GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 13:25
When the Stars Fall
On Friday, November 22, 1963, after I worked the midnight shift at a steel mill, I went home to sleep. Alice worked at the First National Bank in Granite City, Illinois, so she always left for work before I got home. When I awoke in the afternoon, I called her to see what the plans were for the evening. However, the phone had no dial tone. I held the receiver a while, then the dial tone sounded, and I made the call. “Have you heard?” she answered. Of course, I hadn’t heard anything—I’d been asleep. “The President’s been shot!”
Alice was filing documents in the bank’s vault when she heard the announcement, and she told her supervisor about the assassination. He went to hear the announcement himself, then ran to the bank president’s office to inform him. He came back, closed the vault, and the bank locked down. It was as if the stars of heaven had fallen. The New York Stock Exchange closed, banks shut down, and the nation entered crisis mode. The phone system was overloaded; hence the lack of a dial tone. This was well before the advent of cell phones.
More recently, people remember Tuesday, September 11, 2001, which one writer called “the day that changed the world.” It was as if the stars of heaven had fallen and the powers in the heavens were shaken. Jesus described such a day for his disciples in the future, and most commentators think this refers to his prophetic description of his reappearance—the Parousia. “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the heavens, and the powers which are in the heavens will be shaken.” (Mark 13:24-25)
Scholars and commentators discuss the exact meaning of Jesus’ words, but they generally agree that he described a world-changing event. No one prepared for November 22 or September 11—how could they?—yet they came. But Jesus described this coming event so that his followers could be prepared.
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