Wednesday in the 34th Week of Ordinary Time, November 29, 2023

Luke 21, 12-19

Jesus said to the crowd: “They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”

St. Luke continues his account of the Lord’s words about the end of the world.  If we compare his account with that of St. Matthew we find that the latter provides greater detail.  This is because Matthew wrote his Gospel in order to prepare the early Galilean Christians for the final judgment.  Throughout his Gospel he emphasized the teachings of Jesus about this judgment, about the threat of eternal punishment for unrepentant sinners, and the need to persevere in times of persecution (such as the Galilean Christians were experiencing at that time from the Judean leadership in the south).  St. Luke, a Gentiles Christian writing for Gentiles, reports on the Lord’s teachings about the last days but he emphasizes in his Gospel the work commissioned to those who believed in Christ to perform good works, especially in serving the poor (a distinctly new idea to the Gentiles) and to spread the Gospel beyond the confines of Israel.   

“They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name.”  In the time of Jesus, the synagogue was a meeting place where the Scriptures were read and discussed, but also where local issues could be hashed out.  To be turned over to the synagogues meant that a person accused of breaking the Mosaic Law would be put on trial there, with the usual result entailing loss of one’s livelihood, one’s home, being ostracized by Jewish society, and possibly stoning.  Being delivered to prison meant to be held in a secure place until execution.  Likewise, only a person already condemned was handed to over to kings and governors.  The authority in question might grant the condemned person a reprieve, but this happened rarely.  His role was to make official his guilt and set the time, place, and manner of .execution.  “Because of my name.”  That is, because, as a Christian, you share in my name “Christ”.  And to the extent that you share in my life and death you will share in my glory.  “It will lead to your giving testimony.”  St. Paul was very conscious of this.  For him, his arrests and trials served the purpose of making the Lord known to the world.  During one particular imprisonment he wrote to the Christians at Philippi: “Now, brethren, I desire you should know that the things which have happened to me have fallen out rather to the furtherance of the Gospel so that my chains are made manifest in Christ, in all the court and in all other places” (Philippians 1, 12-13).

“Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.”  In the Greek and Roman world, hiring a skilled orator played a large role in how one’s fate was decided in court.  But the Lord does not want the Christian to rely on orators or lawyers or fancy speeches — the purpose for the Christian believer was not so much to evade death as to proclaim Jesus Christ.  Jesus is everything for the believer.   “You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name.”  You will be handed over by those for whom the teachings of the Lord Jesus come as a threat to their self-indulgence and dedication to worldly things and carnal pleasures.  Those forcibly separated from the things to which they are addicted or on which they have become dependent can become very violent, threatening and even attacking their loved ones.  They hear any word spoken against their vices as deeply personal attacks. And, urged on by the devil, they can react viciously.  So it is in the case of religious persecution in which the existence of the Christian as an attack against them.  “But not a hair on your head will be destroyed.”  Meaning, by the grace of God you will be saved and when your body rises on the day that your persecutors will be sentenced to hell, your body will shine gloriously.

“By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”  This teaching rings out through the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and the Book of Revelation.  If we could summarize the message of the New Testament I’m just a few words, we should say, “God is in love with you,  Persevere is your love for him and you will have him forever.”  

Tomorrow’s Gospel Reading ordinarily would follow today’s in the Gospel according to Luke but it is preempted by the Gospel Reading for the Feast of St. Andrew.  But to comment briefly on it (Luke 21, 20-28): The Lord speaks of an attack against Jerusalem and warns its inhabitants at that time to flee from it, leaving everything behind.  This Reading can be compared to Revelation 18, 4: “Go out from her, my people; that you be not partakers of her sins and that you receive not of her plagues.”  In this way we can understand Jesus as speaking of Jerusalem as the world of humans dedicated to wickedness, among whom we live out of necessity.  We are to intensify our fasting, praying, and almsgiving, thoroughly separating ourselves from the attitudes and mindsets of those around us, purging every mark of their influence from our souls.