GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 13-4
When Will These Things Be
There is a story about some men applying for a telegraph operator position. They were in a busy office with a telegraph key clicking in the background. A latecomer took his seat among the applicants, began completing the paperwork, and then stood and knocked on the manager’s door. The applicants scowled at the upstart who had arrived late and was now boldly walking to the manager’s door ahead of them, uninvited. Shortly thereafter, the manager came out of his office and dismissed the other applicants, saying that the position had been filled. They were indignant and demanded to know why they had not been given an interview. The manager said they had been interviewed: in the background, the telegraph key clicked out the message, “If you can read this, come in—the job is yours.”
Mark says that Jesus spent the day in the temple teaching. One of the disciples commented on the beautiful temple, and Jesus told him that the temple would be destroyed. In the evening, Jesus and the disciples were on their way to Bethany when they stopped on the Mount of Olives to rest. “And as he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew asked him privately, ‘Tell us, when will these things be? And what is the sign when all these things are about to be completed?’” (Mark 13:3-4)
The disciples were perceptive; they wanted to know what sign would indicate that the events Jesus had described were about to be fulfilled. Not an unreasonable request then or now. One does not want to be like those applicants—so absorbed in their paperwork that they missed the message clicking in the background.
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