Is there anything worse than the crucifixion of Jesus?
He told His disciples they would be witness to it, so just on that point it was not a 2000+ years into the future event.
I think it is abundantly clear that Matthew 24 is responding to when every stone in the Temple will be thrown down, but at the same time to two other questions, the sign of His coming and when the end will be.
As usual, the word of God is a double edged sword. No doubt the context is the destruction of the temple in 70AD and Jesus uses that as a template for the end of the age.
As for "an infinite gap" this is a bogus concept from those who don't know the Bible. In Leviticus God tells us how long our punishment will be if we do not repent, he multiplies the period by 7 and if we still don't repent he multiplies it by 7 again.
In Ezekiel there is a prophecy about Ezekiel lying on one side for Israel and on the other for Judah. Those time periods, when multiplied by 7 and then again by 7 come to 1948. You can find the discussion of this on Youtube and I have shared the links on my blog. 1948 is the only year where both Judah and Israel would be released from punishment at the same time. This also matches a prophecy in Ezekiel about two sticks (Israel and Judah) being united as one.