Thursday in the 34th Week in Ordinary Time, November 27, 2025

Luke 21:20-28

Jesus said to his disciples: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that its desolation is at hand. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains. Let those within the city escape from it, and let those in the countryside not enter the city, for these days are the time of punishment when all the Scriptures are fulfilled. Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days, for a terrible calamity will come upon the earth and a wrathful judgment upon this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken as captives to all the Gentiles; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”

In today’s Gospel Reading drawn  from Luke, Jesus speaks words that are at once terrifying and tender. He does not soften the truth: Jerusalem will fall, the holy city will be trampled by foreign armies, mothers will flee in anguish, and the world itself will shudder as the powers of heaven are shaken. Yet at the end of all this dread imagery, he says: “When these things begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads, because your redemption is at hand.” The Gospel takes us on a descent into chaos only so that we may learn how to stand upright in hope.

The destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D. was not simply a local catastrophe. It was, in the biblical imagination, a cosmic shockwave. Jerusalem was the heart of the world’s worship; the Temple was the place where heaven and earth touched. For that sacred space to be surrounded by armies and leveled to dust meant that the visible center of God’s covenant life with Israel had entered its Passion. The city becomes a figure of Christ himself: condemned, surrounded, violated, and yet mysteriously fulfilling the Scriptures in its suffering.

Jesus tells his disciples to flee. It is not cowardice or lack of faith; it is obedience for them to do so. There are moments in the Christian life when we are told not to fight, but to move — when remaining in a collapsing structure would be presumption, not fidelity. The early Christians remembered these words and left Jerusalem before the siege. Their flight was not faithlessness but listening. Sometimes God saves his people by giving them the grace to walk away from danger. This likewise applies to certain strong temptations an individual may experience.

When Jesus says, “These days are a time of punishment when all the Scriptures are fulfilled,” he does not mean that God delights in destruction. Rather, he reveals that judgment is the shadow cast by unrepented sin. The Prophets had long warned Israel that the covenant carried both blessing and responsibility. Violence, greed, bloodshed, and idolatry would bear bitter fruit. But God’s purpose in judgment is always medicinal, never vindictive. Even the fall of Jerusalem becomes part of the divine pedagogy, a dark threshold through which the Gospel must pass to reach the nations.

The passage turns suddenly from earthly calamity to cosmic upheaval: signs in sun, moon, and stars; the sea roaring; nations perplexed; the very powers of heaven shaken. Jesus draws the reader upward from the narrow streets of Jerusalem to the trembling vault of creation. This shift reminds us that history and cosmos are united: what happens in the world of men reflects deeper movements in the spiritual realm. The fall of a city hints at the fall of an age; the shaking of societies mirrors the shaking of heaven.

But human fear is not the end of the story. “People will die of fright,” Jesus says — that is how overwhelming these things will seem. Yet immediately he lifts our eyes: “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” The same Jesus who foretells destruction is the Jesus who returns in majesty. Judgment is not his last word; redemption is. His coming is not the crushing of the faithful, but the vindication of their hope.

The command that concludes the Reading is not merely comforting; it is bracing: “Stand erect and raise your heads.” This is not the posture of those who cower, nor the posture of those who despair. It is the posture of those who know the One who comes. When everything else collapses—political structures, institutions, society, even familiar landscapes — the disciple is told to stand, unbent by fear, because the Lord is near.

To “raise your head” is to return our gaze to Christ. The world may roar like the sea, but the disciple’s horizon is not chaos; it is the face of the Son of Man descending in glory. Standing upright is not a physical stance only, but a spiritual one: a refusal to allow fear to deform our faith.

This Gospel invites us to a profound maturity of soul. It does not deny the reality of suffering, nor does it pretend that history will be gentle. Instead, it teaches us that redemption is not the absence of turmoil but the presence of Christ within turmoil. Even the shaking of heaven becomes the prelude to His coming.

And so the word remains — for your heart, for your ministry, for your prayer: when these things begin to happen, stand erect and lift up your head. Your redemption is nearer than you think.