There are some passages of Scripture that seem strange to us at first glance. That is to say, the sayings or events are difficult to unpack without some insight into the historical context. This passage from Matthew 24 can seem like one of those. Jesus speaks of abominations, desolations, fleeing to mountains, and vultures gathering around a corpse. And yet these words were not only meant for people long ago that heard them as the Lord spoke them, but they are also for us, His Church at the present time. Christ is teaching us how to understand the times in which we live and how to remain steadfast in faith until He comes again.
Jesus begins by speaking of the “abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel.” To His disciples, this must have evoked memories of great desecrations, foreign armies that desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem, pagan sacrifices offered in the holy place of the Temple, and how God’s sacred place, this same Temple on Mount Zion, was defiled. But Jesus points His hearers forward to an event that would happen about forty years after He spoke these words. That is to say, the fulfillment of this prophecy spoken by Daniel recorded in chapters nine and eleven of his book, the fulfillment of this prophecy was found in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Roman armies under Titus, the same Titus who would go on to be Emperor of Rome in 79 AD.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!
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