Tuesday in the 34th Week of Ordinary Time, November 23, 2021

Luke 21:5-11

While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said, “All that you see here– the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.”  Then they asked him, “Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?” He answered, “See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not follow them! When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.”

According to Jewish expectations of the time, the Messiah, whose arrival was due any time, would be born of the House of David, purify the worship in the Temple, and wage a war of independence against the Romans.  He would then rule Israel for a thousand years, after which there would be the resurrection of the dead and a great judgment.  The Lord’s words to the Apostles, “All that you see here– the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down”, would have shocked them.  He was telling them that everything they had been raised to believe about the future of Israel was false.  This came harder to them because they believed firmly that he was the promised Messiah.  If anyone would know the future of Israel, he would.  They must have been crushed, and minutes may have passed before they could speak.  This is how we are to hear their muted questions to him, “Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?”  Though this went against what they always been told, they believed him.  But they were struggling.  

“See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not follow them!”  We are reading these words with hindsight: when he says this, we are thinking about the Lord’s return in glory.  But he had not taught his Apostles that he would come again, to this point.  He had taught them that he would be arrested, beaten, killed, and that after his Death he would rise, but not yet that he would return in judgment.  He would do this a little later in his discourse.  But what would his words have meant to the Apostles just then?  He was telling them that they were to accept no one outside their company as speaking on his behalf.  (For us today, this means to accept no claims from outside the Church about the Lord coming).  The Lord tells them, in addition: “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end.”  The expected war against the Romans was thought to come at the beginning of the Messianic age, but when Jerusalem rose up (as it did in 66 A.D.) they were not to think this signaled his return.

“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.”  All of these events have taken place regularly since the creation on the human race, except for the mighty signs that “will come from the sky”.  Wars and plagues do not signify his immediate coming back to the earth but signify that sin and its effects will continue to build up, requiring a judgment.  We can also understand the natural catastrophes of which the Lord speaks as the signs of the world continuing its “passing away”: “Heaven and earth will pass away” (Matthew 24, 35), and: “The first heaven and the first earth was gone: and the sea is now no more” (Revelation 22, 1).

The Lord teaches us that “we have not here a lasting city: but we seek one that is to come” (Hebrews 13, 14).  With whatever time we have left we ought to make ourselves ready for our migration to heaven.