Saturday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 19, 2022

Revelation 11, 4-12

I, John, heard a voice from heaven speak to me: Here are my two witnesses: These are the two olive trees and the two lamp stands that stand before the Lord of the earth. If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and devours their enemies. In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain. They have the power to close up the sky so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying. They also have power to turn water into blood and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish. When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them. Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city, which has the symbolic names “Sodom” and “Egypt,” where indeed their Lord was crucified. Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days, and they will not allow their corpses to be buried. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and be glad and exchange gifts because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth. But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them. When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.” So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on.

The Book of Revelation tells us that towards the end of the world two witnesses or prophets will arise, preach fearlessly, perform miracles, and be killed.  Their lives will thus follow the course of the Lord’s earthly life.  These two witnesses counterbalance the two beasts which come out of the sea to dazzle the world with amazing feats, but lead it away from God.  From before the fifth century Church commenters have tried to say who these witnesses would be, since they seem to be two definite people.  One of the more inspired ideas is that these will be the Patriarch Enoch, father of Methuselah, and Elijah.  Both of these men are recorded by the Scriptures to have been carried off to heaven before dying.  The reasoning is that that since all humans must die because of sin, these two were sent back to earth where they carried on their lives of righteousness, and that they died at the hands of the wicked just as the Prophets and Apostles had before them.  St. John calls them “two olive trees” in that the olive branch was the sign of peace between God and the human race after the Flood.  Also, olive oil was used to anoint the newly baptized and those ordained to the Priesthood and so is a sign of the Holy Spirit and grace.  John also calls them “lamp stands” because they light the way to Christ.  These two witnesses will have powers similar to Moses for inflicting plagues, which they will do in order to convert the most obstinate sinners.  Sadly, not all will convert, just as Pharaoh resisted Moses until the killing of the first-born. 

“Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city, which has the symbolic names ‘Sodom’ and ‘Egypt,’ where indeed their Lord was crucified.”  These names for Jerusalem carry much irony.  Sodom, of course, was the city of great shame and sin that was obliterated by God after Lot fled from it.  To call the holy city Jerusalem “Sodom” was to charge it with terrible sins of immorality.  Perhaps the main reason for doing so came from the Lord’s prophecy of its future utter destruction.  Jerusalem is called “Egypt” because just as Egypt oppressed the Hebrews who were living there, so too did Jerusalem oppress the Christians in the early years of the Church.  

“Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days, and they will not allow their corpses to be buried.”  The corpses were kept unburied so as to refuse them the care usually given to the dead and also so that all people could see that the Beast had conquered them, so great was its power.  “The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and be glad and exchange gifts because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth.”  This verse describes very well the fevered atmosphere that shall prevail in the last days, when virtue is deemed vice, and vice, virtue.  The gloating over unburied corpses particularly illustrates the twisted thinking in those days to come.  The number “three and a half” comes up regularly in the Book of Revelation.  Considering the timeline of the Lord’s Public Life in St. John’s Gospel, it seems that our Lord preached for three and a half years.  Also, according to this Gospel the Lord rose from the dead after three and a half days.  If this is so, then the two witnesses are especially described as doing the Lord’s work, a fact made clear by the timing of their own Resurrection: “But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them.”  

“Come up here.”  The witnesses rise up and ascend into heaven in a very public way which ought to drive their murderers and opponents to penance, but it does not.  This shows the hardened hearts of the people at this time.  The witnesses rise very much as we read the Lord rose in the Acts of the Apostles so that we may wonder if the Lord Jesus heard the Father say to him, “Come up here,” at the time of his Ascension.  This would be in keeping with how the Father did speak audibly to him on other occasions.

The two witnesses give us a good example of the courage and persistence with which we ought to live out our Faith.  Let us, in the concrete circumstances of our lives, give such an example as well.