6. What does 13:32 mean?

Is the timing of the End totally

unknowable, even by Jesus and Mark, or is only the exact day and
hour unknown?
On all these points, interpreters are divided. If one assumes that
the goal of interpretation is to eliminate ambiguity, it is easy to see
why there are so many different interpretations of Mark 13. The
chapter contains an astonishing number of ambiguous expressions.
Hence, many references and even whole sentences can be read in
more than one way. Eliminating the ambiguity involves choices about
the “right” meaning. The more choices that need to be made, the
greater the chance that interpreters will widely diverge.
My view is that Mark has deliberately created or incorporated virtually
all the ambiguity that many interpreters are aiming to eliminate.
Interpreting this chapter does not mean getting rid of the ambiguity
but understanding why it is there and what role it plays.
In Mark 13:3-4 the disciples ask Jesus for the sign, presumably
wanting information to help them track a calendar of future events. If
one assumes that Jesus obliges them with what they want, then it is
reasonable to try to eliminate the ambiguity one finds in Mark 13.
Only if one makes that assumption will the sign or a list of signs
emerge, leading to a calendar of future events.
However, what if Jesus does not oblige them? What if Jesus critiques
their perspective and teaches that no sign will help them construct
an end-time calendar? What if Jesus’ entire response to the disciples
follows from the assumption that no one knows, that no one
can know, when the End will come—not Mark the author, and not
even Jesus himself (13:32)!?
If no one can know the sequence of end-time events, it follows
that no one can know whether the desolating sacrilege (13:14) leading
to the temple’s destruction is the last and final desolating sacrilege,
or whether at some future time another desolating sacrilege will
stand where it/he ought not to be (v. 14). Likewise, we cannot know
302 Mark 13:1-37
whether the predicted destruction of the temple is one of the final
end-time events, nor whether the turbulent times surrounding the
temple’s destruction (vv. 14-18) will be part of the final tribulation,
nor whether there will be continued opportunity for “mission in the
context of persecution” (v. 10) after the temple’s destruction, and so
on. At some totally unknowable time, while, or right after, or long
after the temple is destroyed, the Son of Man will return.
The controlling assumption of Mark 13 is that the timing of the
End is totally unknowable. Most of the ambiguity of the chapter needs
to be there to preserve this unknowability. The ambiguity should not
be eliminated but understood.