In spite of the long quotation, this chapter may well consist more of the teachings of the early church in which are imbedded actual words of Jesus about his return. Mark may actually be referring to the temple's destruction which occurred about the time he wrote. On the other hand, Herod had spent so much money and taxed the people so heavily to reconstruct the temple, that it must have had a startling effect on these Galileans if they had just seen it for the first time. Even today, the site is magnificent although much altered by the total destruction of the temple in the 1st and 2nd centuries and the extensive reconstruction by the Moslems in 7th and 16th centuries. While the return of Christ, which is the theme of this whole chapter as well as this passage, is still a part of our tradition, scholars debate how much of the detail was actually drawn from the Jewish eschatological expectations of the Messiah.
Many preachers make the grave error of treating the passage literally.
One can hear or see such misinterpretations every weekend on religious radio stations and television channels. There can be, of course, no answer given. What follows is a composite discourse drawn from several sources including some sayings which may well be part of the authentic tradition of what Jesus said, plus a considerable amount of general apocalyptic material. The current reading includes no more than the introduction to the discourse. These have occurred throughout history.