – Easter week.
Jesus repeated summons (seven times in Mark 13) to be alert and ready for Christ’s coming.
Jesus concludes this with the statement in verse 37, “What I say to you…..I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
Easter 2021….another year closer to His coming. As we remember and give thanks as to why Jesus came the first time…let our hearts fill with the expectation of His coming again….which we will experience personally!
Don’t forget to join us this Wednesday at 7:00 pm in our own “Olive Garden” as we examine Jesus great struggle in prayer and His disciples sleeping!